Uploader's Comments

Built on the site of the medieval Constable's Tower, the Portcullis Gate was part of the reconstruction ordered by Morton after the Long Siege of 1573. The panel above the gateway is decorated with his family arms. The gate itself was a formidable obstacle with two outer doors, a portcullis and an inner door. Above is a vault that housed the winding mechanism for raising the portcullis and above that an upper storey, known as the Argyle Tower This was a late-Victorian attempt to improve the Castle's appearance, dating from 1886-87. The name commemorates Archibald Campbell, first Marquis of Argyll, who was imprisoned in the Castle, probably in the tower, after the Restoration. He was executed in 1661 on account of his earlier support of the Covenant against Charles I's royal policy of installing bishops in Scotland. In 1685 his son, Archibald, the 9th earl of Argyll, followed in his father's footsteps, when he, too, was held, supposedly in the tower, before being beheaded for trying to raise a rebellion against James VII.