Qualla: Spynie Palace

Spynie Palace: Introduction

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Tom Parnell from Scottish Borders, Scotland, CC BY-SA 2.0. David's Tower is the largest medieval tower in Scotland by volume - 19 metres by 13.5 metres at the base, 22 metres tall, six storeys of pinkish-brown sandstone rising above the Laich of Moray. Bishop David Stewart began it in the 1460s after a feud with the Earl of Huntly turned dangerous; he had excommunicated the earl for not paying his taxes, and the tower was, in essence, a stone answer to the threat that followed. The bishop never quite lost his sense of architectural occasion. Below ground he set a vaulted dungeon five metres across, lit by a single slit; above, a hall with built-in stone window seats where the light pours in across the firth.

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Image: Tom Parnell from Scottish Borders, Scotland | CC BY-SA 2.0

Spynie Palace: A Cathedral That Moved

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit valenta, CC BY-SA 2.0. Spynie began as something stranger than a palace - it was, briefly, the cathedral of the entire Diocese of Moray. The early bishops had no fixed seat at all, drifting between houses at Birnie, Kinneddar and Spynie. In 1206 Pope Innocent III gave Bishop Bricius de Douglas formal p...

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Image: valenta | CC BY-SA 2.0

Spynie Palace: The Wolf of Badenoch

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Lucas Kendall, CC BY-SA 4.0. Alexander Stewart, Earl of Buchan - history calls him the Wolf of Badenoch - burned Elgin Cathedral in June 1390 and seems to have seized Spynie as well. His brother King Robert III had to issue an order in August forbidding him to meddle further. The penance was theatrical: bare...

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Image: Lucas Kendall | CC BY-SA 4.0

Spynie Palace: Prisoners and Plots

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ann Harrison, CC BY-SA 2.0. By the mid-16th century Spynie had become a place where Scotland kept people it could not quite execute or trust. Bishop Patrick Hepburn, the last Catholic bishop here, installed wide-mouthed gun loops and enlarged the windows and went on holding prisoners through the Reformation...

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Image: Ann Harrison | CC BY-SA 2.0

Spynie Palace: Siege and Slow Ruin

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ailith Stewart, CC BY-SA 2.0. The 17th century closed the palace through war rather than neglect. Bishop John Guthrie refused to subscribe to the Covenant and prepared Spynie for siege; in July 1640, the Covenanter Colonel Robert Monro arrived with 800 men and Guthrie surrendered the same day. He was kept und...

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Image: Ailith Stewart | CC BY-SA 2.0