When Mary Queen of Scots came back to Scotland in 1561, after the death of her husband, the Dauphin of France, she gave this land to her half-brother, James Stuart, granted him the title 'Earl of Moray' and he ruled Scotland as Regent for her. Unfortunately he was murdered and the 2nd Earl of Moray was also murdered - stabbed to death 13 times. Thus Castle Stuart was finally completed in 1625 by James Stuart, 3rd Earl of Moray.
He married Anne Gordon - it was her father, the Earl of Huntly - who stabbed to death his father, the 2nd Earl of Moray. We think he built the castle for protection from his in-laws.

No sooner was the castle built than it was attacked by 500 MacIntoshes who came down the drive and took over the castle. The Stuart family decided the best thing to do would be to pay off the MacIntoshes - they took the money and ran.

Some 20 years later, with the power of Oliver Cromwell in England gaining strength, the cultured and melancholy Stuart king, Charles the First, died beneath the headsman's axe outside his own London Palace of Whitehall. Castle Stuart suffered, fell into decline and gradually became a derelict ruin for almost 300 years. It remained empty - except for the ghosts.

Throughout centuries of Scotland's troubled history, Castle Stuart has stood a strong refuge and retreat for the Earls of Moray and the Stuart family. Within sight of this great house on high Culloden Moor, the Highland Broadsword rose and fell in the last futile attempt to restore the exiled Stuart kings to the British throne.

Charles Edward Stuart, the romantic 'might have been' of British history, shared with the Lords of Castle Stuart a proud descent from the Royal House of Albany, rulers of Scotland and, for a time, of the United Kingdom. The Stuarts and their kin wrote much of the bloody and poetic history that is Scotland's heritage.