Secrets Of Great British Castles - Season 1, Episode 5 Stirling Castle
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00:00For me, a great British castle is a fortress, a palace, a home.
00:11And a symbol of power, majesty and fear.
00:16For nearly 1,000 years,
00:18castles have shaped Britain's famous landscape.
00:24These magnificent buildings have been home to some of the greatest heroes
00:28and villains in our national history.
00:31And many of them still stand proudly today,
00:34bursting with incredible stories of warfare, treachery, intrigue and even murder.
00:46Join me, Dan Jones, as I uncover the secrets behind six great British castles.
00:54This time, I'm in Stirling.
00:58For centuries, this castle divided the warring nations of England and Scotland.
01:07But ultimately, it was the key to uniting them,
01:11to make Britain as we know it today.
01:28The Forth Rail Bridge is one of Scotland's most famous sights.
01:39It's big, it's red and it takes a very long time to paint.
01:44But it's more than just a pretty piece of engineering.
01:49This bridge connects, or divides, the Scottish Highlands and the rest of the kingdom.
01:58In the Middle Ages, the Forth Estuary was known as the Scottish Sea.
02:03It was wide and inaccessible,
02:05and the land on the other side was known as Scotia Ultramarina,
02:09Scotland beyond the sea.
02:12Controlling the crossing of this river
02:14was the key to controlling the whole of Scotland.
02:24And if you wanted to get beyond the sea,
02:27you had to cross the river.
02:29But in the Middle Ages, you couldn't just hop on the train.
02:34You had to walk or ride 34 miles along the riverbank to this place.
02:41The city of Stirling was known as the gateway to the highlands,
02:46and for good reason.
02:52For centuries, the first point upstream where you could cross the river Forth
02:56was here at Stirling.
02:58The old medieval bridge was only a few feet away,
03:00but it was so narrow that only two men could cross it at a time.
03:09You couldn't control Scotland without controlling Stirling Bridge,
03:12and something that important needed to be protected.
03:27Legend has it that everyone from the Romans to King Arthur
03:31built the first castle at Stirling.
03:34It's not hard to see why.
03:36It's high on a volcanic crag and surrounded on three sides by steep cliffs,
03:42and it commands the crossing of the river.
03:46In fact, the first man to fortify it
03:49was the Scottish king Alexander I in the 12th century.
03:56It soon became a favourite royal palace,
03:59and each generation for the next 600 years added new walls, turrets and buildings.
04:07Stirling was built to be unbreakable,
04:10and in the late 13th century, it was put to the test for the first time.
04:16In 1286, King Alexander III died without a male heir.
04:21The crown of Scotland fell into dispute.
04:25Fourteen men claimed the throne,
04:28so the Scots invited their neighbour, Edward I of England, to mediate.
04:34It was a bad move.
04:36Instead of trying to get the throne back,
04:39the Scots had a plan.
04:42It was a bad move.
04:44Instead of trying to help, Edward invaded Scotland and tried to conquer it.
04:50The war he began lasted almost a century
04:53and claimed tens of thousands of lives.
04:56One of its most famous battles was fought directly below the castle,
05:02which was in English hands.
05:04It was the Battle of Stirling Bridge.
05:08By 1296, Edward I had given up on mediation
05:11and switched into full conquest mode.
05:14He sent 6,000 men to this side of the river
05:17because waiting on the other side, on top of that hill,
05:20was a man called William Wallace,
05:22who history, or cinema, has remembered as Braveheart.
05:38Wallace was an obscure, small-time nobleman,
05:42but he knew how to fight in Scotland and win.
05:48He relied on smart tactics and making the most of local terrain.
05:54Which was just as well, because on September 11th 1297,
05:59the whole future of Scotland depended on Wallace
06:03and a tiny force of loyal men defending Stirling Bridge.
06:13The English were a well-organised army with hundreds of cavalry.
06:17The Scots were mainly infantry.
06:27But on the morning of the battle there were three problems.
06:31First, the bridge was so narrow the English could only cross two by two.
