The Doom of the House of Douglas

Douglas Castle, Lanarkshire, Scotland

The Black Dinner of 1440 — when two Douglas boys were brought to feast with the young King, then beheaded at the table on a pretence — haunted the Black Douglas family for generations and fulfilled a specific curse.

The Black Dinner is a historical event documented in multiple 15th century sources, so exact that Game of Thrones borrowed it for the Red Wedding. In November 1440, the sixteen-year-old William, 6th Earl of Douglas, and his younger brother David were invited to dine with the ten-year-old King James II at Edinburgh Castle. The feast was arranged by the Regent, Sir William Crichton, who wished to destroy Douglas power. Midway through the dinner, a black bull's head was placed on the table — a traditional signal of doom. The Douglas boys were seized, given a mock trial in the same room, and beheaded in the courtyard of Edinburgh Castle. The young King reportedly wept and begged for their lives. He was not in a position to prevent it. The curse dimension: a Douglas chaplain who was present but powerless is said to have cursed the Crichton family with the same form of death. Crichton's own sons subsequently met violent ends. The chaplain's specific words — 'May the blood of the innocent cry from the stones of Edinburgh Castle until Crichton blood answers it' — are recorded in the oral tradition around Douglas Castle, where the family seat remained. The ghost said to walk Douglas Castle — of which only ruins remain — is the elder boy, William. He is reported on the stairs, in a feast-hall setting that no longer physically exists, sitting at a table that has not been there for five centuries.