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.

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.

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.

In the troubles of after days all three castles submitted to the Protectorate, but in the following century none of them changed hands when the Jacobite risings disturbed the peace of Scotland. Dumbarton lay out of the routes of the insurgents both in the Fifteen and in the Forty-five, though the Earl of Mar’s chiefs at one time had made up their minds to seize it; but Stirling and Edinburgh could not be neglected in either of those campaigns. In the earlier rebellion the attempt to storm the latter fortress failed because the well-laid plans were badly carried out; and the former castle was saved from attack by Argyll’s success in preventing Mar from crossing the River Forth. In the Forty-five both strongholds held out stoutly for King George, although the towns outside their gates made little or no resistance to the dreaded Highland clans.

As a fortress Stirling possesses a history which places it first among the castles of Scotland; as a palace its record entitles it to rank above Dumbarton and Edinburgh. Its double use as stronghold and as dwelling-place of kings gives it a unique position among the royal houses, for Falkland and Linlithgow were pleasure palaces erected upon the sites of ancient castles, and Holyrood was built as a kind of extension to a defenceless, low-lying abbey. Edinburgh Castle, it is true, was for centuries a seat of kings as well as a famous fortress, but long before the Stewarts took up residence in England the abbey-palace as a home had superseded the stronghold. In the sixteenth century Edinburgh Castle was preferred by royalty to Holyrood only in times of peril. Queen Mary moved up from the valley to the rock before giving birth to James VI., the Riccio murder having made her realise the danger of living at the palace.

There was never a Holyrood Palace at Stirling to rob the castle of any of its glory. Kings might have lived in Cambuskenneth Abbey instead of on the summit of the windy rock; but it did not seem good to James IV. or any other monarch to erect a royal house beside the convent near the river. At Stirling the much-beloved old castle underwent various changes as the centuries rolled on; and when, with the advance of time, the taste for luxury developed and the Renaissance style of architecture was introduced from France, the fortress, instead of ceasing to be occupied by royalty, was crowned with a richly-carved palace. Until Scotland was forsaken by her ancient line of monarchs Stirling remained as much in favour with the kings and queens as the palaces of Falkland and Linlithgow, which were almost unencumbered with a castle’s fortifications.

Stirling Castle thus retained its hold on the affections of the Scottish sovereigns. It therefore stands out from its sister castles in that it kept its place as a royal residence beside the palaces of Falkland and Linlithgow, while Dumbarton became more of a noble’s stronghold than a prince’s seat, and while Edinburgh sank from its position as a monarchs’ home to that of a mere garrison fortress. Stirling, to be sure, also fell from its high estate, but its humiliation was long delayed, and did not come until after the Royal Family had ceased to be domiciled in Scotland.

All down the centuries Stirling Castle has been a place of arms, but since royalty ceased to dwell under its roof soldiers have become its most important, and almost its only, occupants. After the Union of 1707 the British Parliament followed the Scottish Estates in maintaining a garrison in the fortress, as well as in Edinburgh and Dumbarton, but the statement often made that the Treaty of Union requires this arrangement to be kept up has no foundation in fact. The error possibly arose from the confusion of the Union Treaty with an agreement made by Scottish and English commissioners in 1641. This earlier set of articles contains a clause providing for the furnishing for military purposes of the Castle of Edinburgh and other strengths of the kingdom. Long before the Union was carried out this Treaty became null and void, for the Scottish Parliament in 1661 rescinded all statutes that had been passed since 1640. Stirling Castle is used to-day as barracks, but the Government is not bound by any treaty to maintain a garrison in the fortress.