THE EARLY STEWARTS.
On the death of David II. in 1371, the crown passed to Robert the
Steward, grandson of the Bruce, in accordance with the succession
settlement made at the Parliament of 1318. The first of the Stewarts
was past middle life when he mounted the Scottish throne, and although
he had been a man of war in his youth, he longed to spend his later
years in the enjoyment of repose. To some extent his desire was
fulfilled, for the war with England--which continued in spite of
a truce--was of a fitful nature and not a desperate struggle for
freedom. The King’s favourite seat was the Castle of Rothesay, but
he occasionally made Stirling his place of residence, finding it a
convenient resting-place between Bute and St. Andrews or Perth.
For a number of years Sir Robert Erskine had been keeper of Stirling
Castle, and in 1373 the sovereign’s son Robert, Earl of Menteith and
Fife, and afterwards Duke of Albany, was appointed to fill the office.
For the maintenance of this important position the Earl received an
annual grant of fourteen chalders of corn and twelve chalders of
oatmeal from the lands of Bothkennar, as well as an income of two
hundred merks from the Lord Chamberlain of Scotland.[24] The money was
to be levied from the crown lands and from feudal dues in the shire of
Stirling; but this arrangement did not long hold good, as a few years
afterwards the fee was paid from the Treasury. It was in the power of
the keeper to appoint and dismiss the constable and janitors of the
castle. The Earl of Fife did not neglect the duties of his office, for
the Exchequer Rolls bear witness to much strengthening and repairing of
the fortress; alterations doubtless rendered necessary by the use of
gunpowder in war. If Froissart is to be trusted, these fortifications
served their purpose well, as he declares that an unsuccessful
attack was made upon the castle by the soldiers of Richard II. Other
chroniclers, however, do not refer to Stirling in connection with the
invasion of 1385; they imply that the English army advanced little
further than Edinburgh, being compelled by the wasted condition of the
country to retreat across the Border.
Robert II. was succeeded in 1390 by his eldest son John, Earl of
Carrick, who chose to reign as Robert III., John being considered an
unlucky name for kings. Even less a man of action than his father,
he allowed his ambitious brother, whom he created Duke of Albany,
to manage the chief affairs of state. A younger brother, the Earl
of Buchan, usually called the “Wolf of Badenoch,” lived like an
independent sovereign in the Highlands, and with his sons committed
depredations on the low-lying districts of Angus and Moray. These
unruly sons were taken captive, however, and sent to prison in Stirling
Castle, where they were under the eye of the keeper, their uncle,
Robert of Albany.
The age of chivalry had hardly yet passed its zenith. It was still the
delight of gentlemen to travel from Court to Court displaying their
prowess in feats of arms. In 1384 a number of French knights landed in
Scotland desirous of finding adventures in the Border wars, as their
country afforded no field for their activities since peace had been
made with England. Otterburn, a few years later, was more a chivalric
tournament _à outrance_ than a serious battle between the armies of
two hostile nations. A tournament for passages of arms was arranged to
take place at Stirling in 1398. The principal combatants were to be Sir
Robert Morley, a renowned English knight, and Sir James Douglas of
Strabrock. The barriers were prepared and all was in readiness, when
it was announced that the English champion, in a tilting match with a
Scot named Thomas Traill, had suffered an unexpected defeat, and in
consequence of the disgrace to his knighthood had taken to his bed and
died.
A strange and ghost-like figure appeared in Scotland in the reign of
Robert III. This was a half-crazed individual, called Thomas Warde of
Trumpington, who bore a striking resemblance to King Richard II. He
had been found in the castle of the Lord of the Isles at Islay, and
was brought forward as a person likely to be of advantage in times of
trouble with England. The uncertainty regarding Richard’s end led many
on both sides of the Border to believe that the King had escaped from
Pontefract Castle; but the simpleton at the Scottish Court denied that
he was Richard, while a report was spread that the deposed English
monarch was hiding in the mountains of Wales. At all events a so-called
King of England, known in history as the “Mammet” or false King, was
maintained for political purposes in Stirling Castle, where he died
in 1419, without having ventured to cross the Border to fight for the
English crown.
