Ardtornish Castle stands at the seaward end of a promontory which extends in a southerly direction into the Sound of Mull, approximately a mile south-east of the village of Lochaline, Highland. The castle was one of the principal seats of the high chiefs of Clan Donald from the early 14th to late 15th century.
It was at Ardtornish Castle that John of Islay, Lord of the Isles, 6th chief of Clan Donald died in the 1380s and from where his funeral procession sailed through the Sound of Mull to the Isle of Iona.
His son and successor, Donald of Islay, Lord of the Isles granted charters dated at Ardtornish, at least two of which have survived, one in Latin and the other in Gaelic, and it was from here, according to tradition, that his galley fleet sailed on their way to transport the vassals of the Isles to the west coast of Ross-shire where they landed to begin their invasion in support of Donald's claim to the Earldom of Ross which resulted in the indecisive Battle of Harlaw in 1411.
Also at Ardtornish Castle, John's great-grandson, also named John of Islay, the fourth and last Lord of the Isles, met the commissioners of King Edward IV of England in 1461 to negotiate the well-known Treaty of Ardtornish-Westminster by which, in return for becoming loyal subjects of the King of England, John, his kinsman Donald Balloch of Dunnyvaig and the Glens and the forfeited Earl of Douglas were each to have a third of the kingdom of Scotland, with generous pecuniary rewards until the conquest of the kingdom had been completed.
The revelation of this treaty by the English government to the government of Scotland in 1474 resulted in the loss of the Earldom of Ross the following year, and John's final forfeiture as Lord of the Isles followed in 1493. Following John's forfeiture the lands of Ardtornish remained for a time in the hands of the Crown but were eventually given to the Clan MacLean chief of Duart Castle, who had already acquired large tracts of land in Morvern.
The castle was probably abandoned around the end of the seventeenth century, by which time Ardtornish and the other Morvern estates of the MacLeans had been devoured by the Campbell Earls of Argyll.
References:Rosenborg Palace was built in the period 1606-34 as Christian IV’s summerhouse just outside the ramparts of Copenhagen. Christian IV was very fond of the palace and often stayed at the castle when he resided in Copenhagen, and it was here that he died in 1648. After his death, the palace passed to his son King Frederik III, who together with his queen, Sophie Amalie, carried out several types of modernisation.
The last king who used the place as a residence was Frederik IV, and around 1720, Rosenborg was abandoned in favor of Frederiksborg Palace.Through the 1700s, considerable art treasures were collected at Rosenborg Castle, among other things items from the estates of deceased royalty and from Christiansborg after the fire there in 1794.
Soon the idea of a museum arose, and that was realised in 1833, which is The Royal Danish Collection’s official year of establishment.