Saturday, November 15, 2014

Edinburgh Day 4 - Hairy Coo tour, Doune Castle (where they shot Game of Thrones and Outlander)


11/14/2014

Cantilever Forth Bridge

We scrambled to eat breakfast in ½ hour, something of a feat, considering we usually take our slow-ass time about things. This is because we had to catch the 8:45am Hairy Coo tour at Edinburgh Castle. This is a “free” tour, as in you tip as you see fit. If you don’t like the tour at all, you don’t have to tip a dime and they won’t look at you funny. But considering how many places the guide took us to today, as well as how much knowledge he had to impart, please do tip!

When we got to the meeting point at 8:35am, it was to see that everyone was already there! The tour was sold out today, and damn, was it cramped in the bus. The bus went down Edinburgh Castle hill and across into New Town, then to the posh large houses in the quiet suburbs of New Town. We passed Fettes College, a beautiful building that now houses one of the most expensive private schools in the country.

Tilda Swinton and Tony Blair attended Fettes. In the Victorian era, there was huge interest in philanthropy. So, the rich would build all these fanciful buildings and erect schools. At one point in time, Edinburgh had a school for the blind, a school for the deaf, a school for disadvantaged children…you get the idea. Edinburgh had a school for everything. But gradually, the aims of the schools changed. Fettes is one such school that started out as a philanthropic pursuit and now is anything but.

The large houses in this area of town can cost upward to 2-3 million pounds. When they were first built, they were also intended for the wealthy. William Pitt, the Prime Minister of England in the 1700s, was trying to find ways to fill the treasury’s coffers. The rich weren’t paying their share of taxes (as true then as it is now!), so Pitt conceived something he thought rather brilliant. Charge a property tax on each house based on how many windows the house had. The theory behind this is that the richer you are, the more windows you’d have (think of a mansion with dozens of windows to allow in natural sunlight). This should have worked smoothly—if the Scots hadn’t figured out a way around this new tax. They’d paint over the windows so that the windows couldn’t officially be counted as windows. They said they’d choose no light versus paying the tax.

To this day, you can see where the windows were filled in or painted over. This is due to the Scots’ tradition of mistrusting their MPs. Yeah, even two hundred years later, the homeowners don’t want to take down the paint or concrete blocking their windows, for fear politicians will reenact the window tax. The tour guide said that in Scotland, the only reason they keep politicians around is so that the general populace can rag on them. It’s a national pastime, criticizing politicians.

We first drove to the bridges that span the River Forth. The one on the right was built in the Victorian era, following one of the worst railway accidents in UK history. A train fell off the then-standing bridge, plunged into water and killed everyone on board. The government commissioned a bridge that would never collapse, and that was what they got with this cantilever suspension bridge. A good deal of boys and men died—not from riding the train, but from constructing the train. There weren’t hard hats in those days and rivets would fall and hit their heads. The train is considered a symbol of Scotland—it was a monumental feat when it was first built and was the longest cantilever bridge in the world until New Zealand decided to build one.

The bridge on the left is from the 1950s. Engineers recently discovered that the inside of the wires were starting to corrode and they panicked, not wanting a repeat of a bridge falling apart as people drive across it. Money was approved to build a new bridge and construction started. Well, now they’ve figured out that all they have to do is breathe air into the internal of the wire and this stops the wires from corroding. Oops! Guess they didn't need a new bridge after all!

1950s bridge

Train traveling across Forth Bridge

The William Wallace monument across Stirling Castle. We saw it yesterday from Stirling, and now we’re actually here! The monument was built in the Victorian era and houses William Wallace’s sword. 


As Edward I aged, he worried that his son, Edward II, would be seen as an ineffective king. Though he agreed with his noblemen that his son was weak, he needed to make sure people followed his son once he was gone. So he decided to make an example of people who crossed him. He looked around and decided that William Wallace would be the one he'd use to make this example. He planned a dastardly end for Wallace, but first he had to capture him.

He bribed a Scot to lure Wallace to his castle. The unsuspecting Wallace went to the Scot's house, where he was immediately captured and dragged to London. He was given a farce of a trial (took all of 15 minutes for the 3 paid-off judges to deliver a verdict of "guilty") and sentenced to death.

