I'd want to take my toothbrush and various other modern amenities if I were visiting.

That's an interesting point you make. English castles of the period are certainly more "homely" than the average French chateau- maybe because we were further from the epicentre of the Renaissance. Scottish architecture is heavily indebted to the French- see my pictures of Falkland palace- but somehow manages to take the French forms and make them into something craggy and northern. Falkland Palace is a fairly tame example of Scottish renaissance architecture- probably because it's the earliest- but later examples of the style can be truly monstrous.