Stirling Castle, its place in Scottish history

by Eric Stair-Kerr

Stirling’s proudest boast, however, is that the Battle of Bannockburn was fought for its possession. To save Scotland’s most valuable fortress, Edward II. in the course of a year collected the largest English army that had ever taken the field. Bruce, in order to checkmate his opponent, faced the enormous invading host with the prize of the conflict at his back. No garrison at Edinburgh or Dumbarton had ever an opportunity of gazing from the ramparts on such a fight as that which took place outside the walls of Stirling. It is not given to many castles to be the object of a battle affecting the destinies of two nations, a battle that must be reckoned as one of the decisive engagements of the world.

Both Edinburgh and Stirling Castles stand out darkly in the annals of the princely House of Douglas. In one king’s reign two chiefs of that great family were suddenly done to death when expecting courteous treatment in their sovereign’s own halls. The Earl who perished at Edinburgh, although a youth of sixteen years, was regarded by William Crichton, who had made himself chief man of affairs during James II.’s minority, as a danger to the peace of the realm. Crichton invited him to come with his young brother to Edinburgh, to enjoy the companionship of the boy king and to assist in the government of the country. Deep treachery, however, lurked behind the festivities which were held to greet the Earl’s arrival. At the close of a banquet given in honour of the Douglases, a bull’s head was set upon the table—a proceeding which the Earl at once recognised as a sign of his approaching death. A hasty trial was held for form’s sake, and thereafter the two youths were led to execution in spite of the earnest remonstrances of James. When at Stirling in later years this James of the Fiery Face drew his knife in his rage at another Earl of Douglas, he would have done well to have recalled, even in that moment of anger, the terrible scene of his boyhood at Edinburgh, and to have paused in horror at the thought of another royal castle’s being stained with the Douglas blood.

Down to the time of the Union of the Crowns, and even later, Stirling Castle remained a royal residence, but the middle of the fifteenth century saw the beginning of a change in Edinburgh. Instead of taking up their abode in the fortress of Dunedin, the kings preferred to live in the valley with the canons of Holyrood Abbey. By the end of the century, the foundations of the palace had been laid, and thereafter the castle as a dwelling-place fell rapidly in the favour of the sovereigns of Scotland. A hundred years before the building of Holyrood Palace, however, a change of a different kind had taken place. Edinburgh having become by far the largest and most important town, English generals seldom penetrated into the heart of the country, deeming the sack of the capital the worst evil they could inflict. But for more than two centuries before the Union of the Crowns the only wars which troubled Stirling were those which Scots themselves stirred up when they found themselves at variance with their rulers. Dumbarton, again, lay open to invasion only from the sea, but this route was made use of by the traitor Earl of Lennox, when he sailed in the pay of Henry VIII., though he failed to induce the patriotic garrison to hand over to the English King the castle of which the Earl himself was governor and practical owner as well.

Henry VIII. was aware of the advantage of a western gate into Scotland. When Queen Mary was scarcely one year old, he audaciously proposed, in his scheme for uniting her with Edward, his heir, that she should be sent to England for her education, and that English garrisons should hold the castles of Edinburgh, Stirling and Dumbarton. The King therefore looked upon the fortress on the Clyde as one of Scotland’s three most important strongholds, thus differing from an earlier Henry, who did not demand Dumbarton in the Treaty of Falaise, but stipulated for three Border castles along with Stirling and Edinburgh.

All three rocky strengths have been used as prisons for disobedient subjects of the Crown, but the stories of captives’ romantic escapes almost all belong to Edinburgh. Although MacDonald of Gigha, in the reign of James VI., burst out of the castle on the Clyde, Dumbarton’s as well as Stirling’s walls seem to have been more formidable obstacles than the barriers of the capital fortress; or else it is a coincidence that Edinburgh’s prisoners have been gifted with more guile than the others. Certainly the Duke of Albany and the ninth Earl of Argyll escaped by relying upon cunning. Albany, brother of James III., was ordered into ward by his sovereign on a charge of plotting against the Throne. He was able, however, to make good use of the help which his friends afforded. Wine was sent to him, along with which a rope was secretly conveyed. Albany invited the captain of the castle and one or two men to supper. The royal prisoner and his attendant refrained from drinking, while the guests consumed the liquor. At length the Duke and his varlet overpowered their helpless guardians, and having slain them, threw their bodies on the fire. Without delay the master and servant made their way to the edge of the rock. The wall was apparently easily climbed, and the rope was securely fastened. It was found, however, to be too short until Albany had added the sheets from his bed. Next morning this dangling line amazed both garrison and townsfolk, while the Duke was enjoying the fresh air of the Firth as he sailed for safety to France.

Two centuries later the Earl of Argyll, who suffered imprisonment for his Protestant principles, made good his escape by walking through the gateway disguised as a lady’s page. Mackenzie of Kintail, Lord Maxwell and others found opportunity at different times to break from Edinburgh Castle and gain their liberty by scrambling down the rock.

Stirling more often than the other two castles has been sought by kings as a tower of refuge. When the party of the Comyns, in Alexander III.’s minority, stealthily carried the King from Kinross, it was to the fortress above the Links of Forth that they bore their rescued charge. The faction favouring England, from whose power the sovereign was snatched, did not attempt a counter-surprise; but although the walls of the castle secured Alexander’s person, for a number of nights he must have quivered in his bed lest his former guardians should attempt to storm the fort. It was to Stirling in a later century that James V. took headlong flight when bolting from the exasperating tutelage of the Douglases. Like his early predecessor, James for many nights lay trembling on his couch. The Douglases, he knew, could command a large following. They were bold enough and disloyal enough to attack their King in his castle. When the wind groaned round the turrets and the gables he must have started from his restless sleep, thinking that his enemies were thundering at the gate. Still, he was now a free King, and he soon felt secure in the homely castle that had sheltered him from kidnapping nobles in the early years of his life.

OLD BUILDINGS IN UPPER SQUARE.

Stirling was held to be the safest place of residence for James V.’s daughter, the child Queen Mary. In this case grasping nobles were not so much to be feared as King Henry VIII. of England. Edinburgh lay too near the Border, and was subject to devastation at the hands of the English soldiers, while the ruthless Tudor’s agent, the Earl of Lennox, was ever seeking to capture Dumbarton. The death of the dreaded Henry did not put an end to Scotland’s fears. The “Black Saturday” of Pinkie soon followed, and although the child Queen remained in innocent happiness, not realising that for her sake hundreds of her subjects had given up their lives, her mother and the Earl of Arran were filled with the greatest fear lest the victorious English soldiers should seek out the young sovereign of Scotland. At the height of their alarm the anxious guardians sent the little Queen to the borders of the Highlands; but Stirling, as it turned out, was a safe enough abode, and soon she was brought again within its friendly protection. Twenty years later, however, when Mary escaped from Loch Leven, Dumbarton and not Stirling was the goal towards which she pressed; but the Earl of Moray came up with her near Glasgow, and having defeated her troops at Langside, turned her course southwards to England. In the wars that followed Queen Mary’s flight Stirling became the centre of the young King’s party, while Edinburgh and Dumbarton Castles were held for his captive mother. Dumbarton, as has been observed, was afterwards forced to capitulate, and later Edinburgh underwent a siege, which ended in its also falling to the winning side and in Queen Mary’s ill-fated cause being irretrievably lost.