Although Charles II. never saw Stirling after his Restoration, his brother James, the heir-presumptive, visited the castle in 1681. During the time of his sojourn in Scotland he resided chiefly at Holyroodhouse, but his interest in Linlithgow and Stirling was such that he determined to make a progress to those ancient seats in the early days of February. The weather, indeed, had been uncommonly mild, but on the 3rd of the month, when the Duke of Albany and York set forth from Holyrood, accompanied by John Churchill, afterwards the famous Duke of Marlborough, the ground was covered with a heavy coat of snow. James arrived at Stirling that evening, and passed the night, not, as would have been appropriate, in the palace of his fathers, but in Argyll’s Lodging on the Castle Hill. Next day he was conducted round the royal fortress after the great guns had fired a salute and the Earl of Mar, with the garrison under arms, had received him at the gate. The Duke examined all the important rooms in the Palace and inspected the castle walls; he expressed his admiration for the buildings and for the situation of the fortress, as well as for the extensive prospect of the windings of the river and the country through which it meandered. He remarked that he had been told a great deal about that noble seat, but that it much exceeded all that he had heard of it. “It was,” His Highness said, “inherent and natural to all the Royal Family for many years past to have a particular kindness for Strivling.” As James departed from the castle the guns again sounded a salute. Next day he travelled back to Holyrood.[86] Coming events do not always cast their shadows before. As the heir-presumptive to the British throne walked round the castle with Mar he did not foresee that soon, as King, he would curtail the privileges which the Earl enjoyed as governor of Stirling, and that the hereditary office would be fully restored by the supporters of the man who was to tear his crown from his brow. Nor could he picture to himself his grandson, a disinherited prince, striving to recover this bulwark of the north from the servants of an alien sovereign. Rivers winding in rich valleys were favourite scenes with James. When an exile in France he used to enjoy the view of the Seine from the terrace of St. Germain, partly because of its intrinsic beauty and partly because it reminded him of the prospect of the Thames from Richmond Hill. Doubtless his thoughts often travelled to Scotland too, and the Seine must sometimes have brought to his mind the tortuous river that he once admired from the ramparts of Stirling Castle.