Clan Murray - Bothwell Castle - Photo Print

Photographer Aly Wight took this photograph of Bothwell Castle, the great Murray stronghold on the River Clyde in Lanarkshire. The Murrays built it around the 1240s, when Sir Walter Murray married into the lordship of Bothwell, and it became the seat of the Murray chiefs for over a century. In 1297, Sir Andrew Murray left these lands to raise the standard of Scottish independence, joining forces with William Wallace and winning a stunning victory at Stirling Bridge. But Murray was mortally wounded there, and when he died, Wallace assumed sole command. Historians have noted that Murray was the more skilled tactician of the two, and the whole course of Scotland’s war against England might have turned differently had he survived.

If you carry the Murray name, Bothwell Castle is where that fighting spirit has its roots.