An engineer of the name of Grant had arranged to erect batteries in the old churchyard, as it occupied a high piece of ground, commanding the entrance to the castle. The citizens, however, objected to this plan, as General Blakeney’s guns would have reduced their town to ruins. Charles therefore ordered the Frenchman, Mirabelle de Gordon, whom the soldiers ironically called Mr. Admirable, to undertake the siege operations. Mirabelle, according to the Chevalier Johnstone, had little knowledge of engineering and was totally destitute of judgment, discernment and commonsense; but because he was a French engineer, decorated with an order, it was supposed he was a person of experience, talents and capacity. The Frenchman began to dig trenches on the Gowan Hills, at a place where the solid rock was only fifteen inches below the surface of the ground, so that bags filled with wool and earth had to be brought from a distance to afford some sort of cover. The battery after all did little damage to the castle, and when Blakeney’s guns were turned upon it Mirabelle’s men were slaughtered in great numbers, and the position had soon to be abandoned.[89] This ill-conducted siege was an unsuccessful enterprise, but it gave to Charles’s Highlanders their victory at Falkirk. History never repeats itself, but sometimes it nearly does so. As Edward II. had marched to Bannockburn in order to relieve the Castle of Stirling, so General Hawley advanced by the same route from Edinburgh for the purpose of saving the same ancient stronghold from falling into the hands of Bruce’s descendant. Charles left the Duke of Perth with over a thousand men to continue the blockade while the rest of the army barred the way near Bannockburn, as King Robert had done long before; but finding that Hawley was in no haste to attack, Charles quitted the field of happy omen and advanced to unpropitious Falkirk. The memory of Wallace’s defeat, however, did not oppress the eager Highlanders, for they routed the Government troops in a storm of wind and rain, and drove them back on Linlithgow. After this victory Charles returned to Stirling to proceed with the siege of the castle, and twice on the day of his arrival the garrison was summoned to surrender. Blakeney, however, answered that he had always been looked upon as a man of honour, and that the rebels should find that he would die so.[90] In their desperation a number of Highlanders tried to scale the castle rock, but they were driven back with heavy loss of life in their daring attempt to imitate the feats of medieval warriors. The chiefs at length saw the hopelessness of the undertaking, and with difficulty managed to persuade their Prince--who at times was bravely exposing himself to the fire of the garrison’s guns--to withdraw his troops to the Highland hills. On February 1st the army began its disorderly retreat, taking the road to the Fords of Frew, for Blakeney had some time before