James’s two brief sojourns at Stirling gave the inhabitants a taste of the glory that had formerly belonged to their town, while his residence in the castle after an absence of fourteen years must have brought again to his own mind a throng of gay and gloomy memories. The Park recalled the summer hours spent in his favourite pastime of hunting; the Keep reminded him of weary tasks and the rigid discipline of George Buchanan; the Chapel, where he listened to the Edinburgh Regents, had been the scene of his eldest child’s baptism--that promising son who did not live to see again the place of his birth and early training. Young Mar’s revolution and the second Raid of Stirling were events of too stirring a kind to be forgotten, and the King doubtless felt as he recalled his early reign that although his responsibilities had increased with his accession to the English throne, his life and liberty were less at his subjects’ mercy than in the days when he reigned over Scotland alone. CHAPTER VI. LATER HISTORY. In the times when the King of Scots’ capital was Edinburgh, a royal visit to Stirling was an occurrence of an ordinary kind. Preparations were made in the interior of the castle for the housing of the Court, but naturally the sovereign’s arrival was not regarded as an event of historic importance. After the Union of the Crowns, however, when the royal family was domiciled in England, and the people in the north had grown unaccustomed to the sight of a monarch’s pomp, a visit of the King to his ancient castle was eagerly looked forward to by the inhabitants of Stirling, and elaborate preparations were undertaken for his reception both within and without the building.