03.06. Stirling, Bannockburn, and Edinburg

Chapter 6 Loch Katrine -- Stirling Castle -- Battlefield of Bannockburn-Edinburgh Castle -- Holyrood Palace.

Loch Katrine lies at right angles with Loch Lomond -- the latter running north and south, the former east and west. The traveler stages it five miles to go from one to the other. Loch Katrine is about nine miles in length, and the loveliest scenery is at the eastern end. Here, like an emerald gem upon the bosom of the lake, is Ellen’s Isle. Ben Venue towers up on the south bank, and Ben Aan on the north shore. The island is between the two, and not sixty yards from the northern bank.

It is about two acres in extent, and covered with trees. You get a glimpse, as you pass, of the "Silver Strand" where Ellen’s boat landed at the Fitz-James interview. The Trosachs is a wild, beautiful valley, running from Loch Katrine to Loch Achray. Let the reader turn to Scott’s "Lady of the Lake" to obtain a description of this lovely glen. The tourist passes over twelve or fifteen miles of the deer chase so graphically presented in the above mentioned poem. And it added greatly to the charm of the stage ride, after leaving Loch Katrine, to identify the various points, with the guide book in one hand, and Walter Scott’s "Lady of the Lake" in the other.

I came to Stirling by rail. The object of greatest interest in the town is the historic castle. From the depot there is a steady ascent through the city up to the castle gate. The information was here given me that the few times that this historic and royal fortress had been taken, it had always been captured on the town side. Here was food for reflection. The guide did not know how suggestive and significant was his speech. Somehow it is the town side I have learned to dread in a man’s life. How many fathers, husbands, and sons are being captured and ruined on the town side.

Let a double wall of defence be run there as has been done at Stirling Castle. From the lofty walls on the northern side I was shown the battlefield of Stirling, where Wallace with ten thousand men, defeated the Earl of Surrey with a much larger army. The windings of the river Forth helped the noble Scotch leader to obtain the victory. From the east wall the prospect is simply glorious in its breadth amid length, and in the panorama of fields, rivers, hills, and mountains in the far distance. Stirling Castle is a landmark that can be seen for thirty or forty miles around. I was not surprised now at recalling what was told me on Ben Lomond, that on a fair day this castle could be plainly seen. From the south wall you can see in the distance, two or three miles away, the battlefield of Bannockburn. I could not help thinking how these castle walls, and the tops of the houses in the town of Stirling, were crowded with anxious observers of those two famous battles. What straining eyes, and white cheeks, and fervent prayers for son, and husband, and brother, and father who were in the conflict in the field beneath; and, besides this, the liberty of Scotland and their own lives were at stake. Yonder they could see the men falling to rise no more. Whose loved one was it? From the east wall you see near by the Grey Friars’ Cathedral, where Mary, Queen of Scots, was crowned. The castle is garrisoned by three or four hundred young Highlanders. They are dressed in the military Highland costume, bare knees and all. With quite a redundancy of color, they look like animated rainbows as they pace their beats, or move about the court-yard. Viewed from a distance, with kirtle, plaid, armor, and an immense black shako on their heads, they presented an alarming appearance; but when you get nearer the fierce-looking warrior, and give a furtive look up under the nodding helmet, you encounter the smooth face, and beardless lip and cheek of a boy of eighteen or twenty. There he was, trying to look fierce, and holding his gun as if the castle was in a state of siege. I could scarcely restrain my smiles as I looked at the soldier-boy guard and at his three hundred companions. They are all boys and youths just enlisted, and they feel their importance, and have donned the war look in absence of war paint. I thought of the children at home, who, in their games, try to frighten their parents with sundry terrible faces and bloodcurdling cries. I thought of the fanners quietly reaping in the fields in sight of Stirling. I had a vision of Peace and Plenty, with their beautiful arms resting on the hills, and, with cheek in hand, smilingly looking down on the sheltered land. And I thought of these fierce boys in the castle of Stirling, keeping watch over some old gray walls and towers that everybody has forgotten but the traveler and the reader of history. Hold fast to your guns, ye sons of Mars! Bayonet every rat that attempts to come in under the portcullis; look out some rainy, windy night for the ghost of James Douglass, who was murdered by James II in yonder room and flung from the window into the court-yard; or, maybe, when the moon shines faintly through thin white clouds, you will see Mary, Queen of Scots, standing on the castle wall, wringing her hands over Scotland; or, perhaps, you will hear chattering voices coming up from yonder grated dungeon. If you hear or see anything, shoot your gun and fall back into the inner tower. Bar and bolt every gate, and, at all events, hold the castle! But hear me, my young Highlander: Long before you will ever have the opportunity of sheathing your bayonet in human flesh, the gospel of our blessed Lord will have so spread, and will have such a grip on men’s hearts, and consciences, and judgments, that war will cease, and that sword of thine will become a pruning-hook.*

