ENCOUNTERS EXPLORE
EXPLORE… HOMES OF THE STUART DYNASTY
The houses of Stuart From Stirling Castle’s forbidding fortifications to the high fashion of Kensington Palace, SIMON THURLEY takes us on a tour of seven buildings that played a critical role in the Stuart era
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Citadel and cradle
Without Stirling Castle’s impregnable walls, the first Stuart monarch to don the English crown might never have made it to adulthood Today, James VI & I is remembered as the man who united two crowns in 1603, establishing the Stuarts as the ruling dynasty of England as well as Scotland – a royal house that endured till the death of his great-granddaughter Queen Anne over a century later. Yet when James ascended the Scottish throne in July 1567, aged just 13 months, the security of his new realm was threatened by rebellions and infighting. The infant king was placed under guardianship in Stirling Castle, perched impregnably on a volcanic crag far from the turbulent politics of Edinburgh. Though the great gatehouse has been reduced since the 16th century, from the outside Stirling still looks forbidding – but inside the curtain walls lies a royal palace. Built in the 1530s and 40s, it has been restored to reflect the luxurious residence that was James’s home for much of his first 12 years, providing a fascinating point of comparison with the
royal palaces he inherited in England in 1603. Visitors can admire the richly decorated royal chambers, the banqueting hall, and the elegant chapel built by James in 1593–94. At Stirling and Holyrood – which, when James first lived there in the late 16th century, stood just outside Edinburgh – he occupied only three or four rooms; in England, at Hampton Court, Whitehall and Greenwich, he was thrown into a maze of privy chambers containing perhaps a score of rooms. The compact plans of his Scottish houses such as Stirling always remained his preference. When James returned to Stirling in 1617, after a gap of 14 years, his workmen rapidly patched it up for his arrival. His thoughts on re-entering the halls of his youth are not recorded, but the castle was never again a principal residence of the crown.
VISIT
For more information, see stirlingcastle.scot
