Stirling Castle / Scotland's History

[Music] with commanding views over the cars of sterling the local hills and beyond Starlin castle was built on a volcanic crag 220 feet above the plains a local vantage point from which any attacking or invading force could be seen it is likely the local matey tribe established a block or done on what is now known as Castle Rock the first record of a building hails from the Roman period when Agricola was said to have erected fortifications on the rock he was also possibly involved in the building of the Roman Road which runs below the castle st. moneena who died in 519 was chronicled in the irish books as establishing one of her seven churches at strive line the town is also associated with many battles in ancient times between the northumbrian Saxons and the so-called wild Scots the castle itself began as a single tire house similar to the one used in the city's coat of arms but over the centuries the kings of Scotland made alterations and additions as it became their favourite residence in 1120 Alexander the first built a chapel at the castle where he died in 1124 David the first lived in it and William the Lion died in it when Alexander the third died in 1286 without ears Stirling to accenture stage as Edward the first or Longshanks as he was known in Scotland stripped puppet King John Belial Lord of gallery of his crown invaded Scotland and marched on sterling and the Scots abandoned it before returning to England he ensured a strong garrison at the castle to repel Scottish rebels and keep people in their place in 1297 William Wallace defeated the English at Stirling Bridge and the castle was returned to Scottish hands however it was short-lived as well as was defeated the following year at the Battle of Falkirk and the English retook it the Scots again did not take it lying down and regained the castle until 1303 when Edward the first returning to the country Stirling Castle held out the last place in Scotland to do so with the siege beginning on 22nd April and lasting for 19 weeks Governor William Oliphant with less than two hundred men at his disposal had held out as long as possible until starvation forced them to surrender the castle walls stood against the barrage well but one section was breached Oliphant and the other leaders were captured he spent four years in the Tower of London before being released and returned to Scotland he died in 1329 in 1306 robert bruce was crowned king following the murder of john coleman bills nephew and guardian of Scotland and the following year Longshanks died all of the strongholds in Scotland were recaptured by the Scots except Stirling which remained in English hands until 1314 the Governor Sir Philip Mowbray was given an ultimatum he was to leave before the feast of st. John on Midsummer's day 24th June 1314 which he did edward ii however was hell-bent on retaining it so sent an army north with him at the helm arriving near stirling on 23rd june on 24th student the Battle of Bannockburn took place with English army defeated and the castle surrendered it changed hands a few more times but remained in Scottish hands after 1342 for over 300 years even though the country was still invaded from time to time the Stewart's probably had the biggest impact on the castle James the first meted out justice against itinerant Nobles and in its shadow the beheading stone at garand Hill was used on Regent Murtagh his sons and other relatives in 1425 James's son James the second was born at the castle as were James the fifth and James the sixth who was educated there by John behan James efef made it his favourite residence and often ranked among the local people disguised as the get man of Balon key the widow of James forth Margaret Tudor spent much of her time there as did Marie Yorkies the second wife of James the fifth in 1515 a dramatic event took place between Margaret Tudor and John Stewart the Duke of Albany she had taken refuge with her children at Stirling the Duke of Albany then appeared with an army and prepared to lay siege to the castle unwilling to go through with the demeaning siege she met Albany at the gates with her children including the infant King James v Britain the massive keys of the fortress into his hands she motioned to James to give them to Albany who kneeling down took them and cuddled the boy he returned the children to their mother on condition she remained at the castle this paved the way for Albany to become Regent both Mary Queen of Scots and her son James the six spent their early childhood sterling with merely being crowned queen there following her father's death when James's six moved her soil court to London the role of the castle changed from royal residence to military garrison in 1651 General George Monck besieged the castle during the Cromwellian Civil War and during the Jacobite uprising of 1715 it was held under the forces of the Duke of Argyll who effectively blocked passage through the river fourth Stirling being the easiest crossing point from north of the country to the south thirty years later during the 1745 uprising the supporters of Charles Edward Stuart or Bodie Prince Charlie marched on Starling and tried to seize the castle but were repelled by Governor William Blakeney then the Duke of Cumberland the oldest buildings at the site date from the 14th century from the Esplanade there was a drawbridge leading into the original entrance and the lower court angle James v built the magnificent palace which was adorned with grotesque carvings consisting of three stories the ground floor was used as a storeroom the first floor was a principal floor and it consisted of dining rooms reception rooms with drawing rooms and public and private apartments all of which were large and eerie with finely carved stone fireplaces the upper floor contained bed chambers it was built in the Renaissance style heavily influenced by French architecture although there are some traces of Gothic architecture above each first floor window was carved at M Panem bearing the Royal initials g5 on a tablet supported by a dolphin on each side the bars on the window are said to have been put in place to protect James's ex and a story goes that the cently nians blacksmith who made them got no payment until