[CHAPTER II]
THE ROYAL CITY OF STIRLING
As a good deal of the scene of the poem is laid at Stirling, and as most people will take the opportunity of breaking their journey at so classic a town, a few pages must be devoted to it.
STIRLING CASTLE, FROM THE KING’S KNOT.
In 1304 the Castle was taken by the English after a three month’s siege, and held by them until the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314.
The “Round Table”
The rock on which the castle of Stirling stands is a most remarkable object in the landscape, jutting out with the precipitousness of a sea-cliff from the plain. It is absolutely inaccessible on the one side, but slopes away on the other, and it is on these slopes that the town stands. Many a visitor has grumbled at the long pull up through the narrow, and in some places squalid, streets before reaching the castle; but the reward is great, for the view is far-reaching. It may be best seen, however, from a place called the Ladies’ Rock in the churchyard, because there it includes the castle-rock on its steepest side. Here, also, there is to be found a plan of all the mountains by which they may be identified—Bens Ledi, Lomond, Vane, More, and Voirlich; also, down below, is a curious turf-garden, called the King’s Knot, said to have been the scene of the mimic games and contests of the Court. It was here Scott laid the scene of the games described in the poem, and with what redoubled interest can the account be read, when, having seen the place, memory can conjure up a mind-picture of it! This odd terracing is mentioned by Barbour, in describing the flight of Edward II. after Bannockburn, as the Round Table. It is within the bounds of possibility that it existed in the days of King Arthur, for centuries before Arthur’s time Stirling was a Roman station, and the King in his day is known to have been in the neighbourhood.
The history of Stirling reaches back beyond all records. Long before Edinburgh had attained its position as capital of the kingdom, while it was still but a Border fortress, liable to be taken and retaken as English or Scots extended their territory, Stirling was one of the strongholds of the country. From time immemorial some fortress had stood on this impregnable position. In 1124 Alexander I. died here, so that it must then have been a fortress-palace, and in 1304 the castle held out for three months against Edward I. of England. After it was taken it remained in the possession of England until the Battle of Bannockburn, and Bannockburn lies only about three miles from Stirling. Even the supine Edward II. wended his way so far north with the object of retaining such a desirable place. James III. was born here, and probably James IV. also, while James V., the hero of The Lady of the Lake, was crowned in the parish church as a toddling child of two. His much-discussed daughter, Queen Mary, passed the years of her childhood at the castle. Her little son James, who was destined to unite the two kingdoms, was baptized at the castle with tremendous ceremony, while his father, Darnley, sulked apart, and refused to take his proper position. Here James VI. and I. spent mainly the first thirteen years of his life, under the tutelage of the scholar George Buchanan, and it was only when he became King of England that Stirling ceased to be a royal residence.