formed the centre of an ornamental garden. On account of the change that has come over it, the ground that was once the Justin Flats makes little appeal to the imagination. Villas and gardens cover the level space where Douglases and Burgundian warriors fought for personal glory and national reputation in the presence of young James II.; but the flat nature of the land, well-suited for tournaments, can be made out beyond the King’s Knot. The Field of Bannockburn, or that part of it where the first of the fighting took place, can be distinguished from the commanding position of the Douglas wall, and close beside the scene of Bruce’s triumph may be discerned the site of the battle of Sauchie, which resulted in King Robert’s descendant, James III., fleeing to his death from the presence of his son. The view from the castle could not fail to have some effect upon the minds of the monarchs who have gazed from the walls. To William the Lion, old and sick, the remembrance of the winding Forth and the purple peaks of Ben Lomond and Ben Ledi came as a light in the darkness, and he urged his attendants to carry him to Stirling that the breezes from the hills of the Lennox and Menteith might blow again upon his aged cheek. When James IV. looked out upon Ben Vorlich he was reminded of the merry hours of hunting near its base, and often did he plan an expedition to Glen Artney when the mountains in one of their genial moods tempted his eager spirit. The effect which the view had on James V. was to arouse in that “King of the Commons” the desire to become acquainted with the customs of the people who inhabited the spacious strath spread out beneath his feet. The burdensome pomp of royalty was gladly thrown aside, and, disguised as “The Gudeman o’ Ballengeich,” he enjoyed for a time the rude society of the humblest of his subjects. The beautiful prospect of mountains and vales brought tears to Queen Mary’s eyes. When at the time of the Prince’s baptism she stole away with an aching heart from the presence of unsympathetic guests and gazed in the direction of the Lake of Menteith, she doubtless recalled how as a little child she had been carried from Stirling to Inchmahome, and she must have felt a passionate longing to recover the golden girlhood days that she might live again through the happy years in France, and make a new beginning to her reign as Scottish Queen. James VI., on the whole, preferred the view towards the east and south to that in the direction of the Highlands. The peace-loving monarch realised that disturbed as was often the state of Lowland Scotland, it was a tranquil part of his realm compared with the region of mountains and glens. A sight of the purple peaks sometimes made him shake his head as he thought of the wild Macgregors and other kilted warriors, and felt that the day was not near at hand for their swords to be turned into ploughshares.