Chapel escaped wrath of Bruce

Chapel Royal

Have you noticed that it’s quite hard to get lost in Stirling? The castle is an ever-looming presence. You just can’t escape its wonderful profile.

The first fortification on Castle Rock was probably a prehistoric hillfort but we don’t have any evidence of it. The first formal castle was probably built by Edgar I in the 11th century.

Edgar was the son of Malcolm III and Margaret and was the Malcolm from

Shakespeare’s‘Macbeth’but the real king was not the meek and mild lamb of the play. He is, as far as I can tell, the only Scottish king to have been responsible for the death of both of his predecessors, Macbeth and Macbeth’s step son Lulach, both of whom were legitimate Scottish kings. For good measure he also killed Lulach’s son.

Nothing of Edgar’s castle survives above ground as it was destroyed by Robert the Bruce the day after

Bannockburn, with one exception but more about that later.

To make matters worse James IV, V and VI all heavily rebuilt the castle to create the magnificent Renaissance complex we have today.

Anyway, the first written evidence for the castle was a chapel built by another of Malcolm’s sons, Alexander I. There was also a later chapel in which James V and Mary Queen of Scots were crowned and which was pulled down by James VI to build the current Chapel Royal, which was the first purposebuilt Protestant chapel in Scotland. The footings of the middle chapel are still visible in front of the Great Hall.

But what about Alexander’s chapel? Well, this survived Bruce’s destruction as he didn’t want to offend God. It sits between the palace and the King’s Old Buildings and is the oldest building in Stirling and well worth a look when the lockdown is fully lifted.