Calvearard Castle is a triangular shaped ruin of a castle located near the Scottish and British border.  It was built by John de Maxwell about 1270 as a protection to the waterway to Dumfries. It came under a brief but bloody seige in 1300 from Edward I of England with 87 knights and 3000 men. The 60 men inside surrendered with several hanged from the castle wall.  In 1600 the Protestant movement ran against the demands of James I.  Charles I had convinced the present owner, the Earl of Nithsdale, that he would support the defense against the Covenanting army.  After a siege of 13 weeks the garrison surrendered and the castle was partially dismantled by the Covenanters.  It laid in ruin until it was placed in state care 1946. 

"In shape it was like a shield, for it had but three sides round it, with a tower at each corner, but one of them was a double one, so high, so long, and so wide, that the gate was underneath it, well made and strong, with a drawbridge and sufficicney of other defences. "
                      [translated from French, le Siege de Karlaverrock, 1300]

One of my relatives was the last Covenanter executed in Scotland, Rev. James Renwick.  He was inprisioned for a while and later he was hanged in Grassmarket Square in Edinburgh on 17 February 1688. His head was then cut off along with hands, they were tied together in a praying pose and hung over Netherbow Gate, one of six gates into Edinburgh. Some of his Renwick relatives fled to Northern Ireland and later migrated to South Carolina.  Reverend John Renwick (b.1735 Ireland d.Aug 1775 Newberry South Carolina) brought a group of congregation with him.