Edward gave Wallace a choice: he'd die either way, but he could die painless (beheading) if he knelt and pledged fealty to Edward. Wallace refused, so Edward planned the most heinous death imaginable. He planned it for St. Bartholomew's Day, when there would be more people in London than usual (more of an audience to play in front of). Wallace was stripped naked, tied to a horse and dragged across London, where the peasants threw garbage at him. Then a noose was put on his neck and they'd pull him up and down, up and down, until he lost consciousness. They revived him, only to strap him to a table and start disemboweling him. Executioners were judged on their skills by how well they disemboweled the victims--the key is to take out the organs one by one, while keeping the person conscious. So Wallace not only felt each organ being taken out of his body, he saw his own organs--the executioner would present the organ to Wallace, then toss it in a fire. Finally, the heart is taken out and Wallace is dead.

Not satisfied with this, Edward has Wallace decapitated and the head boiled, tarred and feathered, and placed on a spike, displayed on Traitor's Gate in the Tower of London. William Wallace is actually the first person ever to have his head displayed on Traitor's Gate. Edward then had Wallace's body cut up into different pieces and sent to different villages in Scotland to be displayed, so to tell the Scots what would happen if they rose up against him.

The Scots didn't get the message.

Because of William Wallace's bravery, a few years later, the Scots would overthrow Edward II as their king (not that they ever admitted he was their king in the first place) and Robert the Bruce would become King of Scots.

William Wallace Monument

Throughout the tour, the guide kept telling us how historically inaccurate Braveheart was. There's no evidence William Wallace ever painted his face going into battle. He was a Lowlander, and it's not a lowland tradition to paint their faces or wear kilts. Kilts are the Highlanders. Painting faces blue is the Picts, a long-gone warrior tribe that lived in Scotland before the Scots arrived.

River Forth (and Stirling on the hill. Angel: Or, Stirling as Where's Waldo? Or Where's Wally? as we're in the UK)

Also, the term "Braveheart" was not in use during William Wallace's time. Supposedly, after Robert the Bruce died, his good friend Sir James Douglas (known as the Black Douglas) took Robert's heart to serve as a talisman during a crusade. Outnumbered and outgunned, the Black Douglas realized he might die. He throws Robert's heart out into the field and shouts, "Onward braveheart, Douglas shall follow thee or die."


Aaah, how cute! Little midget knights!


William Wallace's sword, in real life, was 5 feet 4 inches in height and 5.9 pounds in weight. He was a tall man, some say around 6 feet 5 inches. Back then, they could tell how tall a person was based on how tall his sword is.


The monument is situated on a mountain and the climb up is pretty steep. My thighs were still hurting from Stirling yesterday, and it seriously killed me today to get up that mountain.

Angel: If I had a pound for each time Jen complained about her thighs, I'd be richer than the Queen herself.

Jen: I thought the Queen asked to raise her budget this year?

William Wallace Monument

WINTER IS COMING.

I'd read on the Hairy Coo that we'd be taken to Doune Castle of Monty Python and the Holy Grail fame. As I've never seen this movie, I shrugged. Then Angel makes me look up what's so special about Doune Castle.

Game of Thrones was filmed here!!! Aaaahhh! They used the castle as Winterfell, though if you Google the images, you can see that they've completely CGI-ed Winterfell. It's almost unrecognizable, except the gate here:

Doune Castle

Angel: Our tour guide offered us coconut shells since they didn't have money for horses while filming Monty Python, so the crew clacked coconut shells to mimic the sound of horse hooves. Another interesting tie-in; in Game of Thrones the Monty Python insults ("I fart in your general direction! Your mother was a hamster, and your father smelled of elderberries!") was translated in Valyrian. =)


We used our Historic Scotland pass to get into Doune Castle to take pictures. The tour guide allocated 25 minutes here and everyone--seriously, everyone!--else didn't seem to have much interest in the castle. It could've been the rain deterred them. You can't see it in the pictures, but it is freakin pouring. The grass may look lush, but it's a sinking swamp of mud and our shoes were sinking into it. If it wasn't for GoT, I think I would've stayed on the bus too.

The Historic Scotland pass includes free audioguide here, so we got them, hoping to have enough time to listen. But by the time we finished taking pictures, we had all of 2 minutes to get back onto the bus. Boooo. >.< Would've loved to learn more about its history.