06:39Secondly, the bridge came out on a narrow spit of land
06:42formed by a horseshoe in the river.
06:45And third, William Wallace attacked early.
06:53There were almost 6,000 English soldiers,
06:56but only some of them had crossed the bridge when Wallace attacked.
07:01The English army was now split between the two ends of the bridge.
07:07The Scots swooped on the cavalry that had crossed
07:11and began to run them through with their spears.
07:16Then it got worse for the English.
07:19The land they marched onto was soft and muddy
07:22and not suitable for heavily armoured horses and riders.
07:27The Scots captured the bridgehead
07:30and slaughtered the English who were trapped behind their lines.
07:40Those left on the English side bottled it and ran away.
07:45One of the English leaders, Hugh de Cressingham, was flayed.
07:49His skin was divided up as trophies
07:51and William Wallace supposedly used some of it to make a belt for his sword.
07:57For the English, this was a total disgrace.
08:01They lost over half their army to a ragtag force of peasants and putts.
08:07They abandoned the castle to Wallace.
08:11Edward I was humiliated and he would take terrible revenge.
08:17He spent years hunting Wallace,
08:19eventually bringing him to London to be hanged, drawn and quartered.
08:26Meanwhile, the English were still on their way to London.
08:30Eventually bringing him to London to be hanged, drawn and quartered.
08:36Meanwhile, the war dragged on.
08:39In 1303, Edward launched another military campaign
08:43right into the heart of Scotland.
08:47This time, the Scots occupied Stirling.
08:52The English king didn't just want to kick them out.
08:55He wanted to teach them a lesson they wouldn't forget.
09:01Edward knew that taking this castle was far too important
09:04to leave to his minions, so he decided to come himself.
09:10And he decided to bring with him
09:12the biggest and most feared weapon in the medieval world.
09:30At the start of the 14th century,
09:32Stirling Castle, the toughest fortress in Scotland,
09:36was about to face the meanest military machine in medieval history.
09:43The siege began on the 21st of April, 1304.
09:47Inside the castle was William Olyphant and a handful of men.
09:51But outside was the entire might of Edward I's army.
09:57The English had 17 siege engines,
10:01including one weapon bigger than anything that had ever been seen before.
10:07The castle was about to take a battering,
10:10but it wasn't just shock and awe tactics.
10:13This was also public entertainment.
10:17It was a spectator event, so stands had been built for onlookers.
10:21The queen's apartments had a specially large window cut into them
10:25so she could watch what was going on.
10:29And the siege engines had been given special nicknames.
10:33Lincoln, Le Vicre, Seagrave, Kingston.
10:36But the biggest attraction of all was Warwick.
10:41Warwick was the largest catapult, or trebuchet,
10:45that had ever been conceived.
10:49It was built outside the castle walls
10:52and took 50 carpenters at least three months to complete.
11:01The castle was built in the late 13th century.
11:05It took three months to complete.
11:14In July 1304, Warwolf was ready.
11:18It really was a monster.
11:31In the thick of war, this would be a terrifying thing to see.
11:34I honestly cannot imagine what it must have felt like.
11:36You're under siege, your food's running short,
11:39and suddenly all these carts start arriving on the field.
11:42And then they start to assemble outside the front of the castle,
11:46these great siege engines.
11:48And you know within two or three days
11:50that your castle's going to be pounded into oblivion
11:53by huge stone balls flying through the air.
11:56It must have been terrifying.
11:58And what are we firing? I mean, stones, fire?
12:02What's coming out of the end?
12:04So, cattle carcasses, diseased cattle carcasses,
12:07the remains of your enemy.
12:09You catch people that have come out of the castle on sorties,
12:12behead them, and fling their heads back over the wall.
12:14And very often, their heads would go back over the wall with notes attached.
12:18The other thing is Greek fire.
12:20No-one really knows what it was. We've lost the recipe for it.
12:23Pine resin, naphtha, saltpeter.
12:26Essentially, it was something that would just continue to burn.
