Loch Leven Castle
Loch Leven Castle was to be the watery prison of Mary Queen of Scots, it was here that she was forced to abdicate in favour of her infant son James VI and it was to be her last residence in her homeland. Mary came to Lochleven many times during her brief but turbulent reign, it would no doubt remind her of her childhood place of exile at Inchmaholm Priory on its island in Lake Mentieth. Following the years of religious strife of the reformation she was imprisoned here for her toleration of Catholics, by the Laird of Lochleven, Sir William Douglas in June 1567. She stayed for almost a year before managing to escape with the help of a boatman. Within a fortnight of her escape she was exiled in England, though this was to prove no safe haven. Her cousin Elizabeth I Queen of England had Mary imprisoned for 19 years before finally executing her.
Lochleven Castle today retains many of the features Mary would have known. The centre piece is the Towerhouse dating from before the 14th Century which would have housed the Douglas Lairds. The courtyard is surrounded by a defensive wall and adjacent to the Tower House is the Glassin Tower where it is believed Mary Queen of Scots spent her incarceration. During this time the island itself was about a quater of its current size and the castle would have taken up much of it, the waters of the loch were lowered in 1826.
Today many visitors make the short boat trip out to the island in the loch, attracted by the dramatic life of Mary Queen of Scots or the sheer romantic isolation of Lochleven Castle.
