So striking is the beauty and range of the scenery which is displayed before the observer, that even a practical man of affairs of the sixteenth century could not refrain in a business document from expressing his admiration of the view. This was Sir Robert Drummond of Carnock, who, as Master of Works under James VI., drew up a report in 1583 on the condition of the buildings of the castle. His _Inventory_, which is preserved in the Register House at Edinburgh, recommends that the west-quarter of the Palace be pulled down and rebuilt to a height sufficient to make it command the four cardinal points, “by reason it will have the most pleasant sight of all the four airts: in special Park and Garden (deer therein), up the rivers of Forth, Teith, Allan and Goodie to Loch Lomond, a sight round about in all parts, and down the river of Forth where there stands many great stone houses.” This project of Drummond’s was not carried out, probably because of the greatness of the expense. The buildings were doubtless put in repair, but the west side of the Palace remains in the unfinished state in which it was left by the workmen of James V. The visitor who has knowledge and appreciation of Stirling’s majestic past will leave the castle with a sense that he has existed long before his present life, or with a feeling that the hands of the Clock of Time have gone back and have counted the years again. The early kings, such as William the Lion, Alexander III. and Robert the Bruce, will seem to have passed like ghosts before him, but he will almost persuade himself that he has seen the Regent Morton in the flesh, crossing from the Palace to the Parliament Hall, and George Buchanan, old and infirm, ascending the stair to the schoolroom in the Keep. It may be that he will fancy he has seen some other outstanding figures belonging to the past, for Stirling Castle is not given over to the shades of one or two personalities. A building may be visited by pilgrims on account of its memories of one great individual. It is Queen Mary’s presence that dominates still the deserted chambers at Holyrood and Craigmillar, and that gives Loch Leven Castle the glamour which its other associations have failed to impart; but although the famous Queen of Scots spent many days at Stirling, the castle is so wealthy in romantic history that the elsewhere pre-eminent personality here takes its place side by side with other figures and does not occupy the forefront of the pageant of the shades. CHAPTER IX. STIRLING’S POSITION WITH REGARD TO OTHER CASTLES.