12:30So, probably some kind of petroleum-based or tar-based substance
12:34that was sticky, that would float,
12:36that would stick to everything and just keep burning.
12:39A bit like some medieval napalm.
12:41That's exactly what it is. That's exactly what it is.
12:43And it would stick to everything and it would just burn and burn and burn.
12:46And once you get fire in a castle, it's a lethal combination.
12:52And the garrison saw this beast being assembled.
12:55They did what any sane human being would do.
12:57They surrendered. But Edward was having none of it.
13:00He built his toy, he wanted to use it,
13:03and he ordered them to stay in the castle until he was ready to fire.
13:12The guys are going to get out and get on the brakes.
13:14If you need it slowing down at any point, tell these guys here
13:17and they will just put a little bit of pressure on the brakes
13:20and it will slow down and you'll be fine.
13:22Just remember just to keep walking.
13:24Just keep on walking and you'll be fine.
13:27Super. Stylish.
13:31Wands, are you ready?
13:33Wands, are you ready?
13:35Wands, are you ready?
13:36Wands, are you ready?
13:42There you go.
13:43That is a strange sensation.
13:48Trebuchets use massive counterweights to rotate a throwing arm
13:53loaded with a projectile.
13:56The shooting process uses brute manpower to raise the counterweight.
14:01With a machine this size, that's a lot of manpower.
14:08One down, done.
14:09Is it all the way down now? It's half way?
14:11No, it's flat.
14:14All right?
14:15I know how a hamster feels.
14:21We're nearly there, yeah.
14:23We're nearly there, yeah.
14:24Ah, I'm getting there.
14:26Ready on the brakes.
14:27Keep going slow.
14:29Don't hold.
14:30Pressure to roll.
14:40Prepare to load.
14:46It's live. We did that.
14:48Yeah.
14:50When you drop the box, you flip the arm,
14:52and away goes your projectile.
14:53All right.
14:54Well, I shall take a certain personal satisfaction in seeing this one go.
14:58Go!
15:07Fire! Fire!
15:10Fire!
15:15Good God.
15:20Oh!
15:30A single shot from Warwolf completely destroyed the castle's gatehouse.
15:35Stirling was in English hands again, but the victory was short-lived.
15:41Three years later, Edward was dead.
15:44His hapless son, Edward II, became King of England.
15:49And the Scots came roaring back.
15:52They retook nearly every castle.
15:55Only Roxburgh, Edinburgh, Berwick and Stirling remained.
15:59They did it thanks to one of the most famous kings in their entire history,
16:04Robert the Bruce.
16:07Bruce was a tough, shrewd soldier.
16:11In spring 1314, he sent his brother to put Stirling Castle under siege
16:17and flush the English out.
16:27In June, Edward II marched an army north to relieve the castle.
16:34By June 22, Edward was only 15 miles away at Falkirk,
16:38and it seemed like nothing was going to stop him from relieving Stirling Castle.
16:43Only one thing stood in his way. Bannockburn.
16:55The Battle of Bannockburn was fought within sight of Stirling Castle
16:59on boggy ground near the River Forth.
17:02It was the most notorious clash in the War of Scottish Independence
17:07and one of the most celebrated moments in the whole of Scottish history.
17:13On one side was a Scottish army of around 6,000 infantry
17:20and 500 cavalry under Robert the Bruce.
17:23On the other was 15,000 English infantry and over 2,000 mounted troops.
17:30The only possible outcome seemed to be a crushing victory for the invaders.
17:37To defend against the English cavalry, Bruce divided his troops into schiltrons.
17:43These were tightly packed groups, bristling with pikes
17:47and virtually impregnable to a heavy horse charge.
18:07The English fell into their trap.
18:10They charged the schiltrons and their horsemen were impaled on Scottish spears.
18:16Unable to hold formation, they broke ranks and fled.
18:22The English weren't just defeated, they were crushed, humiliated.
18:27Their knights gored by the Scottish spears
18:30and others trampled to death, quite literally, in a river of blood.