All we know is that the Duke of Albany ordered this castle built. He's the uncle of King James I, and was the one who held James captive until James reached majority. James hated his uncle and when his uncle fled the country, he ordered the beheading of his cousin (the Duke of Albany's son) and his sons.


The Duke of Albany never really resided here. He preferred Linlithgow and Holyroodhouse, so after his fall from power, Doune Castle became largely forgotten.

Oh, yeah, and Outlander (the insanely popular series by Diana Gabaldon) is filmed here as well. They said that Doune Castle has been besieged by fans, so much so that the film crew has found it hard to shoot. Scotland has a "right to roam" law that prohibits public areas from being entirely closed off.


The guide explained the meaning behind some of the more well-known Scottish surnames. Sometimes the surnames referred to your occupation--Smith = blacksmith, Taylor = tailor. Sometimes, they referred to hereditary features. Such as, MacGregor = man of the crooked mouth. Cameron = crooked nose, and he pointed out that David Cameron (who is Scot) does, in fact, have a crooked nose. Kennedy = ugly face. 

For lunch, our guide took us to Callendar, a town in the Highlands that was a popular tourist town in the Victorian era. He suggested Mohr Fish and Chips or Mohr Bakery for lunch, and said that the bakery has steak and haggis pie. 

Steak and haggis? I'm so there!

Mohr Bakery steak and haggis pie

It was pouring and freezing outside, so we rushed into the bakery and sat down in the cafe to order our pie. Other people from our tour straggled in, bought their pies in the adjacent to-go area and came into the cafe to eat the to-go food. The waitress was not pleased with them and said that in the UK, there's a tea charge if you don't buy from the dine-in menu. I guess the same pie has different prices, the to-go and the dine-in. I didn't even think about this, I was just thankful to get to sit down in the toasty warmth of the cafe.

Well, the people in our tour weren't very happy about this and started arguing with the waitress that the bakery staff did not advise them of this before they bought in the bakery. This happened with at least 2 different parties. I can understand both sides; if it were me, the experience of fighting with a waitress would seriously sour the tour experience. So it sucks that there was this misunderstanding. 


After lunch, we went to Loch Katrine, where Sir Walter Scott, the famous poet, was so inspired by the scenery here, he wrote Lady of the Lake. The poem became an instant hit, selling over 500 copies per week (a BIG deal in the Victorian era). A musical version of Lady of the Lake was soon commissioned and the songs proved very popular. One song, "All Hail the Chief," was so popular, that it was used to honor George Washington and celebrate the end of the War of 1812. In 1829, the song was used again to honor Andrew Jackson. To this day, this song is still played to announce the arrival of the President of the United States.


It's a gorgeous loch ("lake" in Gaelic).



The highlight of our tour is also the name of the tour company: the Hairy Coos. What is a hairy coo? "Coo" is "cow" in Gaelic, and this is the Scots version of a hairy cow:


Believe it or not, the horned beast is female! Her name's Fiona and she's the head of her clan. When the bus pulled up beside the paddock, Fiona immediately came toward us. There's wee bairns in her clan and it's her job to protect them, so she's coming toward us to defend her territory.


For Angel, Doune Castle was already a pretty big highlight of her day. But the hairy coos were the highlight of her day. I'm not sure what's with her obsession with livestock and animals, but she's been whining this whole time in Edinburgh that she wants to buy a hairy coo stuffed animal. She was soooo happy to see these coos, that, magically, her allergy to grass disappeared!

I'm more of the unicorn and stag creatures, myself. But Angel wanted me to take a picture with the coos, so I did.


The tour guide had 2 loaves of bread and Angel took one to feed the coos. She wanted to feed one of the babies, but a female coo kept shoving the baby out of the way. I'm not sure if she was protecting the baby or if she wanted the piece of bread for herself. These animals have been eating grass the whole day, but put a slice of bread in front of them, and they'll nearly come to blows to eat that bread!

All night long, Angel's been mimicking the way the baby coos mooed.

We stopped by another lake to see the sun setting:


Magnificent, isn't it?


I've been wanting to come to the Highlands for a long time, because the Highlands have such a mystical, romantic aura surrounding it. I guess it's part lore, part scenery, that makes this such a special place. Well-to-do Victorians would come up here to holiday and build vacation homes here.

It's hard to imagine that a long time ago, so much blood was shed for the right to control this country.


