In the twelfth century, as already stated, Stirling Castle had reached the distinction of being one of the four principal fortresses in the kingdom. Such it continued to be during the celebrated wars which Edward I. of England carried on for the subjugation of Scotland, when it was frequently taken and retaken, after protracted sieges, and under circumstances which go to prove its great strength at that period. It was the last part of the kingdom which Bruce reduced to his obedience; a feat which he only performed by gaining the victory of Bannockburn. It first became a favourite royal residence about the reign of James I., whose son, James II., was born in it, and also kept for some time during his minority. James III. was extremely partial to Stirling Castle; he increased the buildings by a palace, part of which is supposed to be still extant, and by founding a Chapel-royal within the walls. James IV. gave Stirling and Edinburgh Castles to his queen, Margaret of England, (daughter of Henry VII.) as her jointure houses; on which occasion, she was infeoffed in her property by the ceremony of the Scotch and English soldiers marching in and out of the two castles alternately—perhaps as a token of that mutual wish of peace on the part of the two countries, from which the marriage had sprung. James IV. frequently resided here during lent, in attendance upon the neighbouring church of the Franciscans, where he was in the habit of fasting and doing penance on his bare knees, for his concern in the death of his father. The poet Dunbar writes a poem in allusion to this circumstance, which is entitled, ‘his Dirige to the King bydand oure lang in Stirling,’ and is to be found in Sibbald’s Chronicle of Scottish Poetry. James V., who was born and crowned in Stirling Castle, further adorned it by the erection of the present _Palace_. It was also occupied by the widow of this prince, Mary of Guise, queen regent, who erected the battery towards the east, called the French Battery from having been built by her French auxiliaries (5). Mary, daughter of this princess, here celebrated the baptism of her son, afterwards James VI.; on which occasion there was a prodigious display of courtly hospitality. James, whose baptism took place in December 1566, was removed in February 1566–7 to Edinburgh, but was soon after sent back to Stirling, where he spent the years of his childhood till he was thirteen years of age. The apartments which he occupied, with his preceptor, George Buchanan, and where that learned man, in 1577–8, wrote his History of Scotland, are still shewn in the Palace, though now degraded into the character of a joiner’s work-shop. James did not make Stirling the jointure-house of his queen; that honour was reserved for Dunfermline. Here, however, he baptised his eldest son, Prince Henry, for which purpose he built a new chapel on the site of the old one. The fortress continued afterwards in considerable strength.