18:35And amidst all this chaos and this carnage,
18:38the English king, Edward II, turned his back on the English.
18:43The English were defeated.
18:46Amidst all this chaos and this carnage,
18:49the English king, Edward II, turned and fled.
19:03When Robert the Bruce took possession of the castle, he did what he always did.
19:07He destroyed it so it would be of no use to his enemies again.
19:13Bruce has a statue outside Stirling today,
19:16but when he'd finished with the castle in 1314,
19:19its towers and defences had been torn down and its buildings burned.
19:24For more than 20 years, this mighty fortress was a useless shell.
19:31But Scotland's great stone guardian would rise again,
19:35and from within its walls would come one of British history's most dangerous figures.
19:41Not a warrior, but a woman.
19:44Her name was Mary, Queen of Scots.
19:56In the late 14th century, Stirling Castle was a wreck.
20:00It had survived attacks by English armies,
20:03but a Scottish king, Robert the Bruce, had burned it to the ground.
20:08But the castle was soon reborn.
20:11Its patrons were the Stuart family,
20:14a line of kings who rose to rule not only Scotland, but all of Britain.
20:24Today, the oldest parts of Stirling Castle date from the 1380s,
20:29when the Stuarts first held it.
20:32The family repaired and reinforced the north and south gates.
20:37They built a royal chapel and redesigned the gardens.
20:42But if the castle was starting to look prettier, it still had a dark side.
20:48These new kings of Scotland also used Stirling as a place to do their dirty work.
20:55The early Stuarts were a brutal, violent mob.
20:58James I had several of his cousins executed outside these castle walls.
21:03James II stabbed the Earl of Douglas to death,
21:06threw his body out of one of those windows,
21:08and James III was so feckless, lazy and irresponsible,
21:12his own son was implicated in his death at the Battle of Sockeyburn.
21:18That son was James IV.
21:21James has gone down in history as Scotland's first true Renaissance king.
21:27He was pious, well-read, charming, creative,
21:31and spoke at least eight languages.
21:34He was the first Stuart more interested in art and learning
21:38than in having his relatives.
21:40James III was the first King of England,
21:43and he was the first Stuart more interested in art and learning
21:47than in having his relatives murdered.
21:51All the same, he kept some pretty peculiar company,
21:55and under his rule, Stirling Castle hosted
21:58some of Europe's most extraordinary and eccentric characters.
22:05James's reign might have begun in rebellion and intrigue,
22:08but it soon blossomed as he brought the best
22:10of the Renaissance to Scotland.
22:12He built the Great Hall here at Stirling...
22:18..filled it with artists, poets, composers...
22:23..scientists, doctors, diplomats...
22:27..mistresses...
22:34..and, best of all, his own personal alchemist.
22:41The goal of the alchemist was simple,
22:45to discover the mythical fifth element, or quintessence,
22:49and turn base metals into gold.
22:57James's alchemist was a man called John Damien,
23:00who came from Europe to Scotland, claiming to be a doctor.
23:05The records describe him as the French leech,
23:08because he used leeches to bleed people in surgical procedures.
23:12The problem was, he wasn't very good at it,
23:14and the records say, in leechcraft, he was homicide.
23:19So he reinvented himself as an alchemist
23:21and persuaded James to pay for his furnaces here at Stirling Castle.
23:28And very clearly, alchemy didn't work.
23:32And very clearly, alchemy didn't come cheap.
23:36Royal account books from the time give us a remarkable insight
23:40into the workings of Damien's laboratory.
23:53We start with his clothes.
23:55He has a long damask gown lined with lambskin,
23:59a scarlet hose, velvet breeches, a cape and a hat.
24:04In other words, he looked like a wizard.
24:06But it's his list of ingredients which are great.
24:08Coal and wood for his furnaces, tin, silver, salt.
24:15Aquavit, which is a famous Scottish chemical compound
24:18better known as whiskey.
24:20And gold coins, obviously, to get the potion started.
24:25Manuscripts of the period say he needed a quantity of good wine
24:30which would be distilled several times over furnaces.
