Stirling Castle, its place in Scottish history

by Eric Stair-Kerr

THE KEEP AND THE PRINCE’S WALK.

The regency of Morton was, on the whole, a time of peace, but his enemies were all the time planning his overthrow. The greater part of the nobility was hostile to the Regent; thus when the King, at the instigation of Argyll, and with the approval of Buchanan and Alexander Erskine, summoned a convention of peers to Stirling Castle in March, 1578, Morton felt compelled to send in his resignation. The clever Earl, however, soon found an opportunity of placing himself again in power. On the morning of the 26th of April, the young Earl of Mar, possibly acting on Morton’s advice, called for the keys of the castle as though he intended to ride forth to hunt. Although the hour was about six o’clock the Master of Erskine was already astir, and meeting his nephew’s followers at the gate, he called his servants to his assistance. After a scuffle, in which the Master’s eldest son was so severely crushed that he died next day, the parties withdrew to the hall to discuss the situation. The proceedings resulted in the young Earl of Mar’s being allowed to take over the charge of the King and the keeping of Stirling Castle.[52] It was also decreed that James was to remain in the castle, that no earl was to be received within the gates with more than two servants, no lord with more than one attendant, and no gentleman with any retainer at all.[53] The stirring events of that morning made such an impression on the youthful King, that for several nights his sleep was disturbed by visions of the fray.

Morton was not long in breaking through the decrees. Riding secretly by night from Edinburgh to Stirling, towards the end of May, he persuaded Mar to admit him and his followers into the royal castle. Once within the same building as the King, the Earl was now as powerful as before. He managed to arrange the formation of a new Council, with himself in the principal place, and he persuaded the King to order the Parliament, which had been summoned to meet at Edinburgh, to assemble in the hall of Stirling Castle. The opponents of Morton, naturally objecting to the Estates being convened within the walls of a fortress, were determined not to appear without a protest, so they sent the Earl of Montrose and Lord Lindsay of the Byres to lay their remonstrances before the King. James opened the Parliament in person, and before any business was transacted, Lord Lindsay protested against its proceedings. Morton interrupted him and ordered him to sit down, but Lindsay disobeyed the command until it was repeated by the King. Later in the day the intrepid lord again arose to make objections, and this time also he was silenced by James, who, at Morton’s prompting, declared that the Parliament was free and that those who loved him would think as he thought.[54]

Morton’s recovery of power rendered civil war imminent. Argyll and Atholl raised the town of Edinburgh and were joined by the Borderers of Teviotdale and the Merse. Angus, on the other side, was preparing his forces at Stirling. The armies came within sight of each other near the town of Falkirk, and some skirmishing took place, but through the intervention of two leading ministers of the church and of Bowes, the English ambassador, an agreement was arrived at without any fighting taking place. The settlement left things much as they were, with the power in Morton’s hands, but the Earl of Montrose and Lord Lindsay of the Byres were admitted into the Council.

Although not holding the title of regent, the Earl of Morton was now as powerful as ever he had been. His opponents felt themselves incapable of compelling him to deliver up their sovereign, and so secure did Morton consider his position and the King’s to be, that on the 12th of June, 1579, James was allowed to leave the castle by the nether bailey gate at five o’clock in the morning, with his own domestics, and was permitted to remain in the Park until seven o’clock at night. This was the first occasion on which the King passed beyond the castle walls without the protection of an armed guard.[55]

Morton’s day of triumph, however, was beginning to draw to a close. There arrived in Scotland a man from France, who quickly won the favour of King James, and who set himself to restore Queen Mary to the throne, to overthrow the Protestant religion in Scotland and to ruin the Earl of Morton. He was successful in only the last of these three enterprises. This remarkable person was Esmé Stewart, Lord of Aubigny in France, and nephew of the Regent Lennox. “He was a man of comely proportion, civil behaviour, red-bearded, honest in conversation.”[56] Recommended to James by the Guises, whose special agent he was, he arrived at Stirling in September, 1579, and was presented to the King in the hall of the castle. The artful schemer was not long in winning James’s favour. Soon he received the wealthy Abbey of Arbroath, which had been in the possession of the Hamilton family, and about the same time he was made a privy-councillor and was given the Earldom of Lennox.

Esmé Stewart had not been many months at Court before a rumour was reported to the Earl of Mar to the effect that the half-foreign favourite and his partisans intended to remove the King to Dumbarton, and afterwards to convey him secretly to France. The night of the 10th of April, 1580, was believed to be the time arranged by the conspirators for carrying out their plan. The rumour, whether well-founded or not, gave rise to intense excitement in the castle. When the dreaded evening came round, Mar placed soldiers both within and without the King’s apartment, and ordered them on no account to allow anyone to enter the room. Lennox, armed and supported by a guard of friends, prepared to defend himself in his own chamber, for he heard the threatening shouts in the courtyard and knew that his life was in danger.

The night passed away, however, without an attack being made upon Stirling, although in the morning the Earls of Argyll, Glencairn and Sutherland—friends of Esmé Stewart, Lord Lennox—endeavoured without success to gain admittance to the castle.[57]

Lennox and another rising favourite, James Stewart, together worked for the hated Morton’s fall, and as the King was completely in their hands and bore no love to the stern ex-regent, the Earl was condemned to death in 1581, for being “art and part” in the murder of Darnley. Yet not much more than a year after Morton’s death, Lennox’s ascendency came to an end. A number of nobles—Mar, Gowrie, Lindsay and others—seized the King at Ruthven Castle, near Perth, and virtually held him a prisoner, while Lennox was ordered to leave the country—a step which at last he reluctantly took. James was brought back to Stirling, and, although chafing at the restraint, was compelled to announce that he was a free King and that he desired to reside in the castle. But the Ruthven Raiders were unable to keep their sovereign for more than ten months in their hands. In June, 1583, a plot for the recovery of his freedom was formed, and he escaped from Falkland Palace to St. Andrews, where he threw himself into the castle.

Their inability to hold the King in their power was disastrous to the leaders of the Raid of Ruthven; consequently they lost little time in arranging a scheme to place themselves again in command. The Earl of Mar and the Master of Glamis had retired to the north of Ireland, but in the spring of 1584 they stealthily crossed the Channel, and on the 17th of April, with five hundred horse, they seized the Castle of Stirling. James at once raised an army in Edinburgh and marched to attack the rebels. No fighting of any sort took place, however, for the insurgent lords, taken aback by the King’s swift action and disappointed in the support of their friends, fled towards the Border before the royal army appeared. The small garrison which they left to guard the fortress surrendered at once to the King. The constable and three of the men were hanged as a sign of the royal displeasure.[58] On the failure of the conspiracy, the Earl of Gowrie, who had come to be regarded with distrust by both parties, was tried at Stirling and executed almost beneath the walls of the castle.