Page:The castellated and domestic architecture of Scotland from the twelfth to the eighteenth century (1887) - Volume 1.djvu/197

 TORTHORWALD CASTLE 177 SECOND PERIOD probably been part of the defences of a primitive fortress, long before the site was occupied with the present castle. The castle was surrounded with a courtyard having a steep glacis, beyond which were a ditch and mound, succeeded by a marsh fed by a burn at the south end. Beyond the marsh there is an outer rampart. FIG. 142. Torthorwald Castle from the North-West. Torthorwald was the early home of the Carlyle family, who were for centuries connected with this district. We learn from Mr. Froude that Thomas Carlyle was not displeased to know that there ran in his veins the blood of the Lords Carlyle of Torthorwald. He says himself, " What illustrious genealogies we have ; a whole regiment of Thomas Carlyles, wide possessions, all over Annandale, Cumberland, Durham, gone all now into the uttermost wreck, absorbed into Douglasdom, Drumlanrigdom, and the devil knows what." One of these ancestors presented a bell to a church in Dumfries, which still hangs in one of the steeples of that town, and on which the following inscription may be read, " GUILIELMUS DE CARLEIL, DOM. DE TORTHORWALD, ME SICUT FECIT FIBRE IN HONOREM SANCTI MICHAELIS ANN. DOM. MCCCCXXXIII." (William de Carlyle, Lord of Torthorwald, caused me to be made in honour of St. Michael, in the year of our Lord 1433.) In 1333 we find Sir William Carlyle of Torthorwald issuing forth with his neighbours to Lochmaben, about four miles distant, to oppose an English raid, and dying