The Stirling Castle Tour

I'm not much of a history buff but this weekend totally brought me to the next level. I definitely feel smarter with all this Scottish history and castle hunting I was doing this past weekend.

First stop was the Stirling Castle, there are so many Mary and James throughout Scottish history it's really pretty crazy to follow! Everyone's a Queen Mary or a King James! James I, James II, James III, Jame IV, James V, James VI. You following me so far? HAH!

Castle Entrance

Well there was a King Alexander, a King Charles, a King William and many more dating back from the 1100s but James IV - James VI are most popular as very much of the Stirling Castle was expanded and built during their reign. Between 1543-1746, there were at least 8 sieges of Stirling Castle between the English and the Scots.

This is a view of a side of the Royal Palace from Queen Anne Garden

Architecture is apparently a mix of French, German and English influences from the period when King James IV, V and VI were in power.

Behind all the history that I read and re-read, the only thing I seem to remember is just that Margaret Tudor married James VI to have James V who married Mary de Guise who had a daughter who became Mary, Queen of Scots at 6 month old when her father died. She then married Henri from France and had James VI who later became King of Scots as his mother's successor. Whew! I only remember this much as it is the basis of the entire tour of the Castle!

Inside the palace, there was the Outer Close, Inner Close, and actual bedroom of the King and Queen.

This is the Queen's Outer Close which is essentially a waiting area for people to meet and see the Queen. It was also used as an informal dining room.

Special guests selected by the staff get to meet the Queen at the Inner Close which is a much formal room with nicer decor and definitely a more "royal" feel. 

 Now to the King's Outer Close and Inner Close and the usage of the rooms are similar to that of the Queen. Only difference is that these rooms were left unfurnished before King James V died before the design and construction completed. so these rooms are actually left empty at the castle as it should. 

King's Outer Hall where guests of some social prominence are given the "opportunity" to see the King if he so chooses to see them. It's the waiting room, similar to the Queen's Outer Close.

Selected guests are then invited from the Outer Close into the Inner Close to meet with the King. Not much to an empty room but there is the Royal Coat of Arms hung above a fireplace with a stunning ceiling carved out of wood and painted. 

Now to the bedroom of King and Queen. Apparently Purple is the color of royalty and is the most expensive piece of colored fabric to purchase and only sold to those of royal inheritance. The color of the purple come from some sort of sea shells. I forget...got distracted :)

In case you're wondering..they do have people dressed up from the days of the Renaissance depicting and telling stories of the past to share with guests.

 More pictures!!!

Royal Chapel directly across from the Royal Palace where King James V and his daughter Mary, Queen of Scots were crowned

Not too far from the Stirling Castle is the Mar's Wark where the Castle Keeper stayed. There's damage on the building from canon fire during an uprising. As mentioned before, there was a lot of fighting between the Brits and the Scots for control of the Castle between the 15th and 18th century.

View from East side of the Castle from a lookout area in the Ballengeich Cemetery.

Gateway into a part of the castle.

I thought the picture above would be a great way to end this blog. Gateway to discovering some more history of Scotland :-) There's plenty more pictures but I thought these were the highlights to share. Majority of the structure obviously were renovated, rebuilt, and furnished based on historian findings as well as remnants of research and discovery throughout the Castle. Nonetheless, this was a great experiences and it's probably the closest we would ever get to knowing or understanding the history and it's significance in a completely different part of the world!

P.S. I drive by the castle with a great view of it all. One of these days, I'll pull over to snap a picture of the Stirling Castle as I find it to be much more impressive than the Edinburgh Castle in terms of location and view.