During the regencies of Robert of Albany and his son Murdoch, who
succeeded to the dukedom and to the office of keeper of Stirling
Castle, carpenters and masons were employed from time to time in
repairing and improving the fortress. The Chapel was to a large extent
rebuilt in 1412, the year that saw the erection of the Chapel of
Linlithgow Palace. Duke Robert died in Stirling Castle in 1420, and
four years later James I. returned to his native country after eighteen
winters of captivity in England.
The author of _The Kingis Quair_ was an eminent poet, an accomplished
knight, a constitutional monarch and a man of iron will. He was
determined to strengthen the power of the Crown, not for his own
selfish ends, but for the purpose of bringing the country into order.
Unfortunately, however, he carried out his policy with haste and with
merciless severity. Stirling was made the scene of James’s relentless
harshness only a year after his coronation at Scone. The King came to
reside in the castle, and held a court on the 24th of May, 1425, at
which he presided crowned and in his robes of state. A jury consisting
of twenty-one barons, among whom were the Earls of Douglas, March and
Angus, condemned Walter Stewart, Albany’s eldest son, on a charge of
robbery. The unfortunate man was promptly executed on the Heading Hill
of Stirling. Next day the same jury, evidently acting in accordance
with the King’s desires, pronounced Duke Murdoch and another son
guilty, although the crimes for which they suffered have not been
brought to light. Doubtless James believed that the lawless state in
which he found his kingdom was due to the misgovernment of the Albanys,
and he may have thought that the Regents did not sufficiently exert
themselves to procure for him an earlier release. The prospect of
acquiring the estates of his kinsmen may also have influenced James.
At any rate, the blood-stained Heading Hill witnessed the deaths of
the father and the brother of its previous sufferer, as well as that
of Albany’s father-in-law, the aged Earl of Lennox. Sir John Kennedy,
a nephew of the King, was, a few years later, imprisoned in Stirling
Castle.[25]
It is little wonder that the pitiless policy of James stirred up
feelings of revenge amongst the nobles. His relatives were not the
only prominent persons who felt their sovereign’s severity. Sir Robert
Graham, who had once been imprisoned by the King, and whose nephew had
been deprived of the Earldom of Strathearn, resolved to rid Scotland of
her rigorous ruler. The assassination took place at Perth; but Graham
was captured and brought to Stirling, where he was cruelly tortured to
death. He felt sure he would be looked upon as a national deliverer;
but neither his own contemporaries nor later generations so considered
him, for the Poet-King, in spite of his heartless repressive measures,
has always been a popular hero in Scotland.
The boy King, James II., was crowned in Holyrood Abbey, and some
time afterwards was brought by the Queen-Mother to Stirling Castle,
which was at that time in the charge of Sir Alexander Livingstone of
Callendar. The marriage of the Queen in 1439 to Sir James Stewart, the
Black Knight of Lorne, gave Livingstone a pretext for taking over the
guardianship of the royal child. Compelling Queen Jane to keep within
the walls of her own chamber, he threw her husband and his brother into
prison; after which an irregular Parliament acknowledged his right
to the custody of the King. At the same time, the Queen made over to
Livingstone her right to the tenure of Stirling Castle. Sir William
Crichton, the Chancellor, however, envious of his rival’s power,
determined to take possession of young James. Accompanied by a troop of
horsemen, he secretly left Edinburgh with the intention of kidnapping
the King as he took his exercise in the Royal Park. The enterprise was
successful; for early one morning the boy was surrounded by a body of
armed men, and was straightway carried to Edinburgh Castle, of which
fortress Crichton was governor.
This James of the Fiery Face--so called because of a dark red mark on
his cheek--made Stirling Castle a dower-house for his Queen, Mary,
daughter of the Duke of Gueldres. In 1449, the year of the King’s
marriage, a knightly tournament was held in the level ground to the
south of the castle, the combatants being two Burgundian knights,
Jacques and Simon de Lalain, with a squire called Meriadet, and three
Scottish champions, James, brother to the Earl of Douglas, James,
brother to Douglas of Lochleven, and John Ross of Halket. The six
warriors were entertained by the King before the jousting took place,
and on the appointed day they appeared before James as he sat in his
pavilion, and received from him the order of knighthood. The nobles of
Scotland flocked to Stirling to witness the encounter, which was to be
fought to the death or until the King should command the combatants to
desist.
