Stirling Castle (), located in Stirling, is one of the largest and most historically and architecturally important castles in Scotland. The castle sits atop an intrusive crag, which forms part of the Stirling Sill geological formation. It is surrounded on three sides by steep cliffs, giving it a strong defensive position. Its strategic location, guarding what was, until the 1890s, the farthest downstream crossing of the River Forth, has made it an important fortification in the region from the earliest times.
Most of the principal buildings of the castle date from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. A few structures remain from the fourteenth century, while the outer defences fronting the town date from the early eighteenth century.
Before the union with England, Stirling Castle was also one of the most used of the many Scottish royal residences, very much a palace as well as a fortress. Several Scottish Kings and Queens have been crowned at Stirling, including Mary, Queen of Scots, in 1542, and others were born or died there.
There have been at least eight sieges of Stirling Castle, including several during the Wars of Scottish Independence, with the last being in 1746, when Bonnie Prince Charlie unsuccessfully tried to take the castle. Stirling Castle is a scheduled monument, and is now a tourist attraction managed by Historic Environment Scotland.
History
Early history Castle Hill, on which Stirling Castle is built, forms part of the Stirling Sill, a formation of quartz-dolerite around 350 million years old, which was subsequently modified by glaciation to form a "crag and tail".Fawcett, p.14 It is likely that this natural feature was occupied at an early date, as a hill fort is located on Gowan Hill, immediately to the east.Fawcett, p.15
The Romans bypassed Stirling, building a fort at Doune instead, but the rock may have been occupied by the Maeatae at this time.Fawcett, p.16 It may later have been a stronghold of the Manaw Gododdin, and has also been identified with a settlement recorded in the 7th and 8th centuries as Urbs Iudeu, where King Penda of Mercia besieged King Oswy of Bernicia in 655. The area came under Pictish control after the defeat of the Northumbrians at the Battle of Dun Nechtain thirty years later. However, there is no archaeological evidence for occupation of Castle Hill before the late medieval period.Gifford & Walker, p.42–43
Other legends have been associated with Stirling, or "Snowdoun" as it was more poetically known.Stirling was called "Snowdoun" by William Worcester in the 15th century, and the name was later used in poetry by David Lyndsay and Sir Walter Scott, among others. See The 16th-century historian Hector Boece claims in his Historia Gentis Scotorum that the Romans, under Agricola, fortified Stirling,Stair-Kerr, p.2–3 and that Kenneth MacAlpin, traditionally the first King of Scotland, besieged a castle at Stirling during his takeover of the Pictish kingdom in the 9th century. Boece is, however, considered an unreliable historian.
Another chronicler, William Worcester, associated Stirling with the court of the legendary King Arthur. Tradition suggests that St Monenna founded a chapel here, as she is said to have done at Edinburgh Castle,Stair-Kerr, p.4 although it is now thought that the legend of Monenna results from a later confusion of early Christian figures, including Modwenna and Moninne.
The first record of Stirling Castle dates from around 1110, when King Alexander I dedicated a chapel there. It appears to have been an established royal centre by this time, as Alexander died here in 1124. During the reign of his successor David I, Stirling became a royal burgh, and the castle an important administration centre.Fawcett, p.17 King William I formed a deer park to the south-west of the castle, but after his capture by the English in 1174, he was forced to surrender several castles, including Stirling and Edinburgh Castle, under the Treaty of Falaise. There is no evidence that the English actually occupied the castle, and it was formally handed back by Richard I of England in 1189. Stirling continued to be a favoured royal residence, with William himself dying there in 1214,Fawcett, p.18 and Alexander III laying out the New Park, for deer hunting, in the 1260s.Stair-Kerr, p.16
Wars of Independence
Stirling remained a centre of royal administration until the death of Alexander III in 1286. His passing triggered a succession crisis, with Edward I of England invited to arbitrate between competing claimants. Edward came north in 1291, demanding that Stirling, along with the other royal castles, be put under his control during the arbitration. Edward gave judgement in favour of John Balliol, hoping he would be a "puppet" ruler, but John refused to obey Edward's demands.Dunbar, Sir Archibald H.,Bt., Scottish Kings – A Revised Chronology of Scottish History 1005–1625, Edinburgh, 1899: p. 116
In 1296, Edward invaded Scotland, beginning the Wars of Scottish Independence, which would last for the next 60 years. The English found Stirling Castle abandoned and empty, and set about occupying this key site.Fawcett, p.19 They were dislodged the following year, after the victory of Andrew Moray and William Wallace at the Battle of Stirling Bridge. Many of the garrison were killed during the battle, after which the English commanders William FitzWarin and Marmaduke Thweng retreated into the castle. However, they were quickly starved into surrender by the Scots.Fawcett, p.20
Next summer, the castle changed hands again, being abandoned by the Scots after the English victory at Falkirk. Edward strengthened the castle, but it was besieged in 1299 by forces including Robert Bruce. King Edward failed to relieve the garrison, who were forced to surrender.
