So striking is the beauty and range of the scenery which is displayed before the observer, that even a practical man of affairs of the sixteenth century could not refrain in a business document from expressing his admiration of the view. This was Sir Robert Drummond of Carnock, who, as Master of Works under James VI., drew up a report in 1583 on the condition of the buildings of the castle. His Inventory, which is preserved in the Register House at Edinburgh, recommends that the west-quarter of the Palace be pulled down and rebuilt to a height sufficient to make it command the four cardinal points, “by reason it will have the most pleasant sight of all the four airts: in special Park and Garden (deer therein), up the rivers of Forth, Teith, Allan and Goodie to Loch Lomond, a sight round about in all parts, and down the river of Forth where there stands many great stone houses.” This project of Drummond’s was not carried out, probably because of the greatness of the expense. The buildings were doubtless put in repair, but the west side of the Palace remains in the unfinished state in which it was left by the workmen of James V.
The visitor who has knowledge and appreciation of Stirling’s majestic past will leave the castle with a sense that he has existed long before his present life, or with a feeling that the hands of the Clock of Time have gone back and have counted the years again. The early kings, such as William the Lion, Alexander III. and Robert the Bruce, will seem to have passed like ghosts before him, but he will almost persuade himself that he has seen the Regent Morton in the flesh, crossing from the Palace to the Parliament Hall, and George Buchanan, old and infirm, ascending the stair to the schoolroom in the Keep. It may be that he will fancy he has seen some other outstanding figures belonging to the past, for Stirling Castle is not given over to the shades of one or two personalities. A building may be visited by pilgrims on account of its memories of one great individual. It is Queen Mary’s presence that dominates still the deserted chambers at Holyrood and Craigmillar, and that gives Loch Leven Castle the glamour which its other associations have failed to impart; but although the famous Queen of Scots spent many days at Stirling, the castle is so wealthy in romantic history that the elsewhere pre-eminent personality here takes its place side by side with other figures and does not occupy the forefront of the pageant of the shades.
CHAPTER IX.
STIRLING’S POSITION WITH REGARD TO OTHER CASTLES.
Scotland, never having been conquered since the Scots themselves overcame the Picts, does not possess that type of castle that victorious invaders have been obliged to erect throughout their newly-won regions in order to keep the native races in subjection. Soon after the Norman Conquest, massive, square-built strongholds were raised in different parts of England for use as houses for feudal barons and as bulwarks against Anglo-Saxon insurrections. Rochester, Richmond and other well-known castles date from the period of the Norman kings. Scotland, again, has not many strongholds of the great Edwardian style, like those which make such conspicuous landmarks in Wales and the neighbouring English counties. Edward I. had never a firm enough hold upon the northern land to enable him to do more than strengthen some of the existing fortresses. Bothwell, Kildrummy and Lochindorb bear witness to the English monarch’s influence, but they cannot rightly be classed as real Edwardian castles.
Although the strongholds of Scotland are, on the whole, of smaller dimensions than the castles of the adjoining kingdom, yet in her bestowal of sites suitable for fortresses, Nature has dealt more generously with the former than with the latter country. Each of the Castles of Edinburgh, Stirling and Dumbarton holds a commanding position upon a precipitous rock. The main incidents in Stirling’s history, as compared and contrasted with those of the two sister strongholds, form the subject matter of this chapter.
Dumbarton differs from Stirling and Edinburgh in that it was prominent as a dwelling-place of princes before the other castles emerged from the haze of tradition. From the time of the departure of the Romans until the middle of the ninth century, Alclyde or Dumbarton was the capital of the independent British Kingdom of Strathclyde; but the union of the Scottish and Pictish nations in 844 proved too strong a coalition for the more southerly race to withstand. Stirling and Edinburgh cannot lay claim to any certain history during this early period. Yet the fairly-well-authenticated tradition of St. Monenna having founded chapels on the three great rocks in question links the castles together near the time of Strathclyde’s loss of freedom.
The hard days of the War of Independence brought the strongholds roughly into line. Stirling, of course, on account of its pre-eminently favourable position for military strategy, received more attention from both English and Scots than either of the other castles. All three garrisons were forced to surrender to Edward I. in 1296, but while Edinburgh and Dumbarton remained in English keeping for many years subsequent to the Battle of Dunbar, Stirling changed hands again and again before its memorable surrender to Bruce after the Battle of Bannockburn. Yet, although defiant Snowdon bore the brunt of the struggle for national freedom, a more heroic feat of arms than any performed at Stirling took place in this war at the Castle of Edinburgh. Thomas Randolph with a few picked men, guided by a soldier who knew a dangerous track on the northern face of the rock, climbed the cliff on a dark night, while a feint attack was made at the principal gate, and won the stronghold for Scotland and the Bruce. In a later century, a somewhat similar deed of daring was successfully carried out at Dumbarton. In the early days of James VI., when the country was divided between the King’s partisans and his mother’s, Crawford of Jordanhill led a party up the rock at the place where it was highest, and took the slumbering garrison of the Queen completely by surprise. During the escalade, a member of the adventurous band was seized by an epileptic fit, but Crawford, undismayed by the untoward event, tied him to the scaling-steps upon which he happened to be standing, and by turning the ladder round made way for the others to ascend. Again, no tale of cunning strategy falls to be related of Stirling, such as that which describes the capture of Edinburgh in the second portion of the War of Independence. After the Battle of Halidon Hill, both castles passed into English keeping, but Sir William Douglas, the Knight of Liddesdale, recovered Dunedin by an artful ruse. Having sent to the gate a few of his warriors disguised as merchants with provisions, he lay with his main force concealed near the rock. The porter, glad to take in food for the garrison, admitted the crafty Scots, whereupon they threw down their bundles in the entrance to prevent the fall of the portcullis, and, having killed the porter, blew a horn to summon their companions. Douglas and his men rushed up the hill in time to support their countrymen against the on-coming garrison. A sharp conflict followed, in which the English, taken thus at a disadvantage, were defeated with heavy loss of life.
Yet although romantic exploits were of commoner occurrence at Edinburgh than at Stirling, at the latter fortress deeds of stout endurance and of daring brought renown to the warriors of Scotland. The famous siege of 1304, which resulted in the castle’s being captured by Edward of England, reflected more credit on the defenders than on the attacking army. In spite of the King’s largest and most modern military engines, supplied with all the ammunition which the Tower of London could provide, in spite of the advice and skill of his most experienced knights, in spite of the steady reduction in the food stores of the castle, the valiant Sir William Oliphant and his rapidly-diminishing garrison maintained a resistance for more than thirteen weeks. Some thirty years later, as an earlier chapter records, when the castle was again in English hands, the Scottish knight named Keith, in attempting to follow Randolph’s great example, climbed up Stirling rock, but a missile from above caused him to lose his foothold and he met his death by falling on his spear; and as late as the siege of 1746, it will be remembered, some impatient Highlanders tried unsuccessfully to scale the dangerous cliff.