24:34So, basically, he's making very strong, pure alcohol,
24:37which would bring back the spring of youth
24:40and put the king and John Damien in a state
24:43of great highness of glorification.
24:49The records also show Damien winning money from the king
24:52playing cards and dice.
24:54I reckon he was a bit of a hustler.
25:03But he was a showman, too.
25:05Damien kept the court entertained
25:07with his grand public science experiments.
25:14The most famous, and ridiculous of all of them,
25:17was quite literally launched on the day of his death.
25:22The castle walls.
25:26The story goes, and a stressed story,
25:29that in September 1507,
25:32he announced to James IV's court
25:34that he would fly from Stirling Castle to France.
25:38To France? To France.
25:40That's quite a flight. It's a fair old distance.
25:42But he was prepared.
25:43He had wings made out of feathers,
25:45a phedron, as it was known in Scots.
25:48Of course, when he leaps away, he doesn't go out of the way,
25:51he goes down the way.
25:53But he's fortunate, because he lands in a midden.
25:56It's a soft landing.
25:57He landed in a midden? What's a midden?
25:59Ah, a midden. Another good Scots word.
26:01A midden is essentially a rubbish dump.
26:04All the effluents from the castle,
26:06all the garbage from the kitchen,
26:08all gets thrown over the walls into the midden, the dump.
26:11And that is what John Damien is said to have landed in.
26:14Soft, at least.
26:15A soft landing, and ensured his survival.
26:22Although James IV was happy to indulge men like Damien,
26:26he also put Stirling Castle to good political use.
26:31Perhaps James' smartest move
26:33was to secure an alliance with England by marrying Margaret Tudor,
26:37daughter of Henry VII and sister of Henry VIII.
26:41She came north in 1503 with lands,
26:44a large dowry and the promise of perpetual peace.
26:47But what no-one could have known
26:49was that within three generations
26:51this marriage would put a Scottish Stuart king
26:54on the throne of England.
27:10Margaret gave birth to at least one of her six children
27:14at Stirling Castle,
27:16and in 1513, after James IV was killed fighting the English
27:21at the Battle of Flodden,
27:23Margaret's 17-month-old son
27:25was crowned King James V in the royal chapel.
27:38When James V grew up,
27:40he continued to develop the castle in rather unusual style.
27:46To the left of the gatehouse
27:48and forming the south side of the inner close
27:51is the Royal Palace.
27:53It's one of the most architecturally impressive buildings
27:56in all of Scotland.
27:59In fact, it wouldn't look out of place in Versailles.
28:03And there's a reason for that.
28:10James V's second wife was Mary of Guise,
28:13who turned down the chance to be Henry VIII's fourth wife,
28:16saying,
28:17I may be large of body, but my neck is small.
28:22Together with James, Mary created this Royal Palace.
28:26It's a beacon of French culture in the middle of Scotland,
28:29and even today,
28:31it's one of the finest Renaissance buildings in Britain.
28:35Inside, the palace is divided into two opulent apartments
28:40with their own bedchambers and reception rooms,
28:43one for the king and another for the queen.
28:49Most striking of all, though,
28:51is the ceiling of the king's chamber,
28:53which is decorated with carved oak portraits,
28:56known as the Sterling Heads.
28:58They depict mythical figures, ancient emperors and Scottish royals,
29:03and, as the Stuarts would demonstrate,
29:05there was no shortage of those.
29:11Scottish kings had a terrible habit of dying young
29:14and leaving children as their heirs.
29:16James IV was 15 years old when he inherited his crown,
29:19James V was only 16 months,
29:21and when both kings died,
29:23they were buried in the same place.
29:25James V was 16 years old when he inherited his crown,
29:28James V was only 16 months,
29:30and when James V died,
29:32he left a six-day-old daughter as his heir,
29:35a little girl who would grow up one day to be known as Mary,
29:38Queen of Scots.
29:49From the minute she was born,
29:51Mary was one of the most important figures in all of British history.
29:56She was talented, attractive, bright and doomed.