After trumpets had been sounded and proclamations had been made, the
warriors eagerly advanced to the contest. The Earl of Douglas’s brother
and Jacques de Lalain managed to disarm each other and so continued
the fight by wrestling; Simon de Lalain’s coolness of head enabled him
eventually to obtain a slight advantage over the Laird of Halket; the
Lochleven Douglas, though twice struck to the ground, persistently
returned to the attack, but was hardly able to hold his own with the
skilful Meriadet. When at last the King threw down his truncheon as a
signal for the conflict to cease, the marshals of the field laid hold
of the struggling champions and compelled them to disengage. Neither
side could claim a decisive victory, though the advantage, on the
whole, lay with the foreign knights. King James, however, praised the
valour of each individual, and before the Burgundians returned to their
own country, he entertained them sumptuously in Stirling Castle and
loaded them with gifts.
[Illustration: THE DOUGLAS WINDOW.]
If the feats of arms of the Douglases brought honour to the chivalry of
Scotland, their insatiable ambition was a danger to the King and gave
rise to the evils of civil war. Earl William’s vast estates--increased
by his marriage with the Fair Maid of Galloway--and his descent
from King Robert II., led him to consider himself the equal of his
sovereign, and tempted him to plot against the throne. James was at
this time doing his utmost to make himself master in his own realm. He
had already imprisoned Sir Alexander Livingstone and his sons, and had
given to Sir William Crichton the keepership of Stirling Castle. The
conspiracy of Douglas is a somewhat mysterious affair. His loyalty had
been questioned, but in the beginning of 1452 he seems to have been
on friendly footing with James. There was, however, a rumour that Earl
William had formed a plan of rebellion in conjunction with the Earl
of Ross and the Tiger Earl of Crawford. Hoping to persuade his mighty
subject to abandon his treasonable designs, James invited him to visit
Stirling Castle and sent him a letter of safe-conduct under the privy
seal. Douglas accordingly presented himself to his sovereign, and as
the interview was marked by mutual goodwill, the Earl was asked to dine
and sup with the King on the following day. At their second meeting
all went well till after the evening meal, when James ventured to
broach the subject of the Ross and Crawford league. Douglas’s obstinate
refusal to break the band roused the royal wrath to such a pitch, that,
exclaiming, “False traitor, if you will not I shall,” the King twice
plunged his knife into Earl William’s body. Sir Patrick Gray, Sir
Alexander Boyd, Stewart of Darnley and other courtiers soon dispatched
the helpless noble, and having finished the work of butchery, rudely
flung the corpse out of the window.
James’s hasty deed was a blunder as well as a crime. He had great
provocation, it is true, but even if he had not pledged his word that
Douglas should be safe, he had no right to slay him without a fair
trial. His act gave excuse to the slaughtered man’s family to rise
against their King, and thus he fomented the civil strife which he
was so anxious to suppress. After the lapse of several weeks, James,
the new Earl--he that had fought in the tournament with the knights
of Burgundy--accompanied by his brother, the Earl of Ormond, and by
Lord Hamilton, rode to Stirling with six hundred men to defy the King
of Scots. After exhibiting in public the letter of safe-conduct and
dragging it at a horse’s tail through the principal streets, they
showed their open disregard for their sovereign by plundering and
burning the town. James’s throne was at this time in considerable
danger. Public sympathy was to some extent with the Douglases. A three
years’ struggle ensued, in which the King gradually strengthened his
position, till the Douglases were crushed in 1455 at the battle of
Arkinholm in Eskdale.
Stirling Castle was the birthplace of James II.’s son and successor in
1451. Eight years later the bursting of a cannon killed the father at
Roxburgh, so that Scotland had again the misfortune to be under a minor
King. Many of James III.’s early days were spent in royal Snowdon, the
residence that soon became his favourite dwelling-place. Lindsay of
Pitscottie remarks that “he took such pleasure to dwell there that he
left all other castles and towns in Scotland, because he thought it
most pleasantest dwelling there.” When Margaret of Denmark, in 1469,
married James III., she received the castle as a portion of her dower,
and within its gates she breathed her last, two years before the death
of her husband. It was at Stirling that James entertained his low-born
favourites: Cochrane, the architect; Rogers, the musician; Andrews,
the astrologer; Hommyl, the tailor; and others. From the towers of the
fortress he studied the stars, anxious to know what the future held in
store. A King devoted to music, arts and science, but disliking war and
manly sports, was not a monarch suited to fifteenth century Scotland.
