Regency Estates: Drumlanrig Castle

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DRUM LANRIG CASTLE Not long before 1389 the barony of Drumlanrig in the county of Dumfries was given by James Earl of Douglas the hero of Otterbourne as a heritage to his natural son William and the posterity of this individual continued to be styled knights of Drumlanrig till the early part of the seventeenth century when they at length attained to the peerage and became conspicuous figures in our national history William the third Earl and first Duke of Queensberry rose to be a man of the first consequence in the kingdom during the reigns of Charles II and James II and acquired great wealth part of which he employed in substituting for the old and narrow castle of his ancestors on Nith side the magnificent mansion which figures in the accompanying engraving This house built between 1679 and 1689 is a quadrangle having square turrets at the corners and an interior court accessible through an arched portal its site on a terrace overlooking the Nith surrounded by fine woods and backed by a range of lofty hills is very imposing and worthy of the great historical names connected with it In the neighbouring parks there were formerly kept specimens of the original wild white cattle of Scotland the only other place where such creatures existed being Chillingham castle in Northumberland Pennant speaks of seeing some of these cattle here in 1769 and relates that they were exceedingly shy and timid except when shot at on which occasions they became furious At the time when Drumlanrig Castle was built it must have been the most superb mansion possessed by any of the Scottish nobility yet though the Duke who built it survived the completion of the structure six years he never slept in it but one night Being now old he found the house too large for comfort and complained that in the event of his taking ill during the night he feared he might die before any one could be apprized that he was ill It is incomprehensible how this astute politician being at all times of his life a frugal and money hoarding man should have been tempted to build so large a house Certain it is he felt ashamed of the extravagance afterwards as was testified by a label found in his own hand on the bundle of accounts referring to the building THE DEIL PYKE OUT HIS EEN THAT LOOKS HEREIN Drumlanrig acquired classical associations in the time of Charles the third Duke the good Duke as he was called whose wife was the Kitty beautiful and young And wild as colt untamed of Matthew Prior and the patroness moreover of John Gay The author of the Beggar's Opera for some time lived under the protection of the Duke and Duchess in Drumlanrig Castle while out of favour at court At the time when Burns resided in Nithsdale the main line of this family had become extinct and the honours and estates were in the pos1 Drumlanrig castle is situated on the right bank of the Nith near the town of Thornhill and seventeen miles from Dumfries

session of the late notedly profligate Duke of Queensberry a cousin of the third Duke who rarely visited any of his Scottish mansions Drumlanrig castle was then partially occupied by his grace's chamberlain or land agent M Murdo Esq at whose fireside Burns became a frequent and welcome guest The letters and poems of the Ayrshire bard testify in sufficiently forcible terms the contempt he entertained for the ducal master and the affectionate esteem with which he regarded the chamberlain The wife and daughters of the latter gentleman being uncommonly elegant and accomplished women came in for a share of his regard the eldest daughter was the heroine of his delightful pastoral entitled Bonnie Jean and Miss Phillis is the subject of two songs in which her name occurs Fond as the poet was of walking on the banks of the Nith he saw with feelings of the bitterest indignation the woods of Drumlanrig felled by order of the worthless Duke in order to enrich a lady whom he presumed to be his daughter This cruel proceeding drew from the pen of our bard a set of satirical verses which have found their way into some of the later editions of his works At the death of William fourth Duke of Queensberry in 1810 his chief titles with the barony of Drumlanrig devolved on the Duke of Buccleuch as heir of line In consequence of this event the castle became honoured by the visits of a third poet Sir Walter Scott who was here occasionally the guest of both the late and present Dukes of Buccleuch and Queensberry In the life of Scott by Mr Lockhart there is a striking passage in which the author of Marmion is described as performing his part to admiration as an agreeable member of the society collected at the Duke's table while in his own private room his faculties were strained to agony by the intelligence he was receiving from the Messrs Ballantyne respecting the commercial embarrassments in which he and they were involved Of late years the internal accommodations of the castle have been much improved and the woods are now nearly restored to their former beauty LINCLUDEN 21 The Land of Burns (1840)

Constructive from pink sandstone, the “Pink Palace” is nestled at the 80,000 acre Queensberry Estate in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland.  In the Regency era, it was home of the Duke and Duchess Buccleuch. Its listed in many “pleasure tour” guidebooks as a destination, but with no other description to tell us what the interior was in the early 19th Century.

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