he was crowned King of England in 1603 he went to London with his account and presented it to the king who authorised his payment the account was made out in pounds scots but he got paid by the treasury in London in English Pounds meaning he was paid twelve times more and he was entitled to it was from this palace that the sterling heads were taken down in 1777 secured by the governor of sterling Jail who gave them away the sterling Corporation secured others these heads were series of oak carvings with heads inside and wreaths surrounding the edges they were of the king and queen and their contemporaries the ceilings where they were attached were probably divided by oak struts and the heads placed in each square it was here James v mourned the loss of his first wife Queen Madeleine of Valois in 1537 and where he married Marie of Gea's the following year their infant daughter Mary Queen of Scots was crowned at the castle on 9th September 15 43h nine months having become Queen at just six days old following the death of her father she was kept there until for security reasons she was taken to inch Macomb each five along with the four Mary's before setting sail to France where she spent the next 13 years in the French Court in 1562 she returned to Sterling where she narrowly escaped being burned to death by accident it was also there she met Henry Stuart Lord Darnley and married him their son who became James's six following Mary's abdication in 1567 was baptized there he was crammed at the parish church of stirling nearby aged 13 months and brought up by john erskine the Earl of Mar hereditary keeper of the castle meanwhile his mother languished in England a prisoner of Elizabeth the first until her death on 8 February 1587 at the center of the quadrangle was the lion's den or the main court on the first floor there is a suite of staterooms with the floor above being residential these later became officers quarters in the upper quadrangle was the Great Hall also known as a parliament hall built by James assert measuring 126 feet by 36 feet the largest in Scotland in 1777 this became a barracks much was the integrity of the Old Royal affiliation destroyed below the castle were the vaults in which the radical prisoners John Baird and Andrew Hardy were kept until their execution in 1820 at the Market Cross in Stirling the doclet room is infamous situated to the left of the square it was where the young james ii killed 27 year old William a Farrell of Douglas in February 1450 to Douglas a friend of the King had been invited to dine with him probably to try and reason with him but James accused him of taking an allegiance against him with John McDonald Lord of the Isles and Alexander Lindsay Errol of Crawford and an argument ensued the fiery tempered King stabbed his friend with a dagger he was finished off by courtiers and an awl was stabbed 26 times 1/4 was alleged to have smashed his skull with an axe his bloody body was thrown from the window and buried in the courtyard below a royal chapel was constructed by James's six for the baptism of Henry his son in 1594 at a cost of 100,000 pounds a fortune at the time the ceiling was embellished with gold and the walls adorned with pictures sculptures and other ornaments the scale of the celebration was enormous with a sumptuous banquet following his christening in the Great Hall in 1542 James v established the mint at the castle where bobbies and half bobbies originally known as babies were coined the buildings between the original entrance and the present one were constructed at the time of Queen Anne as where the spare battery and the Queen Ann battery on the castle ramparts that our viewpoints named after Mary Queen of Scots known as Queen Mary's lookout and marked with M R and Queen Victoria's look out after Victoria's visit there in 1842 with the outbreak of the Revolutionary Wars and Napoleonic Wars Stirling Castle began its career as a military barracks having fallen into disrepair in 1794 it was a rendezvous point when Campbell of Lough Nell mustered Duke of Argyll's Highland regiment which eventually became their gaol and Sutherland Highlanders the barracks were provided by splitting the Great Hall into rooms with an insertion of walls and floors the Chapel Royal became a storage facility and new buildings were added such as the guard house and the fort majors house powder magazines were pretend at the nether Billy in 1906 King Edward the seventh asked for the maintenance of the building to be passed his office of works from the War Office and in 1964 it ceased as a military post the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders regimental museum is housed in the King's old building which was damaged by fire in 1855 more recently major works were carried out at the castle with the restoration of the Great Hall in the 1990s with Queen Elizabeth the second opening it on 30th November 1999 and the restoration of the Sterling Heads excavations also took place and nine bodies were found at a lost royal chapel under the governor's ketch dating from between 13th and 15th centuries two of these a man and a woman were of great interest to archeologists but the man thought to be a knight who died from an arrow wound and the women killed by a double blow to her skull from a mace both were thought to be in their twenties and being buried in the old chapel suggests they were both of high-status resplendent in its beauty and historically one of the most significant buildings in the country sterling castles rich history continues to grow to this II [Music]

Channel: Scotland's History

Views: 4,544

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: Stirling, Stirling Castle, Stirlingshire, Mary Queen of Scots, James V, James VI, James II, Douglas, garrison, fortress, Maetae, broch, Castle Rock, Battle of Stirling Bridge, Bannockburn, Edward I, Edward II, Marie of Guise, Darnley, Henry Stuart, murder, palace, Elizabeth II, battery, Queen Anne, renaissance, gothic, gargoyles, Scotland's history, Scottish history, Alexander III, Scotland, Scottish, history, Scotland's, Valerie Forsyth, Scotland's History, Minecraft, minecraft, tour scotland

Id: ltodXU91KIo

Length: 16min 48sec (1008 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 25 2020