The Dunrobin massacre was an event on April 4, 1860 in Scotland during the Sutherland Wars at the end of the Second Clan Rebellion, in which forces loyal to King David V attacked Dunrobin Castle, stronghold of Clan Sutherland, and indiscriminately killed nearly 250 people inside, including the 73 year-old Earl of Sutherland and his son, their wives and many of their daughters, as well as most castle servants, guards, attendants and other members of Clan Sutherland before burning the castle to the ground. The event was such a crippling blow to the Sutherlands that the previously mighty and belligerent clan abruptly sued for peace and the title of Earl of Sutherland fell to the orphaned nine-year-old Cromartie, who was immediately brought to Inverness as a ward of the King and as collateral