James’s brothers, Albany and Mar, would have made better rulers. It was
long, however, before the smouldering discontent in the country burst
into the fire of rebellion.
King James III. wrought many improvements at the castle. The Parliament
Hall, which is still in existence, dates from his reign, and was
probably designed by Cochrane. A new chapel was built at this time, and
the King intended to make it a collegiate church, but its erection to
that dignity did not take place till his son had been some years upon
the throne. His interest in the welfare of the Chapel Royal was the
occasion, though not the main cause of James’s fall. He endeavoured to
attach to it the revenues of Coldingham Priory, a religious house in
the Merse, in the country of the Homes and Hepburns. Patrick and James
Home, however, had already annexed the funds, which they considered
were their due, and they determined to resist an encroachment on their
rights. The alliance of the Hepburns with the Homes was the beginning
of the insurrection that soon spread far and wide, involving among
other lords the Earls of Angus and Argyll.
The King at once made preparations for the struggle. Having placed
his son, the Duke of Rothesay, in Stirling Castle, under the care of
Shaw of Sauchie, he journeyed to the north to raise the subjects whom
he knew to be loyally disposed. During the King’s absence the rebels
secured the person of the heir-apparent, who was treacherously handed
over by the fickle Shaw. James returned south with a large army to
meet the insurgents at Blackness, where a skirmish and a subsequent
pacification took place. Hostilities, however, broke out afresh.
The King was refused admittance to Stirling Castle, and the rebel
army was advancing from Falkirk. A battle called Sauchieburn or the
Field of Stirling was fought near Bannockburn, on June 11th, 1488, in
which the charges of the Border spears eventually drove the King’s
Highlanders from the field, and during the flight the unhappy monarch
was overtaken and slain. His body was buried near the High Altar in the
Abbey of Cambuskenneth, where his Queen Consort, Margaret of Denmark,
had not long before been interred. The engagement at Sauchieburn is
interesting as being the only occasion in Scottish history in which
Highlanders and Borderers were opponents on the field of battle.
The rebel Duke of Rothesay, a lad in his sixteenth year, mounted the
throne as King James IV. in his luckless father’s room. Soon after his
accession he visited Stirling Castle and there expressed contrition for
his part in the late insurrection, but a few months later he gave the
keeping of the fortress to the traitor, Shaw of Sauchie. All through
his later life, however, James IV. felt remorse for his conduct towards
his father, and he often retired from Holyrood to Stirling when fits of
depression were upon him.
Yet, subject as he was to sudden changes of mood, James could turn
quickly from fasting and praying to the pleasures of society and the
excitement of the chase; indeed, his reign was probably the gayest
period in Stirling Castle’s history. The King’s genial nature broke
through the gloom of remorse and gave mirth and gladness to a brilliant
Court. The affairs of state having been transacted, the days were often
spent in hawking expeditions, or in tilting matches, in which foreign
knights sometimes took part, while the evenings were passed in playing
cards and in listening to performances given by the royal minstrels
on various musical instruments. James’s expeditions in pursuit of the
deer were not confined to the Royal Park. He often set out with a large
retinue from Stirling to enjoy his sport in the neighbouring Highlands,
and on those occasions tents were taken for the accommodation of the
King and his nobles.[26] After one of those excursions, more than three
hundred men were paid for having assisted James and his suite in their
hunting in the forest of Glenartney.[27]
In 1496 the King’s mistress, Margaret, daughter of John, Lord Drummond,
resided for some months in Stirling Castle before being sent to
Linlithgow.[28] James seems to have wished to have married this lady,
but many of the leading nobles envied the power of the Drummonds, and
the King saw what trouble would arise if he were to raise another
member of the family to the throne; for David II. and Robert III. had
both wedded daughters of that house. In 1502 Margaret and her two
sisters fell suddenly ill, and died at Drummond Castle, but whether
poison was administered at the instigation of envious nobles or not
has never been ascertained. The three sisters were interred in Dunblane
Cathedral, where, at the King’s command, masses were said regularly for
the welfare of Margaret’s soul.
Great improvements were carried out both within and without the castle
during the reign of James IV. The main gateway, much of which is still
standing, was erected in the first decade of the sixteenth century.
Other buildings were enlarged during the same period, while plasterers,
painters, glaziers and wrights were in almost constant employment.
Towards the end of the fifteenth century part of the low ground below
the castle rock was converted into a garden, which soon was stocked
with vines and fruit trees, as well as flowers and vegetables. In the
June of 1508 the gardener of Stirling travelled twice to Holyrood with
strawberries for the King.
James IV. was often at Stirling when ambassadors and other foreign
visitors sought his presence, but the most famous alien who was
received within the castle was the impostor, Perkin Warbeck. He arrived
in Scotland in 1495, and was welcomed with great magnificence at Court
as the son of Edward IV. The nobles, like their sovereign, received him
with favour, Huntly actually, at James’s request, bestowing the hand
of his daughter upon him. A pension of £1200 a year was given to the
princely visitor, whose clever acting completely deceived the generous
King of Scots. James made war on England, mainly for Perkin’s sake, in
1496 and the following year, but the impostor and the King of Scots
eventually became estranged, and Warbeck set sail from Ayr in July,
1497.
The King carried out his father’s wish regarding the raising of the
Chapel Royal to the position of a collegiate church. In 1503 Parliament
confirmed the appropriation of the rents of various lands and churches
in the King’s patronage for the support of the increased staff of
clergy in the castle. Next year Pope Julius II. appointed the Bishop
of Whithorn or Galloway Dean of the Chapel Royal, thus uniting the new
collegiate church with the southern See of St. Ninian.
The clans of the west had troubled James IV. for many years, but before
the end of his reign the defiant chiefs were subdued. The turbulent
West Highlander, Donald Dubh, son of Angus of the Isles, having been
captured by the Earl of Huntly, was imprisoned in Stirling Castle in
1506, before being removed to Edinburgh. He was probably one of the
“Erschmen” mentioned in the Lord High Treasurer’s Accounts as having
been conducted by Andrew Aytoun “fra Striviling to Edinburgh,” although
the payment for clothes provided for Donald seems to have been long in
reaching Aytoun’s hands.
In 1507 an experiment, more foolish than interesting, was made at
Stirling Castle in the presence of James IV. and his nobles. John
Damian, a foreigner, known as the French Leech, had wormed his way by
various arts into the King’s favour. The alchemical investigations
which he carried on at Stirling and elsewhere led James to reward his
labours by appointing him Abbot of Tungland, in Galloway. Feeling
that he was losing his place in the royal favour, however, Damian
determined to reinstate himself by means of a hazardous enterprise.
Announcing that with a pair of wings of his own making he would fly
from the battlements of Stirling Castle and be in France before the
King’s ambassadors, he convoked a large assembly to witness his bold
adventure. He sprang into the air, but fell at once to the ground, and
was fortunate in escaping with no greater injury than the fracture
of a leg. The jeers of the disappointed multitude caused the Abbot
more pain than did the broken limb; but the King, ever fascinated by
the foreigner’s fatuous practices, received him again at Court. This
incident is the subject of Dunbar’s satirical poem called the “Ballad
of the Fenzeit Freir of Tungland.”
The brightness of the Court at Stirling was clouded by the shadow of
approaching Flodden. Revels were interrupted by visits of ambassadors;
the King was unable to cast care aside. Nicholas West, the envoy of
Henry VIII., held several interviews with James in the castle in
April, 1513. West did his utmost to induce the Scottish monarch to
abandon the league with France. He was unwilling to leave James without
extracting a promise that no invasion of England would take place when
Henry crossed the Channel. The King of Scots stood firm, however, and
would not agree to desert his old ally, so the disappointed and angry
ambassador departed from Scotland, hating the people and being hated in
return. Not many months later James lay dead on Flodden Field, and the
nation suffered a blow from which it did not completely recover until
its existence as a separate state had ceased.