Our first mission was to head to the southern area of Scotland in search of the Douglas Castle, so we headed to the village of Castle Douglas! What we found was Threave Castle. Our interest here is because of the history involved with this castle and the Colville family. Remember the Colvilles of Ochiltree and the Auchinleck who were great friends and lived across the rive Lugar and whose boys swam in the river - where the two rivers meet? (that is in an older post if you want to go back and check) Well, the way the Colvilles and the Auchinleck communicated was by sending messages across a rope extended between the two castles and over the river. One day the Colvilles received the bones from a sheep's head in a parcel from the Auchinlecks. The Colvilles took this as an insult and sent their son, Sir Richard to retaliate by killing John Auchinleck. Seems to me pretty severe punishment just for an insult, but maybe in 1449 that was the way disagreements were handled. Well, it turns out that John Auchinleck was a favorite of the Earl of Douglas, so Douglas retaliated by destroying Ochiltree castle and killing another Colville. It turns out that the Colvilles were favored by the King, so he had Douglas killed in Stirling Castle!!
For more complete details, follow this link below:http://www.electricscotland.com/webclans/atoc/colville2.html
So now, here are pictures of what is left of Threave Castle - and for more information on Threave Castle and the stronghold they held over the southern part of Scotland you can go to this link below:
Threave Castle History
It was built by Archibald Douglas in 1370. It is only accessible by boat, which we did not feel we had the time that day to do.
