The Stirling victim, however, was not an innocent sufferer, as were the youths who perished in Dunedin. In a sense he deserved his fate, for his plans of treachery to the Crown were deeply laid. His well-known guilt no doubt silenced the bards, even those of his own house; for while they could wax indignant and eloquent at the cruel treatment meted out to harmless boys, they could not sound the praises of one who, though wronged, was himself an evil-doer. The rhyming chronicles dealing with Stirling Castle, although less worthy of being classed as poetry than “Young Waters,” keep truer to history than that ballad. The plain style of Langtoft, an English writer who lived at the time of the War of Independence, may be seen from two of his lines referring to the siege of 1304: “Thrittene grete engynes, of alle the reame the best, Brouht thei to Striuelyne, the castelle doun to kest.” Wyntoun, the Scottish chronicler, who wrote in the early fourteenth century, tells his tale in an equally straightforward manner. Stirling comes under his notice many times, and in speaking of Robert the Steward’s siege he says: “The Wardane than fra Perth is gane To Stryvelyne wyth off his ost ilkane, That castelle till assege stowtly.... * * * * * The Wardane has this castelle tane, A wycht hows made off lyme and stane, And set in till sa stythe a place That rycht wycht off it-selff it was.” John Barbour, Archdeacon of Aberdeen, comes, as regards time, between Langtoft and Wyntoun; but he was no mere chronicler, he was a great epic poet. In his day there were men still alive who had fought under Robert I., and from the lips of some of those warriors he learnt the particulars of many of the incidents presented in his poem, _The Brus_. Barbour is at his best in battle scenes, which he describes with clearness and power, and in those deft touches by which he reveals the characteristics of the hero and his companions. As the Battle of Bannockburn was the greatest event in Bruce’s life, and as the determination of two peoples to possess the Castle of Stirling was the cause of the mighty conflict, it cannot be said that the poem does not deal with Scotland’s principal fortress. Yet the references to the coveted stronghold do no more than explain the story; they are neither descriptions of the place nor accounts of its previous history. Edward Bruce’s siege, which brought about the battle, is of course mentioned in the poem: “Till Strevilling syne the vay he tais, Quhar gud schir Philip the Mowbra, That wes full douchty at assay, Wes vardane, and had in keping That castell of the Yngliss kyng.” When the day is lost to England, Edward II. flees to the castle: “Bot Philip the Mowbra said him till ‘The castell, schir, is at your will; Bot, cum ye in it, ye sall see That ye sall soyne assegit be.’”