The tragic event in Scottish history that inspired one of TV’S most iconic scenes
● Game of Thrones author voices audio guide
It was a bloody double murder that marked the beginning of the end for one of Scotland’s most powerful medieval families.
Now Game of Thrones author George RR Martin has revealed how one of the most graphic and grisly scenes in the hit fantasy drama was inspired by the notorious “Black Dinner” of 1440.
The 6th Earl of Douglas was only 16 when he and his younger brother David were invited to a feast with the young King James II at Edinburgh Castle.
During the meal, a servant entered with a black bull’s head on a platter – a symbol of death.
The King’s chancellor, Sir William Crichton, accused the siblings of plotting against James and they were dragged away, tried on a trumped-up charge and beheaded.
Martin, 71, has now described how that incident and the Glencoe Massacre of 1692 helped him flesh out his bloody Red Wedding scene.
The American novelist tells all on a new audio guide for visitors to Edinburgh Castle launched at the weekend.
In game of thrones, the hbo TV adaptation, the Red Wedding scene sees Robb Stark – played by Scots star Richard Madden, from Elderslie, Renfrewshire – his wife (Oona Chaplin) and mother (Michelle Fairley) mercilessly killed.
In the guide to David’s Tower in the castle, Martin says: “Scottish history is amazingly bloody and dark and twisted and full of betrayals and battles, so it’s been a great source of inspiration.
“The Red Wedding, which is perhaps the most infamous scene in my book, was inspired in large part by two events in Scottish history – the Black Dinner here in Edinburgh, when the Earl of Douglas and his brother were murdered at a dinner given by the King, and the Glencoe Massacre, when the Campbells slaughtered the Macdonalds.
“I combined the two of those and threw in a wedding and you get the Red Wedding.”
Martin is among a host of stars who feature on the new audio guide.
Oscar nominee Saoirse Ronan, 25, who played Mary, Queen of Scots in the 2018 movie of the same name, speaks to visitors in a section devoted to the monarch.
She describes what Mary might have endured as she gave birth to the future James VI in the tiny King’s Birth Room in 1566.
She says: “I can only imagine what it was like to be in this room for hours and hours on end. It’s just so small, it’s incredibly small, and as an actor having played her and knowing what sort of stress she would have been under, I feel claustrophobic.
“A birth like this wasn’t just a new child being brought into the world, but this was the future, and so there was a lot of added anticipation.”
Crime writer Ian Rankin shares how he draws inspiration from the castle’s dark heritage for his hit series of Rebus novels.
He says: “The castle’s heritage teems with the unpleasant and the gruesome, not just the many sieges and battles fought over it but the notorious killings, cruelty and indifference to suffering that coexisted alongside royal privilege, status and luxury.
“There’s an echo of the castle’s more unpalatable past all around us today that Inspector Rebus would recognise,” he added.
“Indeed, it’s surely part of its attraction.”
“The Red Wedding, which is perhaps the most infamous scene in my book, was inspired in large part by two events in Scottish history.” GEORGE RR MARTIN