30:03Her life story is one of history's greatest romantic tragedies,
30:08and it began at Stirling Castle.
30:13Mary was crowned here at Stirling when she was just nine months old,
30:17but in England, Henry VIII already had his eye on her,
30:20and created dynastic union between the two countries.
30:29Mary's mother, Mary of Guise,
30:31was bitterly opposed to an English marriage for her daughter.
30:36She knew it would break a 300-year-old alliance
30:39between Scotland and her native France.
30:43But locking the princess away in castles like Stirling,
30:47so she couldn't be seized and taken to England,
30:50only made Henry VIII angry.
30:53He ordered a series of brutal military raids on Scotland
30:57to bully them into releasing the princess.
31:00It was known as the Rough Wooing.
31:09For her safety, Mary was shepherded to France when she was five.
31:13She wouldn't be back for 13 years.
31:17By then, both Henry VIII and his son were dead,
31:21and Mary had married the King of France.
31:32But in August 1561, she returned to the land of her birth.
31:48Why did Mary come home?
31:50Well, in 1560, her husband had died
31:52and she'd been sidelined from French politics.
31:55But more importantly, two years earlier,
31:58Mary's cousin Elizabeth had become Queen of England.
32:03And this was Mary's big chance.
32:06She had Tudor blood in her veins through her grandmother Margaret.
32:10She'd been Queen of France, she was still Queen of Scots.
32:14Now she wanted to be the lawful heir
32:16to Elizabeth's English crown too.
32:19Mary was ambitious, and she had plenty of supporters.
32:30For many of her supporters,
32:32Elizabeth was the first woman to be crowned.
32:36For many English Catholics, Elizabeth was the bastard,
32:40Protestant, heretic daughter of Anne Boleyn,
32:43and Mary was the rightful Queen of England.
32:46So at 18, Mary was returning to Stirling, to Scotland,
32:50and to her destiny.
32:56Elizabeth wasn't entirely thrilled.
32:59She refused to recognise Mary, or anyone else,
33:03as her successor.
33:05And soon, Mary had problems of her own back in Scotland.
33:13In 1565, Mary married her cousin, Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley.
33:21He was a violent, drunken troublemaker
33:24who arranged for Mary's private secretary
33:27to be stabbed to death in front of her.
33:34But Darnley also got Mary pregnant.
33:38The Stuart dynasty would continue into another generation.
33:48When Mary had her child, it was a boy, a male heir.
33:52Obviously, they called him James and had him baptised here at Stirling.
33:56There was feasting, bonfires and fireworks across Scotland,
34:01but there were problems too.
34:03The child's godmother was Elizabeth I of England,
34:06but her representative stayed outside the chapel
34:09to protest the Catholic ceremony.
34:12As an adult, Mary's son would unite the whole of Britain under his rule,
34:17but this baby Stuart had the worst possible start in life.
34:22Both of his parents would soon be gone,
34:25one of them to prison and the other murdered.
34:31James VI of Scotland grew up in the lavish surroundings of Stirling Castle.
34:38But he had two big problems.
34:41His parents.
34:43His father, Lord Darnley, had refused to attend his son James' christening
34:49in Stirling's royal chapel in the late 17th century.
34:53He was a young man, but he was a man of his word.
34:57He attended his son James' christening in Stirling's royal chapel in December 1566.
35:04Soon afterwards, he contracted syphilis and left the castle.
35:08He went to stay in a house on the outskirts of Edinburgh.
35:14Weeks later, he was dead.
35:16The house he was staying in was blown up with gunpowder
35:20and Darnley's naked body was found in the garden,
35:23a grim scene depicted in this contemporary picture.
35:31Though there were no signs of violence on Darnley's corpse,
35:35the finger of blame pointed squarely towards men at the Queen's Court.
35:47The chief suspects were Mary's loyal circle of lords,
35:50including the Earl of Bothwell, who was reputed to be her lover.
35:54Bothwell was acquitted, but within three months, Mary had married him.