The Jacobite rising in the 1700s was perhaps one of the bloodiest times in Scottish history.


We stopped by the village of Aberfoyle for a short rest, and then drove to see a view of Stirling from afar:


The sun was setting fast at this point. The tour guide had talked the whole day (crazy job! I didn't think he'd really talk the whole day, but yeah, he somehow managed it), so on the ride back to Edinburgh, he played Scottish music. Did you know "500 miles" is a song from a Scottish band? I didn't! We heard music from the woman who voiced Merida in Disney's Brave. Oh, and my favorite! Loch Lomond. I thought we'd be visiting Loch Lomond today, which was a big reason why I signed up for this tour (Angel usually doesn't like doing tours and being crowded with everyone else). I guess I read wrong. We were in the general vicinity of Loch Lomond, just not at the lake. Booo!

"You'll take the high road and I'll take the low road, and I'll be in Scotland before you..."

Or, the Scot version: "Ye'll tak the high road and Ah'll tak the low road, and Ah'll be in Scotlan' afore ye..."

Sigh. I could listen to that song again and again and never get sick of it. It's such a sad song, but holds so much meaning. I tear up every time I hear it in Cranford. The song was written during the bloody times of the Jacobite risings, most likely talking about the uprising of 1745 and the tragic Battle of Culloden.

In 1745, "Bonnie Prince Charlie," as the Scots called him ("The Young Pretender," as the English called him) had assembled an army to take back the throne. His grandfather, King James II, had been forced abdicate in favor of his daughter and son-in-law, Mary and William of Orange (House of Hanover), in 1688. James II was ousted by a pro-Protestant Parliament mainly because of his Roman Catholic leanings.

However, a lot of Roman Catholic Highland clansmen thought Bonnie Prince Charlie was the rightful king and wanted to restore the House of Stuart back to the throne. This culminated in the Battle of Culloden. The battle was fierce, and over in an hour. The Highlanders were butchered by the Duke of Cumberland's (William and Mary's second--and favorite--son) army and Bonnie Prince Charlie fled the scene. For several days after the battle, the British army roamed the countryside, hunting down Jacobites (Jacob = James, for King James II) and slaughtering them. Charles would live in exile for the rest of his life. And the Hanoverian dynasty would issue harsh terms to the fiercely independent Highlanders, to assimilate the Scottish Highlands into a proper English territory. Gaelic, long the Highlanders' language, was outlawed. So were kilts. Children weren't allowed to learn how to use knives or weapons of any kind. 

Gradually, these terms became stricter and stricter, to the point it was just downright persecution. The English just told the Highlanders to get out of the country and get off English land. So many Scots had no choice but to leave their homes and journey to a new world, leaving the Highlands a desert.

So, back to the song. There's many interpretations. One interpretation is that the song is sung by the lover of a captured Jacobite rebel set to be executed in London. The heads of the executed rebels would be set upon pikes and displayed between all the towns from London to Edinburgh along the "high road," the most important road. If you look at most English cities, there's always a High Street--and it's usually in a center of commerce. The "low road" is the ordinary road that commoners and peasants would walk on, and this is the road that most of the Jacobite rebels' relatives and friends would walk on, as the Highlanders weren't rich. High roads usually meant toll roads. So the singer would take the low road back to Scotland, and reach Scotland before her lover, because her lover's dead and his head is still mounted on the pike. Sad, hunh?

Angel's favorite pic of the day:


Friday, November 14, 2014

Edinburgh Day 3 - Stirling Castle


11/13/2014

Haggis--Yum!

I guess we're getting seriously addicted to haggis. I was salivating for it as I went to sleep last night; couldn't wait til breakfast this morning.


Our hotel

After our delicious breakfast, we hopped on a train to Stirling. The train from Edinburgh runs to Dunblane, with Linlithgow and Stirling as calling points. Dunblane is where Andy Murray grew up. Linlithgow (pronounced Lin-lith-goe) is another castle included in the Historic Scotland pass, but we don't have enough time to visit it.

So, 50 minutes later, we're at the town of Stirling. Not quite as commercialized as we expected--almost no souvenir shops, can you believe it? The hike up to the castle is pretty steep. I was huffing and panting and felt like my heart was ready to give out. It didn't help that Baby was being the Nazi general, forcing me to walk faster.

