In 1566 James Hepburn, the Fourth Earl of Bothwell, lay wounded in this remote stronghold after a local skirmish. Here he was visited by his lover Mary, Queen of Scots, who rode over the wild and dangerous hills from Jedburgh and back in one day, a distance of about 40 miles.

Exhausted when she returned, she lay in a fever for some weeks in a house in Jedburgh, now known as Mary, Queen of Scots House, until she recovered.

J.M.W.Turner, the great landscape painter, visited Sir Walter Scott at Abbotsford, his home near Melrose in 1831. He painted many watercolours of Border abbeys and castles including one of Hermitage Castle.

Under his supervision these watercolours were later made into engravings(above right) and published in book form.

Related pages:

• Brief History of Hermitage Castle
• Mary and Bothwell at the Battle of Carberry Hill
• Mary, Queen of Scots House,
• Crichton Castle, just South of Edinburgh, also owned by James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell.
• Two more engravings by Turner.