Taking a cab, I drove out to the field of Bannockburn. An iron grating and a large flagstaff mark the place where the Scottish standard was planted. By the spot I stood and took in the features of the battle-plain. Here is the gentle eminence upon which Bruce extended the lines of his troops for half a mile. At the base of it, two hundred yards away, is still flowing the little stream of Bannockburn. It flows water today, but it ran blood on that day. It is only about ten or twelve feet wide. I went down and examined it. Just beyond the stream was the marsh in which the English horse became entangled; and to the right of that, as we stand looking south, is the field that Bruce had filled with pits, and that completed the confusion of the invading army. The marsh and field are now well-cultivated wheat fields; and, where the English fell and died in great numbers, I now see a score of reapers diligently at work. What a sight that English army of one hundred thousand men, spread out on the plains an d hill-sides yonder, must have presented! Far to the left and to the south was pointed out to me the place where Edward’s tent was pitched, and where he viewed the battle. To the right is the hill over which the camp followers suddenly appeared, to the final discouragement or the invaders. Then memory brought back the remarkable scene, when thirty thousand men knelt in prayer in one long line on this eminence, while the good abbot extended his hands and blessed them. Could such men fail? Would God leave such an army to defeat? Then I recalled Robert Bruce’s address to his soldiers. And then I sang the beautiful and stirring song written by Burns: "Scots who hae with Wallace bled, Scots whom Bruce has often led, Welcome to your gory bed, Or to glorious victory."

One of the loveliest pictures I saw while in Scotland met my gaze in the suburbs of Stirling, in the person of a little boy, about four years of age, standing on a fence blowing soap bubbles, and watching them float away and burst. As I passed in the cab I smiled upon him, and the little fellow smiled back, and turned to look after another bubble that he had just cast off. How interested he was, and what a bright, eager little face he had! He little thought or cared that the stranger who had just passed him prayed God to bless his future life. As I looked back at him, the reflection came: Well, the world is doing just what that little boy is doing -- blowing bubbles -- there being this one difference: that the world cries when its bubbles burst and vanish; but the boy smiled.

Over the immense bridge that spans the Frith of Forth we next sped on our way to the ancient capital of Scotland. The Brooklyn Bridge is 3,470 feet long and 135 feet high; The Bridge of Forth is 7,295 feet long and 370 feet above the water level. In Edinburgh we first visited the castle. This is built on an eminence even higher than that of Stirling Castle, being, as we were informed, five hundred feet above the level of the sea. There are seven gates to be passed before you get admittance into the castle proper. As I counted them, looked at the huge portcullis arrangement beside, and then glanced down from the lofty walls that crown the rocky and perpendicular crag to the street, over four hundred feet below me, I saw here was another impregnable fortress. The guide told me it always had to be starved into surrender.

History speaks of one exception, and the case is told very thrillingly in one of Grace Aguilar’s books, called "The Days of Bruce." How I pored over that book when a boy! Randolph, a gallant follower of Bruce, one dark night, with thirty men, climbed these heights that previously, on account of their loftiness and perpendicularity, had been regarded as unscalable. It was accomplished through the leadership of a young man who had formerly dwelt in the castle, and who, from the ardent desire to visit his sweetheart every night in the town, found a way down the face of the precipice to the ground below. What will not love make a man attempt and achieve! He it was who guided Randolph and his small band up the face of the cliff, to the surprise and capture of the garrison.

Here I found another regiment of young Highlanders, looking, if possible, more bloodthirsty than the Stirling battalion. England seems to be having some difficulty in finding recruits for her army. The walls and street corners abound in flaming placards, offering great inducements to young men to enlist in the service. Pictures of gorgeously arrayed grenadiers, and helmeted and plumed dragoons, fill up the sides of the placard to assist the youth in coming to a decision. The promise of being taken into the civil service, after so many years is added by way of lagniappe. [an extra benefit] The pay per annum, while serving, is three pounds, or fifteen dollars.