The whole way up, I kept thinking, "Where's the other tourists?" We were the only ones walking the path (there's only one way up to the castle). When we reached the top of the mountain, aaaaahhhh... The car park is filled with tour buses!

Admission was included in the Historic Scotland pass and we got a 20% discount for the audioguides (3 pounds usually). Sweet.

Stirling Castle

There are free tours (included in admission) that depart from the main courtyard every hour, on the hour. Our tour guide gave a pretty in-depth tour of the castle. Like Edinburgh Castle, Stirling has 1000 years of history.

The Great Hall:


It may not look it now with all the stone buildings at Edinburgh and Stirling, but at one point in time, the majority of castles in Scotland were painted this honeycomb color. They call it "King's Gold." But air pollution, corrosion, and Scotland weather have contributed to the paint wearing off on almost all the castles. In England, to show off your castle, you painted your castle white (white being an expensive paint color). Well, in Scotland, the king painted his castle the honeycomb color above, and soon, all the nobles wanted to paint their castles exactly the same way. The precursor to modern interior/exterior design. It's like Keeping Up with the Joneses, medieval style.

Unlike the cannons at Edinburgh Castle, these cannons have seen action. Stirling Castle is situated on a very strategic position. It is said that whoever controls the castle controls the bridge (Stirling bridge), and therefore, controls the whole of Scotland. This was the only bridge that allows passage from north to south, so if you owned the castle, congratulations. You now control everyone who comes and goes in this country.

The far left tower is called Ladies Tower. This is where John Damian performed his flying experiment. During King James IV's reign, the learned king established an era of culture and prosperity in the realm. He was keen to have intellects, artists, poets in his court, to show his nobles that he was a true Renaissance prince. 


One of the men included in his court was John Damian, an Italian alchemist who claims he's figured out how humans can fly. So King James makes an event out of this, inviting his nobles to witness the attempt. Wagers are taking place--will he fly? Will he crash? Damian comes out with his cloak of feathers, leaps off Ladies Tower...and lands 200 feet below in a pile of dung.

He broke several bones, but he got lucky as he was still alive. He tells the king that he knew his attempt would likely fail because he used chicken feathers, not eagle feathers. 

Everyone knows chickens can’t fly. 

Damian claimed he couldn’t get his hands on eagle feathers, so used chicken instead. King James laughed so hard, he awarded Damian with a pension for life. Ah, if we only had Damian's masterful bullshitting skill!

Stirling Castle's gate

The Battle of Bannockburn took place in the fields just beyond the flags:


This decisive battle helped turn the tide in the Wars of Scottish Independence. The Scots were losing this never-ending war, especially with Edward I on the throne. Edward was known as the "Hammer of the Scots." He really, really, really wanted Scotland for his own. I can imagine him sitting in front of his desk, frowning at a map of the British Isles. He's already conquered Wales and Ireland some 20 years before--now if only he could conquer Scotland, this entire island will be his.

But the Scots are a fiery, independent bunch who don't like English rule. They keep putting up resistance to Edward's army, and when Edward finally captures William Wallace through trickery and betrayal, Edward decides to make an example of Sir Wallace so that the Scots won't rise up against him again.

Wrong.

They just bide their time until old Edward dies and his frivol son, Edward II, ascends the throne. Edward II is not like his father. He's seen as a weak successor to his father by his own noblemen (his father even thought it too!). While his father has been away, fighting all these battles to enlarge his empire, Edward II stays at home, writing poetry of all things. He's married to Isabella of France (known as the She-wolf of France), but they don't get along. Edward II spends his days writing explicit X-rated poetry to young men.

Robert the Bruce, who leads the Scottish army at the time, decides to take advantage of Edward II's lah-di-da nature. He wants to entice Edward to Scotland to defeat him decisively. So Robert and his cohorts start laying siege to all the English-held castles in Scotland. His strategy's successful. Pretty soon, 20 of the 24 Scottish castles under English control fall to Robert.

But Edward still doesn't come up to engage in battle, staying in the comforts of England instead.

So Robert decides to lay siege to Stirling Castle. This ought to get Edward up here, he thinks. Stirling is the most important castle in Scotland because of the strategic location of its bridge, controlling passage and supplies from north to south. When Edward hears of this, he knows he must act. If Stirling falls into Scottish hands, he'll have a revolt with his own noblemen. So he leads an army 16,000 strong into Scotland.