By 1303, the English again held the upper hand, and Stirling was the last remaining castle in Scottish hands. Edward's army arrived in April 1304, with at least 17 siege engines. The Scots, under William Oliphant, surrendered on 20 July, but part of the garrison were ordered back into the castle by Edward, as he had not yet deployed his latest engine, "Warwolf". Warwolf is believed to have been a large trebuchet, which destroyed the castle's gatehouse.Tabraham, p.49 Although Edward's victory seemed complete, he was dead by 1307, and Robert Bruce was now King of Scots. By 1313, only Stirling, Roxburgh, Edinburgh and Berwick castles were held by the English. Edward Bruce, the king's brother, laid siege to Stirling, which was held by Sir Philip Mowbray. After several months, on 24 June 1313, Mowbray proposed a bargain: that he would surrender the castle, if it were not relieved within one year by the English. Edward Bruce agreed, and withdrew.Fawcett, p.23 Scottish historian Patrick Fraser Tytler would describe Mowbray's offer, five centuries later, as "a truce involving conditions which ought on no account to have been accepted." As Tytler noted, the effect "was to check the ardour of the Scots in that career of success, which was now rapidly leading to the complete deliverance of their country; it gave the King of England a whole year to assemble the strength of his dominions... We need not wonder, then, that Bruce was highly incensed, on hearing that, without consulting him, his brother had agreed to Mowbray's proposals."Patrick Fraser Tytler, History of Scotland (William Tait, 1845) p. 270 The following summer, the English duly headed north, led by Edward II, to save the castle.Fawcett, p.23 On 23 June 1314, King Robert's forces met the English at the Battle of Bannockburn, within sight of the castle walls. The resulting English defeat was decisive. King Edward attempted to take refuge in the castle, but Mowbray was determined to keep to his word, and the English were forced to flee. Mowbray handed over the castle, changing sides himself in the process.Stair-Kerr, pp.31–33 King Robert ordered the castle to be slighted; its defences destroyed to prevent reoccupation by the English.
The war was not over, however. The second War of Scottish Independence saw the English in control of Stirling Castle by 1336, when Thomas Rokeby was the commander, and extensive works were carried out, still largely in timber rather than stone.Fawcett, p.24 Andrew Murray attempted a siege in 1337, when guns may have been used for one of the first times in Scotland. Robert Stewart, the future King Robert II, retook Stirling in a siege during 1341–1342. Maurice Murray was appointed as its keeper, who in the words of Andrew of Wyntoun "inforsyt it grettumly, for riche he was and full mychty" (enforced it greatly, for rich he was and full mighty). In 1360, Robert de Forsyth was appointed governor of Stirling Castle, an office he passed on to his son John and grandson William, who was governor in 1399.
Early Stuarts
Under the early Stewart kings Robert II (reigned 1371–1390) and Robert III (reigned 1390–1406), the earliest surviving parts of the castle were built. Robert Stewart, Earl of Menteith, Regent of Scotland as brother of Robert III, undertook works on the north and south gates. The present north gate is built on these foundations of the 1380s, the earliest surviving masonry in the castle.Fawcett, p.25 In 1424, Stirling Castle was part of the jointure (marriage settlement) given to James I's wife Joan Beaufort, establishing a tradition which later monarchs continued.Fawcett, p.26
After James' murder in 1437, Joan took shelter here with her son, the young James II. He hosted a tournament at Stirling on Shrove Tuesday 1449, which included a combat between two teams of three, led by the Burgundian knight Jacques de Lalaing and James Douglas, a brother of the Earl of Douglas. The Burgundian knights were the victors. In 1452, it was at Stirling Castle that James stabbed and killed William, 8th Earl of Douglas, when the latter refused to end a potentially treasonous alliance with John of Islay, Earl of Ross and Alexander Lindsay, 4th Earl of Crawford. James III (reigned 1460–1488) was born here, and later undertook works to the gardens and the chapel royal. The manufacture of artillery in the castle is recorded in 1475.Fawcett, p.29 James' wife, Margaret of Denmark, died in Stirling Castle in 1486, and two years later James himself died at the Battle of Sauchieburn, fought over almost the same ground as the Battle of Bannockburn, just to the south of the castle.Mackie, R.L., James IV, (1958), 36–44.
Renaissance palace
Almost all the present buildings in the castle were constructed between 1490 and 1600, when Stirling was developed as a principal royal centre by the Stewart kings James IV, James V and James VI. The architecture of these new buildings shows an eclectic mix of English, French and German influences, reflecting the international ambitions of the Stewart dynasty.Detailed research on the 1540 palace from