High street, in Edinburgh, is interesting from one end to the other. I question whether another street in the world can group together as many historic places and objects of note. The Heart of Mid-Lothian is here, the Church of John Knox, the residence of the same apostolic man, the place where the coronation of kings was publicly announced, the house where the first Bible was printed in Scotland, the houses of illustrious men, and, not least in interest, the stone pillar where scolding wives were once chained for a certain number of hours. I accepted the last piece of information with a certain amount of mental reservation. The guide spoke with some feeling on the subject. He regarded it as a good custom, and, in a word, I gathered from the little he said that there was an agitated family history at his home.

Holyrood Palace and Abbey made a profound impression upon me. The palace faces west, and, with its four-story front and four towers in a line, is a most imposing building. Although a number of kings and queens of Scotland have dwelt here, yet the mind singles out one above all, and keeps that one in memory all the time of the visit. I refer to Mary, Queen of Scots. Her rooms were on the third floor, as we say in America; but in the second story, as they call it in Great Britain. She had four apartments. One was her audience-room; back of that, and looking out of the front window of the palace, was her sleeping chamber. Two of the towers in front afforded her two other small apartments, eight by ten in dimension. Both of these small rooms opened into her sleeping chamber. One she used as her dressing-room; the other, which was in the northwest corner of the palace, she kept as her private supping-room. This last room has no outlet except through the sleeping apartment of the queen. In this room occurred that famous supper scene which was so violently and suddenly interrupted by her husband, Lord Darnley, and a few other Scotch noblemen rushing in and murdering her favorite secretary, Rizzio, before her eyes. They dragged his body through her sleeping-room, stabbing the dying wretch as they went, then through the audience-room, and left him, with fifty wounds, dead at the head of the staircase. In her bed room, and a few feet from the door of the small supper-room, I was shown another door opening upon a private staircase used by Mary, and up which the murderers came. What great people they were in those days for private stairways, and secret postern doors, and under-ground passages! The other end of this private stairway I afterward saw in a corner of the abbey, nearly a hundred yards away. Where else it wandered in the thick walls of the palace I could not tell. Doubtless the queen returned from her religious devotions in the abbey thus privately to her room. I was shown her bed in the sleeping-room. I wouldn’t have it if it was given to me. The mirror in which her beautiful face was reflected still hangs upon the wall.

What a sad, careworn face it became afterwards! Her beauty was a snare to her and others, and led to the death of a number. Chastelard, the nephew of Chevalier Bayard, became infatuated, and secreted himself behind the tapestry of her room. Her maid attendants discovered him and on his repeating the offense, he was tried and beheaded. Bothwell blew her husband up with gunpowder, in order to marry her; and still others, on her account, came to an untimely grave. In the audience-room the stormy interviews between herself and John Knox took place.

Every time he denounced her worldly, or Catholic, course she would send for him, and there would be bitter upbraiding, ending with a shower of tears. Knox stood like the Eddystone Lighthouse; the water dashed in vain, and he shone on. On one occasion Queen Mary, in her indignation, sent him out in the ante-room to await her good pleasure. There he found himself in the presence of the "four Marys," her attendants and maids of honor. Without a moment’s delay he turned to the simpering, bedizened girls of the court, and gave them a solemn exhortation and warning. How differently some of us would have acted! If we ever had screwed up sufficient courage to have rebuked the sins of the wealthy or of royalty; if even then we had been dismissed to cool the blood in an ante-room, and there found these giggling maidens, we would have said: "Fine weather we are having, ladies. I hope to see you out to our evening service at St. Giles. We will not keep you long, and, beside, there is a lovely song service preceding the sermon. Do come." And so, graciously smiling, we would have bowed ourselves out, and left four immortal souls unwarned. This is just where comes in the difference between our spinality and the vertebral column of John Knox. And this difference, barely touched upon, explains exactly why the Scottish preacher has a great monument, and is known to the world, while some of us have none, and are not known or felt anywhere.

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*[Transcriber Note: This remark reveals what seems to be Post-Millennial views by Carradine, and this assessment of his views on that subject is also substantiated by other comments here and there in his writings.] * * * * * * *