Robert hears Edward's coming up and his camp rejoice. Moral is pretty high because they've taken back 20 castles already. But when they see Edward's troops of 16,000 men, their morals plummet. Fast.

On the day of the battle, Robert's racing his horse in front of his men, rallying them to fight. Henry de Bohun, one of Edward's men, sees Robert racing about, very lightly guarded. Henry decides to attack Robert. If Robert dies, there won't be a competitor to Edward's throne, and thus, no reason to have a battle today.

Robert sees Henry charging at him, and responds in kind. When they clash, Robert splits open Henry's head with his trusty axe. This immediately boosts his troops morale, and they prevail through the day.

Most battles during this time last for only a few hours. But Bannockburn lasted for 2 days, in part because when it came nighttime on the first day, the English retreated a bit to regroup. The next morning, they were surprised to see Robert's army come out of the cover of trees and knee in prayer.

Edward supposedly said, "They pray for mercy!" He thought they were surrendering.

One of his subjects replied, "For mercy, yes. But from God, not from you. These men will conquer or die."

It turned out to be a ruse. While Robert and half of his army were putting on the show, the other half surrounded Edward's army from the flank. It was carnage that day. Scots say that out of the 16,000 Englishmen who came to fight, only 5,000 made it home alive. And only 1 or 2 Scottish fatalities!

English refute this and say that only 500-700 of their men were killed that day.

Sounds GoT to you, yet?

Great Hall

The above is the Great Hall's interior. The oak beam roof is modeled after Edinburgh Castle’s Great Hall. Hearths run along the length of the wall, which is unique to this castle. This is a symbol of wealth and generosity, as usually the fireplace is only next to the throne to heat the king and queen. It’s saying "I have money for fire, and I’m spending it on you. Look how generous I am."

The Royal Chapel was ordered built by King James VI. His wife, Queen Anne, was due to give birth for the much-hoped for heir. King James wanted a chapel fit for a king, so he modeled this after the Temple of Soloman.

Royal Chapel

As with every house, each generation sees a need to improve upon the old structures. Never more so than with kings. They'd tear apart castles to rebuild in an effort to make their mark everlasting in the world. The building on the right with its stepped gable roof was originally the King's tower in the medieval era. But later generations didn't like the medieval look, so they leveled the tower down and rebuilt. There are two filled-in windows smack in the middle veering right--these two are all that remain of the medieval tower decoration.



The King's Inner Hall:


The inner hall was where courtiers would wait for an audience with the king. The kings of Scotland are unique that they are held accountable with the people. Through the ages, the ways a man could become king were rather radical compared with the Continental princes. Where France rules by divination (Dieu et mon droit—God and my right), Scots can actually vote to change the king. Or, the king can bequeath the kingship to a chosen heir (not necessarily his son) upon his death.

In the Throne Room (next door to the Inner Hall), you can see all these intricately carved wooden circles on the ceiling:


These came to be known as The Stirling Heads. In 1777, the ceiling collapsed because these wooden heads were too heavy. The then-Governor’s wife was a skilled amateur artist and she drew sketches of the Stirling Heads during her time here. It’s thanks to her sketches that craftsmen are able to replicate the heads you see on the ceiling of the King’s throne room. Over time, through neglect and not keeping records, the meaning of these heads were lost. In the last decade or so, scholars have painstakingly researched what each head meant. The middle one is thought to be King James V. Beside him are his two wives--Madeleine of Valois, who died soon after arriving in Scotland (Scotland's June weather did not agree with her), and Mary of Guise. This latter union would produce one daughter: Mary, Queen of Scots.

James V had this portion of the castle built for his marriage to Madeleine of Valois, daughter to King Francis I of France. This whole building is rich with symbolism, every artistic detail carefully thought out and put in place to assert James's right to rule. James V became king as an infant, when his father died in the Battle of Flodden. The next decade or so was ruled by a regent. So when James V formally took power of the throne, he was very anxious to prove he had the right to be king. It is said that one of his robes has 49.500 pearls sewn on it, modeled after his father-in-law, King Francis I's, clothes. This way, James is showing his noblemen not only does he have the wealth and power to buy these clothes, he's related to the powerful King of France.


