Description:This document is part of a vast amount of material relating to a dispute between the 3rd Duke of Sutherland and the rest of his family, including his heir Lord Stafford, occasioned by his marriage to Mrs Mary Caroline Blair. Mrs Blair had been the long-term mistress of the 3rd Duke, and when his first wife died in 1888, they had quickly married in 1889, causing a split with the Duke’s children. This dynastic dispute quickly spiralled out of control, in the full glare of the press, until the Duke had re-written his will no less than 10 times in 3 years, leaving everything – land, personal fortune – to the Duchess, when he died in 1892. Lord Stafford, now the 4th Duke, was obliged to take her to court to get his estates back, a process that took three years, a six week spell in Holloway prison for the Dowager Duchess for burning documents and was finally resolved in an out of court settlement in which the 4th Duke gave the Dowager £750,000 in return for the estates. With the proceeds, the Dowager built Carbisdale Castle on the Sutherland-Ross-shire border, obliging the 4th Duke to look at it every time he travelled up to Sutherland and earning it the sobriquet ‘Castle Spite.’
These pages have been researched and written by Dr. Annie Tindley, Lecturer in History at Glasgow Caledonian University.