Burns painting unveiled
To mark the birthday of Robert Burns last week, the Golden Lion Hotel in Stirling unveiled a specially commissioned painting by artist William Dobbie in celebration of the Bard’s visit to the hotel in 1787 where he stayed and etched, on a window pane, the infamous`Stirling Lines’.
Burns was heading to Inverness with his schoolmaster friend Willie Nicol and they stopped at Stirling’s Wingate’s Inn, now the Golden Lion Hotel.
During his visit he strolled up the hill to Stirling Castle and was outraged to find, in a state of disrepair, the ancient hall in which parliaments had occasionally been held under the Scottish kings.
This aroused his Jacobean passion and on returning to the inn he etched the `Stirling Lines’on to his bedroom window, which reflected badly on the successors of the Stuart race.
They soon became notorious and the poem remained to be seen and read by every visitor who cared to view it and was copied into many travellers’notebooks.
As the lines’popularity grew so did the scandal and Burns was eventually forced to return to Stirling to break the glass in order to avoid prosecution.
Paul Waterson, of the Golden Lion Hotel, said:“Burns’visit to the hotel is an important part of our heritage which we have celebrated throughout the years.”