King's bedchamber (he didn't really use it as a bedchamber; he used this room to meet with his inner circle of friends):


Queen's bedchamber:


After Madeleine died, James recognized that he needed to make a new alliance. Quickly. So he asks the King of France for his other daughter's hand in marriage. Francis denied this, but suggested Mary of Guise, one of his relatives, instead. Mary of Guise had very powerful connections. On one side, the King of France. The other, Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor. James was eager for this match.

When Henry VIII found out about this proposed marriage, he became alarmed and immediately set out to win Mary of Guise for himself. He was in between wives at the time. If France and the Holy Roman Empire sided with Scotland through a marriage alliance between James and Mary, England would be left standing alone. So he wrote to Mary, saying that he liked tall women (she was very tall for the time) and asked her to be his wife.

She replied that she may be tall, but she had a "little neck," in reference to the beheading of Anne Boleyn. Mary accepted James's proposal and came to the court at Stirling with a whole entourage, complete with her own tailor and midget. Midget!

Mary and her ladies-in-waiting all wore black. Not because of mourning, but because black was a very expensive color to make at the time, and it had become the new en vogue color. Wow. A few hundred years before our time, the French were already in love with black!

France and Scotland had been friends for the past 200 years at this point in time. The relationship between these two countries is older than the current UK, and certainly a lot older than the EU. I'm not sure if it was Mary and James's wedding that secured it, but at some point in time, France and Scotland agreed to a pact that, in essence, meant that the two countries would combine into one country. It's never been repealed. To this day, anyone holding a Scottish passport can go into France unhindered and vice versa.

Mary's throne room:


View from the ramparts

Angel got a kick out of this photo (painting of James V and Mary of Guise):


She cracked herself up so hard, I could swear she'd pee in her pants any second. I asked her what was so funny. She replied, "If the Grevilles had bought this painting, James and Mary wouldn't have hands anymore!" The Grevilles from Warwick had bought a lot of paintings that were worth a lot of money, and they bought gold frames to place these paintings in. When they realized the paintings wouldn't fit, they had the paintings cut down to size...destroying the value of these paintings. Hands are the hardest things to paint (and therefore, the most expensive), and the Grevilles just cut out the hands of a lot of the paintings. They bought a painting of Charles I and his wife, Henrietta Maria, gazing at each other--very rare (therefore very valuable) as most kings and queens don't marry for love.

Angel cracked herself up that the Grevilles could've cut up James and Mary of Guise so they wouldn't be gazing at each other (James and Mary were in love too).



When James married Mary of Guise, her mother remarked:


Wowza. Coooou-gar!

Because of the restoration work with The Stirling Heads, they have been put on display in an exhibit. This is the court jester:


Who we like to think of as the court fool these days. But they often played a sinister role at court. Everyone tried to avoid them when possible. The jester was sent by the king to spy on his subjects. During a night of festivities and drinking, it's natural for tongues to loosen. The jester would ply you with jests and riddles--and with your head already woozy--you might just let slip something that might end up costing you your head. Or, the jester might make up something about you and blackmail you. "If you don't give me money, I'll tell the king you said this to me" of that nature.

The heads are all wooden now, but during King James's time, they would have been painted vibrant colors. The paint's lost now from weather and air pollution. There's an interactive display where you can paint the jester and learn about each color in the context they were used for paints and fabrics:



Lapis lazuli! Crazy expensive--more expensive than gold. And they crushed this up and used it to paint with???


This is Angel's color-blind coloring efforts:


Angel: Thank you, thank you!


This wooden head is rather unique in that the border is etched with music notes:


It could be the oldest surviving piece of Scottish musical notation!


Princes Tower where James VI was tutored. He scratched graffiti on the walls (ha like every little kid): "God made Man and Woman God made Man James 6." How cute!

The Little Prince...or, The Little Dictator

The Prince's Tower overlooks this outdoor hallway:


The statues above are of devils, to remind the young prince of good versus evil.

And here we come to the Douglas Garden:


King James II of Black Dinner fame killed yet another Douglas. 12 years after the Black Dinner, James isn't too happy the powerful Douglas clan is still gaining in power. He summons the 8th earl of Douglas (it was the 6th at the Black Dinner) to Stirling. A fight breaks out, James stabs Douglas in the throat. His courtiers go to town with Douglas, stabbing him with a pole ax, and generally stabbing him over and over again. They threw his body out this window into the garden below, which is why the garden is known as the Douglas Garden:

This was a serious no-no in Scottish hospitality. But, James II moved swiftly to appease Douglas supporters so that they wouldn’t rise up against him. He showered them with land grants. And they bought it.