36:06Placards in the street depicted Mary as a mermaid, a symbol of a prostitute.
36:13She was forced to abdicate, leaving her one-year-old son
36:16as King James VI of Scotland.
36:20Less than a week after Mary, Queen of Scots, abdicated,
36:23James was crowned in Stirling Parish Church.
36:26He was 13 months old.
36:32The following year, Mary fled Scotland,
36:35hounded out by her political enemies.
36:39She headed south and threw herself on the mercy of her cousin,
36:43Elizabeth I of England.
36:46But instead of helping Mary return to rule Scotland,
36:50Elizabeth put her in prison.
36:53She stayed there for nearly 20 years,
36:56before being beheaded for plotting against the English queen in 1587.
37:16James VI didn't have the best start in life.
37:19After all, his father had been murdered,
37:22his mother had been branded a whore and forced to abdicate.
37:25In fact, his whole family history was of betrayal, backstabbing and murder.
37:30You have to wonder, what chance did this poor kid have?
37:37The education James received at Stirling
37:40was a matter of massive political importance.
37:44His attitudes towards issues like religious reform
37:47were going to shape Scotland's future.
37:53Unlike his Catholic mother,
37:55James was brought up as a member of the Protestant Church of Scotland.
37:59He was educated by tutors, appointed by the Privy Council.
38:05They included the highly respected humanist scholar, George Buchanan.
38:14This is the schoolroom where James VI received his lessons
38:19from his tutor, George Buchanan.
38:25James was a very good pupil.
38:27He learned history, rhetoric, mathematics, languages and military strategy.
38:32Most importantly, Buchanan tried to teach James
38:36about his duties and responsibilities as a constitutional monarch.
38:40He wasn't afraid to beat the lessons of the young king, either.
38:45James VI's education would set him up.
38:48This was the king who would sponsor the King James Bible
38:51and write his own treatises on kingship.
38:54But it was his bloodline that really changed his life.
39:00Elizabeth I had spent much of her reign
39:03trying to keep her cousin, Mary Queen of Scots, away from her throne.
39:07But when Elizabeth died in 1603, there was only one heir,
39:11Mary's son, James VI of Scotland,
39:14who now became James I of England and Ireland as well.
39:18He left Stirling and only returned to Scotland once in his lifetime.
39:27When James left for England to take up his new crown,
39:31he took his family with him.
39:33Stirling's use as a royal residence declined.
39:37It was no longer a thriving palace filled with alchemist smoke
39:42or the voices of young princes in the schoolroom.
39:48And 150 years later, Stirling was in a very sorry state.
39:56The great Scottish poet Robbie Burns came to Stirling in 1787
40:01and he saw the terrible state the castle was in
40:04and the palace roof collapsed.
40:06Now, Burns used to carry a diamond-tipped pen,
40:09which he'd used to scratch messages and verse into glass.
40:13And while he was staying here, he scratched a poem into the window
40:16and it said,
40:17"'Here Stuart's wants in triumph reigned
40:20"'and laws for Scotland's will ordained.'
40:25"'But now, unroofed,
40:31"'their palace stands,
40:35"'enslaved by other hands.'"
40:46But that didn't go down very well with the locals,
40:49so later Burns came back and he smashed the pane of glass.
41:05But if Burns came here today, he'd probably be pleasantly surprised.
41:10Stirling doesn't just have a roof.
41:12It's been completely restored to the glory of its golden age
41:16under the Stuarts.
41:22900 years after its foundation,
41:25Stirling Castle remains a unique monument
41:28to the history of the two kingdoms.
41:31It is both divided and united.
41:36With names like William Wallace, Mary Queen of Scots and Robert the Bruce,
41:41Stirling certainly is a very Scottish castle.
41:45But it's a very British castle as well.
41:48This is the palace that educated James VI,
41:51the first man ever to claim the crowns of England, Scotland and Ireland.
41:59And best of all, it's a living castle, not a ruin.
42:05As solid and indestructible as the rocky crag it's perched on.
42:35Stirling Castle