Agnes Randolph, Countess of Dunbar and March (c. 1312–1369), was nicknamed Black Agnes because of her dark complexion. She is renowned for her heroic defence of Dunbar Castle during the Second Scottish War of Independence, while her husband Patrick Dunbar was fighting elsewhere. In January 1338 the English, led by the Earl of Salisbury, laid siege to the Castle. Black Agnes was there with only her servants and a few guards. But she was determined not to surrender despite Salisbury’s vastly superior force of 20,000 men. She is famously said to have declared:

Of Scotland’s King I haud my house,
I pay him meat and fee,
And I will keep my gude auld house,
While my house will keep me.

Salisbury initially attempted to take the castle by catapulting it with rocks. In response Agnes had her maids, wearing their best clothes, dust off the ramparts with their handkerchiefs between the barrages. Salisbury then brought out a sow – a large battering ram with a roof to protect the men. But Agnes was well prepared and dropped huge boulders onto the sow, smashing it to smithereens.

Salisbury tried unsuccessfully to starve the residents of the Castle out, and equally unsuccessfully threatened the life of Agnes’ brother if she didn’t surrender. Finally after 5 months he was forced to admit defeat.

Sir Walter Scott said of Black Agnes “From the record of Scottish heroes, none can presume to erase her”. And the victory of this fearless Scotswoman over the English army lives on in ballad:

She makes a stir in tower and trench,
That brawling, boisterous, Scottish wench;
Came I early, came I late.
I found Agnes at the gate.