Some
20 years later, with the power of Oliver Cromwell in England gaining strength,
the cultured and melancholy Stuart king, Charles the First, died beneath
the headsman's axe outside his own London Palace of Whitehall. Castle Stuart
suffered, fell into decline and gradually became a derelict ruin for almost
300 years. It remained empty - except for the ghosts.
Throughout centuries of Scotland's troubled history, Castle Stuart has stood a strong refuge and retreat for the Earls of Moray and the Stuart family. Within sight of this great house on high Culloden Moor, the Highland Broadsword rose and fell in the last futile attempt to restore the exiled Stuart kings to the British throne.
Charles
Edward Stuart, the romantic 'might have been' of British history, shared
with the Lords of Castle Stuart a proud descent from the Royal House of
Albany, rulers of Scotland and, for a time, of the United Kingdom. The Stuarts
and their kin wrote much of the bloody and poetic history that is Scotland's
heritage.
This splendid 17th century structure is now once more home to a Stuart family.