On the ramparts, you can see the valley below and a stunning view of the William Wallace monument built in the Victorian era:


The Great Hall and the Royal Apartments are connected via an enclosed bridge. We were clueless for half the day that we were actually walking on this bridge, so we kept going in circles between the Great Hall and Royal Apartments. :T


These throne chairs even have a built-in toilet!


Oldest surviving part of the castle:


Ramparts overlooking the valley

They had a wonderful exhibit about kitchen life during the medieval era:


Servant rations included 1 pint of beer/day. This was before Scotland united with England. After unification, the measurements changed. So 1 pint of Scots beer is equivalent to 3 pints of English beer. In today’s terms, that 1 pint is actually 24 pints!

They also have a tapestry exhibit. We didn't know there was a free talk with a tapestry employee until it was too late (they only give one talk per day, as they're working on the tapestries the rest of the day). What happened is that there was a set of tapestries depicting unicorns that were once at Stirling Castle (probably a wedding gift to James and Mary of Guise). Sometime afterwards, they were looted...eventually turning up in New York. Keep in mind that before the age of photography, tapestries and paintings were highly prized as means of communication and to show off wealth. That original set is now housed at the Cloisters Museum in New York.

So, the team at Stirling decided to go about reproducing this tapestry set. They started in 2001, and will be completed sometime within the next few years. A whole team working full-time to produce 7 tapestries! Crazy!

Using techniques from the 1400s, it takes a whole day to stitch one square inch! No wonder they were so expensive!

The set of tapestries depict a nobleman and his entourage hunting down a unicorn. A man has spotted the unicorn and beckons everyone to follow him. They try to capture the unicorn, but it proves elusive. Dogs are used to try to capture the unicorn, but it runs away. What makes this set so valuable is that the artist has recreated nature exactly as it appears in real life. Certain flora always grow beside the river, so they've depicted this. Or, certain flowers grow together--and the artist has been able to recreate this.

Finally, the men use trickery to lure the unicorn. A maiden is used to tame the unicorn. When she succeeds in taming it, the men jump out and thrust their swords into the unicorn's neck. They cut off the unicorn's horn and take the unicorn back to the castle, triumphant.

The last scene of the tapestry is this:


Which shows the unicorn reborn, tame, docile and domesticated, locked in a paddock. This is symbolic of the trials of Jesus Christ, as historically, a unicorn is used to symbolize Christ (innocent, pure, etc.).

In the exhibit, they said that this final scene has a frog hidden in the tapestry. So obviously, as Angel is obsessed with livestock and animals in general, she spends a good 5 minutes staring at the tapestry, trying to find the frog.

She couldn't find it, much to her distress. I gave a cursory glance and pointed it out to her:


Even as she was taking a picture of the tapestry, she lost the frog and couldn't figure out where it'd hopped off to.

Mary of Guise's throne room:



Great Hall painted in King's Gold

Royal Chapel next to the Great Hall

Prince's Tower and the Royal Apartments


A lot of the towers were knocked down when the advent of cannons came along. They realized that high towers were just sitting targets for cannons, so they leveled the towers to the height it is today:


The crazy history of Stirling Castle--it changes hands almost every year!


By this time, it was nearing 4:30pm and as it was freezing cold (the wind blows you sideways, seriously!), most tourists were already long gone. I think we were two of a handful of tourists left in the castle. They had closed the main gates, but there's a small door cut into the main gate, and it was through this little peephole that we exited the castle.

There was a 5:07pm train departing from Stirling back to Edinburgh and a 5:37pm. Angel didn't want to wait a whole half-hour for the 5:37pm, so she made me run down the whole freakin mountain with her. In the cold. In the rain. The pelting rain. The winds were so fierce, our umbrellas kept getting turned upside-down.

My thighs were aching so bad by the time we got to the base of the mountain. Well, at least we made it with 5 minutes to spare. :T

For dinner, we went to Sainsbury's, where they were in the middle of discounting all their hot deli items. We scored this insanely delicious mozzarella tomato pesto panini:


And a Scotch pie!


Made with British beef: