The King was highly pleased with the discussion, and after supper he summoned the Principal and Regents. The fears of the Professors as to the future of their seat of learning were dispelled at this evening interview, for James graciously offered himself as Patron of their institution, giving it the name of King James’s College, and granting permission for the placing of his coat-of-arms on the gate of the humble building.
STIRLING CASTLE.
From Engraving by Robert Sayer, 1753.
James’s two brief sojourns at Stirling gave the inhabitants a taste of the glory that had formerly belonged to their town, while his residence in the castle after an absence of fourteen years must have brought again to his own mind a throng of gay and gloomy memories. The Park recalled the summer hours spent in his favourite pastime of hunting; the Keep reminded him of weary tasks and the rigid discipline of George Buchanan; the Chapel, where he listened to the Edinburgh Regents, had been the scene of his eldest child’s baptism—that promising son who did not live to see again the place of his birth and early training. Young Mar’s revolution and the second Raid of Stirling were events of too stirring a kind to be forgotten, and the King doubtless felt as he recalled his early reign that although his responsibilities had increased with his accession to the English throne, his life and liberty were less at his subjects’ mercy than in the days when he reigned over Scotland alone.
CHAPTER VI.
LATER HISTORY.
In the times when the King of Scots’ capital was Edinburgh, a royal visit to Stirling was an occurrence of an ordinary kind. Preparations were made in the interior of the castle for the housing of the Court, but naturally the sovereign’s arrival was not regarded as an event of historic importance. After the Union of the Crowns, however, when the royal family was domiciled in England, and the people in the north had grown unaccustomed to the sight of a monarch’s pomp, a visit of the King to his ancient castle was eagerly looked forward to by the inhabitants of Stirling, and elaborate preparations were undertaken for his reception both within and without the building.
King Charles I. was a native of Scotland, but he left his fatherland when a child of tender years, and although he was anxious to travel north with James when that monarch obeyed what he called his salmon-like instinct, not until 1633 did Charles set foot again upon Scottish soil. Each year after his accession to the throne his northern subjects had expected his arrival, but time after time their sanguine hopes had been doomed to disappointment. In November, 1631, the Privy Council believed that Charles’s promised visit was at length near at hand. Not only were the royal apartments at Stirling made ready for the King, but, in order that he might enjoy the sport his father loved, the hunting of hares was strictly forbidden within eight miles of the castle. At last, when Charles had finally made up his mind to venture into Scotland, the Privy Council reissued the decree regarding the protection of ground game.[74] The townspeople of Stirling, however, were to have but poor reward for their long and patient waiting. During his Scottish visit in 1633, the King passed two nights in the castle in the beginning of July, as he journeyed from Edinburgh to Fife and Perth, and when a few days later he returned to the Scottish capital he avoided the detour by the Old Bridge of Forth and crossed the Firth in a storm.[75]