STIRLING: CASTLE, TOWN, AND TOWERS
To ride in fast express trains from town to town, across the
Strathmore, or Great Valley, containing the central plain of Scotland,
on which lies almost every one of its large cities and industrial
centres, makes one thrill when contrasting the present with the
past. Our comrade, Quandril, so fresh on Scottish soil that she had
hardly got the ship’s motion out of her head, was completely daft,
when speeding from Edinburgh to Stirling. So much history, visualized
and made real, acted like a fierce stimulant. The cannonade of fresh
impressions, at every moment, added still further to her delightful
brain disturbance.
Here are two entries from her journal:--
“I am delighted with Scotland. As I realize that I am on Scottish
ground, I can scarcely understand the indifference of the people, who
walk about as if it were nothing remarkable.... Such a sight as met our
astonished vision! Never had our New World eyes seen anything like this
ancient city.”
In riding about in the suburbs, Quandril gathered some wild poppies.
She noticed that every place had its title--Lanark Villa, Rose Villa,
Breezy Brae, etc. In several places, a sign was up announcing that
“this land may be ‘fued.’” The person who rented the land, using it,
without receiving a title in fee simple, was a “feuar.”
How different the Scottish landscape, with its myriad chimneys, from
the feudal days, when this French invention was unknown! When Scotland
had a Robin Hood, in the person of Rob Roy, this feature was rare.
In picturing the long-armed and famous cowboy, cattle-dealer, friend
of the poor, and enemy of the rich, Sir Walter Scott has told of the
desolate character of the tract of country stretching from the Clyde to
the Grampians. One may recall how the young English horsewoman, whose
feelings are described during the tedious ride toward the adventurous
mountain-land, found a willow wand before the door, as an emblem that
the place was tabooed. At one town we were told of a relic--the coulter
of a plough--kept in commemoration of the event, which may remind us of
the story of the cicerone, who showed the sword with which Balaam smote
his ass. Being told by the tourist that Balaam did not actually smite,
but only desired a sword that he might smite with it, he received the
answer, “Well, that’s the sword he wanted.” This outdid even our own
P. T. Barnum’s story of the club that (might have) killed Captain Cook.
Since at twenty smaller places had the authentic club been exhibited,
Barnum’s show could not be without it, and keep up its reputation.
To the focus of Scottish history, Stirling, we hied during several
of our journeyings in Scotland. As with Niagara, at the first vision
one may not have grasped the full glory, but a second or third
view deepened one’s impression. There are others, however, who in
imagination, after having read Scott’s “Lady of the Lake” have
pictured to their minds “Stirling’s towers” and were not in the least
disappointed, when beholding for the first time the reality in stone.
A great rock, like that in Edinburgh, rises sheer from the plain. The
tourist sees one of those natural fortresses, around which, first
a church, then a fair, then a village, then a town, and finally, a
famous city have had their evolution. One needs but little power of
the historic imagination to go back to the days before the streets,
avenues, and imposing buildings of to-day existed, and think of
steel-clad knights and long trains of men with claymore and target. The
castle, built on a precipitous rock, overlooks one of those low, flat,
alluvial plains, which the Scots call a carse.
Stirling, which had several names, in different forms, beside the
Gaelic “Struithla,” was also known as “Snowdon,” as those may remember
who have read Scott.
If there be one place north of the Tweed, where, at a single glance,
one may view and comprehend the chief river system of Scotland,
Stirling is that place. From this point one notes the main streams,
the affluents, and the gathering of the waters, which make the Clyde,
the Forth, and the Tay. He can then realize how great and how important
in the political and economic history of Scotland has been that great
central valley, which stretches from the North Sea to the waters of the
Atlantic Ocean.
Stirling touches Scottish history very early. It was so strong, in
1304, that at its most famous siege, by Edward I, pretty much all the
besieging implements and heavy siege machinery had to be brought from
the Tower of London. At last, one engine, called “the Wolf,” was so
terribly destructive that, by filling up the ditch with stones and
rubbish, the English rushed over and fought their way into the keep.
The castle was taken and for ten years it remained in the possession
of the Southrons. In fact, it was to maintain the English grip upon
this stronghold that Edward II assembled that mighty army for invasion,
which was so signally defeated by the Bruce at Bannockburn.
[Illustration: STIRLING CASTLE, FROM THE KING’S KNOT]
When one thinks of that decisive battle, which turned the face of
Scotland for hundreds of years to France, for her art and culture,
instead of to her nearer southern neighbor, England, he is apt to muse
upon the different results had Edward succeeded. Possibly an early
union of Scotland and England and fusion of the two peoples might have
been the result and the ensuing story have been best for civilization
and humanity; but certainly Scotland’s history would not have been
either so interesting or so inspiring.
After the death of the Bruce, Stirling Castle was captured, in
succession, by Edward Balliol and for King David. When the House of
Stuart had evolved from a family of Norman barons, emigrants from
Shropshire to improve their fortunes, and, acting as stewards in the
new land, had reached royalty, Stirling Castle became the king’s
dwelling-place. For centuries afterward, it was their favorite
residence and the place of coronation of the Scottish kings. Here James
II and James V were born and here James VI of Scotland and I of England
was baptized.
It was James III who added so largely to its architecture and built
the Parliament House. It is in an inventory of the effects of this
slaughtered king that the first mention of the thistle as the national
emblem of Scotland occurs. Later this device appears on the coins of
the realm, but not until James VI is found the motto, “Nemo me impune
lacessit.”
As we entered through the gateway and walked up through the
battlemented Inner Way, we almost imagined we heard the din of clashing
swords echoing the past. The palace, built by James V, in the form of
a quadrangle, is in the southwestern part and is profusely decorated.
Yet when ornamentation and structure are compared, two opposing systems
appear to be at work. One seems to swear at the other. The critic had
better not look too closely when near, if he wishes to enjoy harmony,
for in this case, most decidedly, does distance lend enchantment to
the view. Seen from afar, the ornaments appear rich and graceful, but
when close at hand they become grotesque. Corbels and brackets are
especially suggestive of agonizing exertion and the general effect
is that of a nightmare. At a distance, these melt into harmonious
proportions, but they lose their charm when we are close at hand. Here
are hideous mixtures of human and brute life. Many of the leering faces
are simply idiotic and the contortions of the bodies clustered together
are horrible. As has been well said, “the wildest and least becoming of
the classic legends are here embodied, without any attempts to realize
beauty of form.”
What terrible paradox, or love of the ugly, must have dominated the
taste of the sculptor, in the same age that reared some of the glorious
abbeys of Scotland! The King’s Room, which had an oaken ceiling, with
richly decorated beams, and in each partition a magnificently carved
head,--the fame of which had gone all over Europe,--was abolished in
1777, when the roof, from its weight, threatened to fall in.
The Douglas Room recalls, to the student of Scottish history, some of
the bloody episodes of feudalism, when, for example, a powerful baron
like William, Earl of Douglas, set at defiance the authority of both
king and law. James II, in 1452, invited the insurgent to meet him in
Stirling Castle. The earl came only after receiving under the royal
protection a safe-conduct,--which proved that there was a lack of
loyalty and much bad blood. The king first used words of persuasion,
but failing in this, he drew the dagger to break the bonds of the
confederate nobles.
Thus a Stuart king showed himself a traitor by becoming assassin,
setting a doubly bad example, which his descendants followed only too
often. They seemed to have kept the taint of their ancestor in their
blood, until the people of England had perforce to behead one and drive
out the other. The original Chapel Royal, erected in 1594 by that
Stuart who became the first English king with the name of James, is now
a storeroom and armory. It completes the series of apartments which the
tourist cares to enter and examine.
It is not the interior architecture of Stirling Castle that repays the
cultivated visitor, but rather the view from the battlements, over the
glorious and eloquent landscape of mid-Scotland. A small opening in
the parapet wall of the garden, termed the “Lady’s Lookout,” furnishes
for us our best point of view. Westward are the Highland Mountains
and between us and them lies the Vale of Menteith. Farther toward the
setting sun, robed in its azure hue, rises Ben Lomond which mirrors
itself in the loch of the same name, while Ben Venue, Ben A’in, Ben
Ledi, and the cone of Ben Voirlich, followed in succession, the chain
ending with the humbler summit of Uam-var. All of these we saw in
imagination, long ago, when, while reading Scott, they rose in mind
before us to “sentinel enchanted land.” North and east are the Ochil
Hills and the windings of the Forth, while southward are the Campsie
Hills. From the town at our feet the turnpike road draws the eye along
to the ruins of Cambuskenneth Abbey, while reared aloft is the Wallace
Monument and within view are the Abbey Craig and the Bridge of Alan.
As we look at the old cannon, now serving for ornaments and mementoes,
we ask, Who, when this castle of Stirling was built, could have
conceived the power of artillery in our century? Scott tells, in his
picturesque way, of a cannon ball shot against a party of rebels on
their way to Edinburgh; but to-day one need only mount a fifteen-inch
rifled cannon or a sixteen-inch mortar on these ramparts, to tumble
down the whole structure by mere concussion and recoil. Yet in the old
days of catapults and smooth-bore cannon, it was quite possible for
“gray Stirling, Bulwark of the North,” to command the point between
the Highlands and the Lowlands. By stationing a party at the Ford of
Frew, near Aberfoyle, the main passage from the mountain district was
completely closed. Thus it was true that the Forth on which Stirling
Castle was situated “bridled the wild Highlander.”
It is said that the merry King James V (1512–42) put on various
disguises, in order to ramble _incognito_ about his realm to see that
justice was regularly administered--and also to indulge in gallantry.
Sir Walter Scott, in “The Lady of the Lake,” pictures him as the Knight
of Snowdon, who meets and kills Roderick Dhu and rewards Ellen Douglas
and Malcolm Graham.
On such occasions, the king took his name from Ballingeich, a place
near the castle. It is said that the two comic songs, “The Gaberlunzie
Man” and “The Jolly Beggar” were founded on the success of this
monarch’s amorous adventures when travelling in the disguise of a
beggar.
Around the castle is an excellent path, called “the Back Walk,”
furnished by a citizen long ago, and a stone seat has been erected to
accommodate the aged and infirm who resort to this spot. The guide
in the castle points out many another spot, around which romantic
or historical associations cluster, though as a rule these are more
interesting to a native than to a foreign tourist.
Looking at the Grey Friars’ Church, built in 1494 by James IV and
added to by Archbishop Beaton, uncle of the cardinal, we find a type
of architecture peculiar to Scotland; that is, of the later pointed
Gothic. Though contemporary with the depressed, or perpendicular,
style of architecture in England, this edifice might appear a century
older than it is. The later forms of English Gothic architecture,
however, were never adopted in Scotland, for the Scots preferred to
follow the taste of their friends in France rather than that of their
enemies in England. Here King James I of Great Britain was crowned,
John Knox preaching the coronation sermon. It was this same James, “the
wisest fool in Christendom,” under whose reign the Bible was again
translated,--then a “revised,” but now, for centuries, the “accepted”
version,--and to whom the translators dedicated that presentation
address which to Americans is positively disgusting in its fulsome
laudation.
From the fact that the nobles and gentry, on the estates adjoining
provincial towns, had their winter residence in the city also, we
find to-day, on either side of the Main Street of Stirling, what were
once ancient mansions. These are now tenanted by humbler occupants.
They show turrets and the crow-step gables, like those we meet with
so frequently in Holland. The man who reared one of these dwellings
foresaw the mutability of all things earthly and even in time the
probable fall of his house. He seemed to read that law of Providence
which raises the beggar from the dunghill and depresses the kings
from their high seats to the level of common folks--as was sung long
ago by the Virgin Mary and which under the old Manchu dynasty of
China was enacted into a law. In the Central Empire every generation
of the Imperial family stepped down one degree lower, until, in the
ninth generation, they were able to claim the status and honors of the
commoner.
In modern English, the quaint inscription on the Stirling mansion would
read:--
“Here I forbear my names or arms to fix,
Lest I or mine should sell these stones or sticks.”
Discovering, as we do, many evidences of French taste and importation,
not only at Stirling, but throughout Scotland, besides noting so many
points of contact between Scottish and French history, we can hardly
wonder why Scottish people feel so much at home in the United States
and why Americans and Scotchmen get along so well together. American
taste in dress and household matters is certainly not English, nor
were our ideas on the subjects of art and decoration inherited from
our British ancestors. Our historic record and vocabulary, with the
tendency of Americans to-day to go to Paris rather than London for
their garments, the cultivation of their tastes, and for many of their
ideas, show that the United States, like Scotland, has been mightily
influenced by French taste. We, Scots and Yankees, are alike debtors
to the land in which feudalism, chivalry, and Gothic art, and not
a few canons of taste and things of beauty, reached their highest
development.