Fortress ‘clasps Highlands and the Lowlands together’
WHA’S LIKE US? This week: Stirling Castle
YOU might think that, compared to Edinburgh Castle, with its prime real estate position in the middle of Scotland’s nominal capital, and its current synchronised mincing aboot at the Tattoo, Stirling Castle was very much the little brother.
But it has played an equally important – arguably greater – part in Scotland’s history. Likened to “a huge brooch clasping Highlands and Lowlands together”, it sits in a strategic position on a volcanic outcrop guarding what was once a key crossing point of the River Forth.
For centuries, it was the favoured residence of kings and queens until the Union of the Crowns when James VI went sooth to become James I of Englandshire and never looked back.
In its history, ownership passed back and forth many times between the Scots and the invading English who wanted to make Scotland a province, as it is now. In addition, it was a major cause of the Battle of Bannockburn, when the Scots whupped Eddie 2’s butt in view of the castle ramparts.
Though most buildings making up the castle complex date from the 15th and 16th centuries, it was doubtless the site of some kind of settlement going back to the McFlinstone era. It may have been occupied by the Maeatae tribe – aye, thaim – who had a violent dislike of the Romans.
The Northumbrians probably had it for a bit, until they got their fur collar felt by the Picts. It has even been associated with Camelot, though that is probably mince.
Malcolm in the Middle Ages
FAST forward to early medieval times, and it’s thought that substantial timber structures were constructed on the mysteriously named Castle Hill by Malcolm III in the late 11th century. However, the first recorded mention comes in 1110 when Alexander I dedicated a chapel there. He pegged out at the castle in 1124.
William One formed a deer park to the southwest but was forced to surrender the castle after being captured by the English in 1174. Later, with the joint back in Scottish hands, Alexander 3 laid out the New Park as a nice place to set mutts off to mangle deer. Well, it’s nice to have a hobby.
During the constitutional vacuum left by Eck’s death in 1286, Edward I started sticking his evil neb in. Then, when the castle came under Scottish control again, Eddie 2 flounced north to retake it and came a colossal cropper. After Bannockburn, Robert, a Bruce, ordered the defences destroyed to prevent any reoccupation by the then equivalent of the Scotland Office.
The English took it again in 1336 but Robert Stewart, the future King Robert II, retook it in 1342. So it continued.
The earliest surviving parts of the castle were built in the late 14th and early 15th centuries by Rabs II and III, but most of the present buildings were constructed between 1490 and 1600 by Jimmies IV, V and VI.
Regal kingsize
JIMMY 4 wanted a castle fit for a European monarch – partly to impress his queen, Margaret Tudor, daughter of Henry VII of England. It was this James who had the Great Hall built: the country’s first example of Renaissanceinfluenced royal architecture.
James 5 continued his da’s work, being just as keen to impress his second French bride, Queen Mary of Guise, and indeed used French masons to create the castle’s centrepiece, the Royal Palace.
Though undoubtedly a magnificent structure, 19th-century architectural historian and artist RW Billings described the exterior’s statues as “the fruits of an imagination luxuriant but revolting”.
After Jimmy 5’s death, his infant daughter Mary, Queen of Scots, was brought to Stirling Castle for safety, and crowned there – for in those days she still had a head – in 1543. In 1566, Mary’s own son, the future James 6, was baptised at Stirling.
After James bolted to London in 1603 to become King of England and the Other Bits, the place was used as a posh prison for a while.
Much time and effort was also spent preparing it for a visit by Charles I, who never showed up for years and then only briefly to say hello in 1633.
However, after he was parted from his bonce, his son Charles II lived at the castle for a bit, the last reigning monarch to do so. More Charlies: after getting the willies in Derby, Bonnie Prince Charles’s knackered Jacobite army captured the town, but not the castle, in 1746.
From 1800, the castle was owned by the War Office and used as a barracks.
It has been claimed the ostentatious hue was a signal from Billy Big Halls to the peasantry that here was a place they could never afford
The late 20th century and early 21st century (this one, by my watch) saw much restoration work carried out. Most controversial was that to the Great Hall, which came out kinda creamy and looking like it had been built by Barratt.
This didn’t go down well with locals, but Historic Scotland (as was) said it had found an original layer of lime wash in that colour.
It has also been claimed the ostentatious hue was a signal from Billy Big Halls to the peasantry that here was a place they could never afford, even with a fixed-rate mortgage.
Monsters of rock
IT still looks daft against the traditional dour grey Scottish stone of the other buildings. Maybe all the castle’s edifices could have been done the same way though. With great advances in prosperity since the Middle Ages, no-one has the money for such work now. Besides, the whole complex would look a bit Barratt, lacking only a wagon wheel and a wee gnome fishing.
Today, of course, while remaining the administrative HQ of what remains of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders (and housing their museum), the castle’s main purpose is to part tourists from their cash.
Historic Environment Scotland charges a mental £18 at the gate or £16.50 online, with feeble concessions.
As with Edinburgh, the castle esplanade has faced frequent invasion by pop stars, with R.E.M., Ocean Colour Scene, Bob Dylan, Wet Wet and Also Wet, Rod Stewart and Runrig giving it laldy. As the last-named sing: “There must be a place/Under the sun/Where hearts of olden glory/Grow young.”
And Stirling is as good a place as any.