We passed through the outer rampart of Queen Anne; through the old
round gate-tower of an earlier day, and beneath the vacant arch where
the portcullis used to fall, thus reaching the inner region, where
stand the old palace on one side and the old Parliament House on the
other. The former looks aged, ragged and rusty, but makes a good
appearance enough pictorially, being adorned all round about with
statues, which may have been white marble once, but are as grey as
weather-beaten granite now, and look down from beneath the windows
above the basement story. A photograph would give the idea of very rich
antiquity, but as it really stands, looking on a gravelled courtyard,
and with “Canteen” painted on one of its doors, the spectator does
not find it very impressive. The great hall of this palace is now
partitioned off into two or three rooms, and the whole edifice
is arranged to serve as barracks. Of course, no trace of ancient
magnificence, if anywise destructible, can be left in the interior. We
were not shown into this palace, nor into the Parliament House, nor
into the tower, where King James stabbed the Earl of Douglas. When I
was here a year ago, I went up the old staircase and into the room
where the murder was committed, although it had recently been the scene
of a fire which consumed as much of it as was inflammable. The
window whence the Earl’s body was thrown then remained; but now the
whole tower seems to have been removed, leaving only the mullions of
the historic window.
[Illustration: STIRLING CASTLE, SCOTLAND.]
We merely looked up at the new, light-coloured freestone of the
restored tower in passing, and ascended to the ramparts, where we found
one of the most splendid views, morally and materially, that this
world can show. Indeed, I think there cannot be such a landscape as
the Carse of Stirling, set in such a frame as it is,--the Highlands,
comprehending our friends Ben Lomond, Ben Venue, Ben An, and the whole
Ben brotherhood, with the Grampians surrounding it to the westward and
northward, and in other directions some range of prominent objects to
shut it in; and the plain itself, so worthy of the richest setting, so
fertile, so beautiful, so written over and over again with histories.
The silver Links of Forth are as sweet and gently picturesque an object
as a man sees in a lifetime. I do not wonder that Providence caused
great things to happen on this plain; it was like choosing a good piece
of canvas to paint a great picture upon. The battle of Bannockburn
(which we saw beneath us, with the Gillie’s Hill on the right) could
not have been fought upon a meaner plain, nor Wallace’s victory gained;
and if any other great historic act still remains to be done in this
country, I should imagine the Carse of Stirling to be the future scene
of it. Scott seems to me hardly to have done justice to this landscape,
or to have bestowed pains enough to put it in strong relief before the
world; although it is from the lights shed on it, and so much other
Scottish scenery, by his mind, that we chiefly see it and take an
interest in it.
I do not remember seeing the hill of execution before,--a mound on
the same level as the castle’s base, looking towards the Highlands. A
solitary cow was now feeding upon it. I should imagine that no person
could ever have been unjustly executed there; the spot is too much in
the sight of heaven and earth to countenance injustice.
Descending from the ramparts, we went into the Armoury, which I did
not see on my former visit. The superintendent of this department is
an old soldier of very great intelligence and vast communicativeness,
and quite absorbed in thinking of and handling weapons; for he is a
practical armourer. He had a few things to show us that were very
interesting,--a helmet or two, a bomb and grenade from the Crimea;
also some muskets from the same quarter, one of which, with a sword at
the end, he spoke of admiringly, as the best weapon in the collection,
its only fault being its extreme weight. He showed us, too, some Minie
rifles, and whole ranges of the old-fashioned Brown Bess, which had
helped to win Wellington’s victories; also the halberts of sergeants,
now laid aside, and some swords that had been used at the battle of
Sheriffmuir. These latter were very short, not reaching to the floor,
when I held one of them point downward, in my hand. The shortness of
the blade and consequent closeness of the encounter, must have given
the weapon a most dagger-like murderousness. Hanging in the hall of
arms, there were two tattered banners that had gone through the
Peninsular battles, one of them belonged to the gallant 42d Regiment.
The armourer gave my wife a rag from each of these banners, consecrated
by so much battle smoke; also a piece of old oak, half-burned to
charcoal, which had been rescued from the panelling of the Douglas
Tower. We saw better things, moreover, than all these rusty weapons
and ragged flags; namely, the pulpit and communion-table of John Knox.
The frame of the former, if I remember aright, is complete; but one
or two of the panels are knocked out and lost, and, on the whole, it
looks as if it had been shaken to pieces by the thunder of his holdings
forth,--much worm-eaten, too, is the old oak wood, as well it may be,
for the letters MD (1500) are carved on its front. The communion table
is polished, and in much better preservation.
Then the armourer showed us a Damascus blade, of the kind that will cut
a delicate silk handkerchief while floating in the air; and some inlaid
match-lock guns. A child’s little toy-gun was lying on a work-bench
among all this array of weapons; and when I took it up and smiled, he
said it was his son’s. So he called in a little fellow of four years
old, who was playing in the castle yard, and made him go through the
musketry exercise which he did with great good-will. This small Son
of a Gun, the father assured us, cares for nothing but arms, and
has attained all his skill with the musket merely by looking at the
soldiers on parade.
Our soldier, who had resigned the care of us to the armourer, met us
again at the door, and led us round the remainder of the ramparts,
dismissing us finally at the gate by which we entered. All the time
we were in the castle, there had been a great discordance of drums
and fifes, caused by the musicians who were practicing just under the
walls; likewise the sergeants were drilling their squads of men, and
putting them through strange gymnastic motions. Most, if not all, of
the garrison belongs to a Highland regiment, and those whom we saw on
duty in full costume looked very martial and gallant. Emerging from the
Castle, we took the broad and pleasant footpath, which circles it about
midway on the grassy steep which descends from the rocky precipice on
which the walls are built. This is a very beautiful walk, and affords
a most striking view of the Castle, right above our heads, the height
of its wall forming one line with the precipice. The grassy hillside
is almost as precipitous as the dark grey rock that rises out of it,
to form the foundations of the Castle; but wild rosebushes, both of a
white and red variety, are abundant here, and all in bloom; nor are
these the only flowers. There is also shrubbery in some spots, tossing
up green waves against the precipice; and broad sheets of ivy here and
there mantle the head-long rock, which also has a growth of weeds in
its crevices. The Castle walls above, however, are quite bare of any
such growth. Thus, looking up at the old storied fortress, and looking
down over the wide, historic plain, we wandered half-way round the
Castle, and then, retracing our steps, entered the town close by an old
hospital.