Stirling Castle, its place in Scottish history

by Eric Stair-Kerr

THE PROSPECT OF THEIR MAJESTIES’ CASTLE OF STIRLING.

From Engraving by Captain John Slezer, 1693.

On the north side of the inner square stands the Chapel rebuilt by James VI. in 1594. This was the Chapel Royal of Scotland before King James carried out Queen Mary’s wish and transferred the endowments and the epithet “Royal” to the chapel of Holyroodhouse. It is a somewhat plain Renaissance structure, having externally much the same appearance as when it was newly finished for Prince Henry’s baptism. The Chapel, however, has been put to so many secular uses that the interior now bears no resemblance to a place of worship, and it is hard to believe that within these walls a brilliant congregation of nobles assembled to witness the christening of an heir to two crowns.

The Exchequer Rolls and other sources of information contain many entries referring to the payment of chaplains in Stirling Castle, and some of those records imply that for a considerable period two ecclesiastical buildings were maintained on the top of the rock. The Collegiate Church of Stirling was not the same edifice as that which was known as the Old Kirk in the castle. The truth seems to be that when James III. determined to erect a Chapel Royal and Collegiate Church he chose a new site for this building, and not the one occupied by the Kirk of St. Michael, where he and his fathers had worshipped. There were two chapels in Stirling Castle as late as the second half of the sixteenth century,[95] but to-day no walls remain above the ground to point out the position of old St. Michael’s Church. Its site was probably the high part of the rock near the north-west angle of the Palace. The building that James VI. re-erected in 1594 doubtless rests on the foundations of James III.’s Collegiate Church.

The part of the castle containing the Douglas Room was largely destroyed by fire in the middle of the nineteenth century, and has been restored in a style out of keeping with its surroundings, but the closet with the window through which the Earl’s body was flung did not share the fate of the neighbouring apartments on the night of the conflagration.

The present outer gateway of Stirling Castle is a comparatively modern structure. It was probably erected in the first half of the eighteenth century in view of the expected Jacobite rebellion. The inner barrier with the initials of Queen Anne is naturally supposed to date from that monarch’s reign, but the probability is that the fortifications were only strengthened in the early eighteenth century, for Slezer’s views of the castle in 1693 show walls and turrets similar to those now known as Queen Anne’s, and as Slezer records that the battery was at that time in course of erection, it is unlikely that it would have needed rebuilding only some ten years later. This bulwark of William and Mary’s reign probably succeeded an earlier fortification in nearly the same situation, for the French or Spur Battery would not likely have been erected beyond the outer gate of the castle, and the Prince’s Walk, with the adjacent lawn, was almost certainly protected by a wall before the last decade of the seventeenth century.

The Nether Bailey was never much built upon, and does not now contain any interesting structures. The name, meaning the “lower fortified enclosure,” is derived through the late Latin ballium, from vallum, a fortification or rampart.

As a water supply within the walls was essential to every medieval castle, the well in many fortresses is the oldest piece of work that has come down to the present day. Stirling Castle possesses two wells, both of them of great antiquity, but the probability is that the one in the Outer Square is older than that in the Nether Bailey. The earliest stronghold doubtless occupied only the higher part of the rock, and when in later times the lower ledge was enclosed the additional well would be made. Both founts are known to have been used before the middle of the fourteenth century, but the older one must have been hewn out of the rock many hundreds of years earlier than the days of David Bruce. To-day the wells in Stirling Castle are not exposed to view, but it is likely that in the near future one at least will be uncovered, and will remain open as of yore.

The first mention of a royal park connected with Stirling Castle occurs in the reign of King William the Lion. That monarch, as has already been stated, acknowledged in a charter to the monks of Dunfermline that he had appropriated some of their land when he first enclosed the chase. This piece of ground, to the south-west of the castle, was afterwards known as the Old Park to distinguish it from another royal hunting-field made by Alexander III. The New Park of King Alexander lay to the south of the other, and its position brought it prominently into history at the time of the Battle of Bannockburn.

Towards the end of his life King Robert the Bruce granted the lands of Old Park and New Park to his faithful servant, Adam the Barber;[96] but during David Bruce’s reign the estates by some means became for a time Sir Robert Erskine’s property. The King resumed possession of the royal domains by giving Erskine in exchange the lands of Alloa and others, but soon afterwards David bestowed the New Park on Alexander Porter, who was obliged to present to the King every year arcum cum uno circulo pro alaudis—a bow and apparently a snare for catching larks. A portion of the Old Park was granted by James IV. to the burgesses of Stirling in compensation for the lands of Gallowhills (or Gowan Hills), which they had allowed him to enclose.[97] The table-land lying to the south-west of the castle rock is known to this day as the King’s Park, and, along with the Gowan Hills, is still the property of the Crown.