STIRLING, FROM ABBEY CRAIG.
Nor are the history and aspect of the town of Stirling unworthy of its noble station. It, also, is crammed with memories and antiquities—from the square tower of the West Church, grouping so well with the buildings on the Castle, and surmounting the hall where Knox preached and the infant James VI. was crowned, down to the burial-place of the murdered James III., under the tower of Cambuskenneth and close by the winding Forth.
But the historical fame and interest of Stirling rest perhaps more upon the bloody and decisive battles fought in its neighbourhood, than upon anything else. From the Castle ramparts one can look down upon Stirling Bridge, Bannockburn, and Sauchie; and Falkirk, Kilsyth, Sheriffmuir, and other stricken fields, reaching from the ’45 back to Pictish and Roman times, are not far off. In memory of the Struggle for Independence, but especially of William Wallace, the presentment of a feudal tower, surmounted by a mural crown, rises to a height of over 200 feet on the summit of the Abbey Craig, the most commanding site, next to Stirling Rock itself, in the valley. The Bridges—the old and the new—lie midway between these two bold bluffs. But the former venerable edifice, though it could also tell its strange stories of civil broil, and, among others, of how an Archbishop was hung on its parapet three centuries ago, is by no means the structure where the “Protector of Scotland,” watching the passage of the Forth (probably from the slopes of the Abbey Craig), taught so terrible a lesson to Cressingham and the English invaders. This, by all accounts, was a wooden structure placed half a mile above the moss-grown buttresses of the present Old Bridge of Stirling.
The fame of the battle fought at Stirling Bridge in 1297, and of the other fight, so disastrous to the Scottish cause, that took place a year later at Falkirk, has been quite obscured by the Bruce’s great victory at Bannockburn. One never thinks of Stirling without remembering that near by is the field where was decided, for three centuries, and indeed for all time, the history and fortunes of Scotland. The banks of the Bannock are now peaceful enough, and the people of the village of that name, and of the neighbouring hamlet of St. Ninians, lying still nearer Stirling and the battle-ground, are occupied with nothing more warlike than the weaving of tartans. The slough in which the English chivalry sank, and were overpowered, is now drained and cultivated land. But a fragment of the “Bore Stone,” where Bruce set up his standard, is still preserved; and the “Gillies’ Hill,” behind, commemorates the opportune appearance of the camp-followers of the Scottish army, when they hoisted their blankets on their tent-poles,
“And like a bannered host afar
Bore down on England’s wearied war,”
putting a finish to the rout of Edward II.’s troops.
Leaving Stirling and Bannockburn and all their memories behind us, we can now embark upon the Forth, and follow its broadening stream towards the open sea. The fat carse-lands are still on either hand, rimmed in on one side by the furrowed flanks of Dunmyatt and the Ochils, and bounded on the other by the Campsie Fells, crowned, far off, by Earl’s Seat; while beyond, on a clear day such as we have bespoken for our readers, the Bens grouped around the sources of the Forth and Teith lift themselves into view, fronted effectively by the towers of Stirling and the Abbey Craig. As we face now east, now west, now north, now south, on our devious way, these objects shift place bewilderingly, and more and more the “foot-hills” of the Ochils come down to take their place and give a bolder character to the foreground scenery of the Forth.
