James IV. was often at Stirling when ambassadors and other foreign visitors sought his presence, but the most famous alien who was received within the castle was the impostor, Perkin Warbeck. He arrived in Scotland in 1495, and was welcomed with great magnificence at Court as the son of Edward IV. The nobles, like their sovereign, received him with favour, Huntly actually, at James’s request, bestowing the hand of his daughter upon him. A pension of £1200 a year was given to the princely visitor, whose clever acting completely deceived the generous King of Scots. James made war on England, mainly for Perkin’s sake, in 1496 and the following year, but the impostor and the King of Scots eventually became estranged, and Warbeck set sail from Ayr in July, 1497.
The King carried out his father’s wish regarding the raising of the Chapel Royal to the position of a collegiate church. In 1503 Parliament confirmed the appropriation of the rents of various lands and churches in the King’s patronage for the support of the increased staff of clergy in the castle. Next year Pope Julius II. appointed the Bishop of Whithorn or Galloway Dean of the Chapel Royal, thus uniting the new collegiate church with the southern See of St. Ninian.
The clans of the west had troubled James IV. for many years, but before the end of his reign the defiant chiefs were subdued. The turbulent West Highlander, Donald Dubh, son of Angus of the Isles, having been captured by the Earl of Huntly, was imprisoned in Stirling Castle in 1506, before being removed to Edinburgh. He was probably one of the “Erschmen” mentioned in the Lord High Treasurer’s Accounts as having been conducted by Andrew Aytoun “fra Striviling to Edinburgh,” although the payment for clothes provided for Donald seems to have been long in reaching Aytoun’s hands.
In 1507 an experiment, more foolish than interesting, was made at Stirling Castle in the presence of James IV. and his nobles. John Damian, a foreigner, known as the French Leech, had wormed his way by various arts into the King’s favour. The alchemical investigations which he carried on at Stirling and elsewhere led James to reward his labours by appointing him Abbot of Tungland, in Galloway. Feeling that he was losing his place in the royal favour, however, Damian determined to reinstate himself by means of a hazardous enterprise. Announcing that with a pair of wings of his own making he would fly from the battlements of Stirling Castle and be in France before the King’s ambassadors, he convoked a large assembly to witness his bold adventure. He sprang into the air, but fell at once to the ground, and was fortunate in escaping with no greater injury than the fracture of a leg. The jeers of the disappointed multitude caused the Abbot more pain than did the broken limb; but the King, ever fascinated by the foreigner’s fatuous practices, received him again at Court. This incident is the subject of Dunbar’s satirical poem called the “Ballad of the Fenzeit Freir of Tungland.”
The brightness of the Court at Stirling was clouded by the shadow of approaching Flodden. Revels were interrupted by visits of ambassadors; the King was unable to cast care aside. Nicholas West, the envoy of Henry VIII., held several interviews with James in the castle in April, 1513. West did his utmost to induce the Scottish monarch to abandon the league with France. He was unwilling to leave James without extracting a promise that no invasion of England would take place when Henry crossed the Channel. The King of Scots stood firm, however, and would not agree to desert his old ally, so the disappointed and angry ambassador departed from Scotland, hating the people and being hated in return. Not many months later James lay dead on Flodden Field, and the nation suffered a blow from which it did not completely recover until its existence as a separate state had ceased.
CHAPTER IV.
JAMES V. AND MARY.
James V. in an especial sense belongs to Stirling Castle. True, Linlithgow was his birthplace, but he was brought at a tender age to Stirling, and although much of his early life was spent in Edinburgh Castle, he seems to have regarded ancient Snowdon as his favourite place of residence. It was usually from Stirling that James travelled in disguise to make himself acquainted with the habits of his people and to hear the complaints of his peasant subjects. The name “Gudeman o’ Ballengeich,” by which he chose to be called on those occasions, was a designation taken from a hollow or pass that separates the Gowan Hills from the castle rock of Stirling.
To this stronghold, which was her dower-house, Queen Margaret retired with her infant son after the battle of Flodden. Here in April, 1514, was born Alexander, Duke of Ross, James IV.’s posthumous son, a child that died in the castle of his birth less than two years later. When the Queen-Mother took the impolitic step of marrying the powerful young Earl of Angus in August, 1514, she made almost inevitable the loss of her position as Regent and as guardian of her sons. The Duke of Albany was summoned from France to rule in the land of his fathers, and although Margaret and her brother, King Henry of England, did all in their power to prevent his arrival, he landed in Scotland in 1515. Directly after his elevation to the Regency, Albany sent commissioners to Stirling for the purpose of compelling the Queen to deliver up her sons. Margaret met the nobles in the gateway of the castle; her hand was clasped in that of the young King, while a nurse stood behind bearing the infant Duke of Ross. The Queen commanded the intruders to halt until they should explain the nature of their mission. On hearing that they came to take over the custody of her sons, Margaret ordered the warder to drop the portcullis, and from behind its bars she delivered a speech justifying her conduct in refusing to surrender the castle. It is pleasant to record this dramatic incident in the life of James IV.’s widow, for the bold Tudor spirit displayed on this occasion shows that the character of the Queen-Mother was not entirely ignoble.