Dunnottar Castle, a dramatic fortress perched on a sea-cliff in Kincardineshire, was the last stronghold to hold out for the exiled Charles II against Cromwell's army, withstanding an eight-month siege in 1651–52. The Scottish Crown Jewels — the Honours of Scotland — were smuggled out of the besieged castle and hidden under the floor of a nearby church, preserving them from English confiscation. The castle's position on a sheer promontory above the North Sea made it one of the most visually arresting fortresses in Britain.

Dunnottar's dramatic situation and its association with national resistance inspired Scottish poets from the seventeenth century onward. George Keith, who held the castle during the siege, was celebrated in contemporary verse. In modern times, the castle's connection to the national regalia gave it a particular resonance in Scottish nationalist poetry, and its appearance — a shattered ruin on a rock above crashing waves — became one of the defining images of sublime Scottish landscape poetry.