Any plans the Highlanders may have made for attacking the sovereign on his lofty rock were never carried out, but, on the other hand, chiefs such as Roderick Dhu were frequently warded in the castle. Scott was not drawing wholly upon his imagination when he imprisoned the head of a clan in the fortress, and when he made the outlawed Douglas appear before James V. in the Royal Park of Stirling. The pathetic story of Archibald of Kilspindie vainly endeavouring to catch a kindly look in the monarch’s eye is elaborated in the poem, though Scott does not intend his Douglas to be identified with the historical character. The poet makes his outlawed hero exclaim as he glances up at the grim fortress “Where stout Earl William was of old”--the fortress that seemed likely to be the scene of his imprisonment and death: “‘Ye towers! within whose circuit dread A Douglas by his sovereign bled.’” But in order that the tale might be brought to a happy conclusion, a reconciliation is made to take place between the King and the man whom he had refused to own as a subject. Neither Scott nor Theodor Fontane, in his German ballad called “Archibald Douglas,” could bear to leave the Kilspindie story as history records it. Poets of the minor order, such as Hector Macneill, William Sinclair and John Finlay, have written lines on Stirling and the historical events connected with it, but they have not succeeded, as Scott has done, in bringing the castle’s past back to life. Such a great past requires a great poem, and _The Lady of the Lake_, although dealing with only six days of James V.’s reign, makes clear Stirling’s position as a palace, a fortress and a prison, and shows the significance of its geographical situation--in the Lowlands and yet near the verge of the Highlands. Walter Scott, both an antiquary and a poet, understood better than any other author the history as well as the romance of the “grey bulwark of the North.” INDEX Abbey Craig, 20, 171. Aberdeen, 107. Agricola, 2, 3. Albany, Duke Robert of, 36, 38, 39, 40. Albany, Duke Murdoch of, 39, 40. Albany, Regent, 58, 61, 77. Albany (brother to James III.), 186. Alexander I., 6, 7, 8, 17, 133. Alexander II., 15. Alexander III., 5, 15, 16, 17, 176, 187. Alnwick, 9. Ancrum Moor, Battle of, 69. Angus, 38. Angus, Earl of, 58, 62, 165. Anne of Denmark, 98, 101, 102. Anne, Queen, 123, 124. Anstruther, 5. Antoninus Pius, 3. Arbroath Abbey, 93. Ardoch, 3. Argentine, Sir Giles de, 32. Argyll, Earls of, 66, 71, 75, 92, 94, 116, 186, 187. Argyll, Duke of, 124, 127. Arkinholm, Battle of, 48. Arran, Earl of, 66, 69, 188. Atholl, Earls of, 79, 92, 116. Ayr, 54. Ballengeich, 3, 70, 134, 154. “Ballengeich, Gudeman o’,” 57, 65, 66, 142, 174. Balliol, Edward, 33. Balliol, John, 19, 20. Bannockburn, 3, 50, 173. Bannockburn, Battle of, 27, 28, 31, 33, 133, 182. Barbour, John, 6, 31, 32, 35, 201, 202, 203.