of St Columba and patron of Kilkenny in Ireland. The abbey, which was in the Early Pointed style, was founded by David I. in 1147 for monks of the order of St Augustine. Several Scots parliaments met within its walls, notably that of 1326, the first attended by burgesses from the towns. At the Reformation Mary Queen of Scots bestowed it on the 1st earl of Mar (1562), who is said to have used the stones for his palace in Stirling. In 1709 the town council of Stirling purchased the land and ruins. All that remains of the abbey is the massive, four-storeyed tower—which is 70 ft. high, and 35 ft. square, and was painted and repaired in 1864—the graceful west doorway and the foundations of some of the walls. The bones of James III. and his queen, Margaret of Denmark, who were buried within the precincts, were discovered in 1864 and re-interred next year under a tomb erected by Queen Victoria at the high altar.
Earlier forms of the name of Stirling are Strivilen, Estriuelen, Striviling and Sterling, besides the Gaelic Struithla. It was known also as Snowdoun, which became the official title of the Scots heralds. The Romans had a station here (Benobara). In 1119 it was a royal burgh and under Alexander I. was one of the Court of Four Burghs (superseded under James III. by the Convention of Royal Burghs). In 1174 it was handed over to the English in security for the treaty of Falaise, being restored to the Scots by Richard I. The earliest known charter was that granted in 1226 by Alexander II., who made the castle a royal residence. The fortress was repeatedly besieged during the wars of the Scottish Independence. In 1304 it fell with the town to Edward I. The English held it for ten years, and it was in order to raise the Scottish siege in 1314 that Edward II. risked the battle at Bannockburn. Edward Baliol surrendered it in 1334 in terms of his compact with Edward III., but the Scots regained it in 1339. From this time till the collapse of Queen Mary’s fortunes in 1568, Stirling almost shared with Edinburgh the rank and privileges of capital of the kingdom. It was the birthplace of James II. in 1430 and probably of James III. and James IV. In 1571 an attempt was made to surprise the castle by Mary’s adherents, the regent Lennox being slain in the fray, and seven years later it was captured by James Douglas, 4th earl of Morton, after which a reconciliation took place between the Protestants and Roman Catholics. It was occupied in 1584 by the earls of Angus and Mar, the Protestant leaders, who, however, fled to England on the approach of the king. Next year they returned with a strong force and compelled James VI, to open the gates, his personal safety having been' guaranteed. In 1504 Prince Henry was baptized in the chapel royal, which had been rebuilt on a larger scale. After the union of the crowns (1603) Stirling ceased to play a prominent part on the national stage. The privy council and court of session met in the town in 1637 on account of the disturbed state of Edinburgh. In 1641 Charles I. gave it its last governing charter, and four years afterwards parliament was held in Stirling on account of the plague in the capital, but the outbreak of the pest in Stirling caused the legislators to remove to Perth. During the Civil War the Covenanters held the town, to which the committees of church and state adjourned after Cromwell’s victory at Dunbar (1650), but in August next year the castle was taken by General Monk. In 1715 the 3rd duke of Argyll held it to prevent the passage of the Forth by the Jacobites, and in 1746 it was ineffectually besieged by Prince Charles Edward. In 1773, in consequence of an intrigue on the part of three members of the council to retain themselves in office, the town was deprived of its corporate privileges, which were not restored until 1781.
See History of the Chapel Royal, Stirling (Grampian Club, 1882); Charters of Stirling (1884); John Jamieson, Bell the Cat (Stirling, 1902); The Battle of Stirling Bridge—the Kildean Myth (Stirling Natural History and Archaeological Society, 1905).
STIRLING-MAXWELL, SIR WILLIAM, Bart. (1818–1878), Scottish man of letters and virtuoso, the only son of Archibald Stirling of Keir, Perthshire, and of Elizabeth, third daughter of Sir John Maxwell, seventh baronet of Pollok, Renfrewshire, was born at Kenmure, near Glasgow, on the 8th of March, 1818. William Stirling was educated privately and at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he graduated in 1839. On leaving Cambridge he spent some years abroad, chiefly in Spain and Syria. Having succeeded his father as proprietor of Keir in 1847, when he was made vice-lieutenant of Perthshire, he in 1852 entered parliament as member for that county; and he was several times re-elected. On the death of his uncle in 1865 he succeeded to the baronetcy and estates of Pollok, assuming the additional name of Maxwell. In the same year he became deputy-lieutenant of Lanarkshire, and a like office was conferred on him in Renfrewshire in 1870. He married in 1865 Anna Maria, daughter of the 10th earl of Leven and Melville. She died in 1874, and in 1876 Sir William married Caroline Norton. In 1862 he was chosen lord rector of St Andrews, in 1872 the same honour was conferred by Edinburgh, and in 1876 he became chancellor of Glasgow. He was a trustee of the British Museum, of the National Gallery, and member of the senate of London University. In 1876 he was created a Knight of the Thistle, being the only commoner of the order. He died at Venice on the 15th of January 1878.
Sir W. Stirling-Maxwell’s works, which are invariably characterized by thorough workmanship and excellent taste, were in some cases issued for private circulation only, and almost all of them are now exceedingly rare. They include an early volume of verse (Songs of the Holy Land, 1848), and several volumes containing costly reproductions of old engravings, along with valuable explanatory matter. His best-known publications are Annals of the Artists of Spain (1848), The Cloister Life of Charles V. (1852). Part of the Annals was revised and published as Velasquez and his Works (1855). The Cloister Life was at once recognized as a valuable contribution to history, but its importance was lessened by the appearance a year or two later of Mignet’s Charles-Quint and L. P. Gachard’s Retraite et mort de Charles-Quint. A life of Don John of Austria, from his posthumous papers, edited by Sir G. W. Cox, appeared in 1883. A collected edition of his works, with a short memoir, appeared in 1891.
STIRLINGSHIRE, a midland county of Scotland, bounded N. by Perthshire, N.E. by Clackmannanshire and the Firth of Forth, S.E. by Linlithgowshire, S. by Lanarkshire and the detached part of Dumbartonshire and S.W. and W. by Dumbartonshire; area 288,842 acres, or 451-3 sq. m. In the north-west a spur of the Grampians culminates in Ben Lomond (3192 ft.), and the centre is occupied by a group known as the Lennox Hills, consisting of Gargunnock Hills (1591), Fintry Hills (1676), Kilsyth Hills (1870), and Campsie Fells (1894). The chief river is the Forth, the windings of which constitute most of the northern boundary. The other important streams are the Carron, which rises in Campsie Fells and flows mainly east for 25 m. to the Forth of Grangemouth; the Endrick, which, rising in Fintry Hills, first flows east, then south and finally bends round to the west, a direction which it maintains for most of its course of 31 m. till it empties itself into Loch Lomond; the Kelvin, which, from its source in Kilsyth Hills, flows south-west to the Clyde at Glasgow after a run of 22 m., and the Avon, rising in the detached portion of Dumbartonshire, and flowing for 21 m. east and then north to the Forth. The principal lochs include the greater part of the eastern waters of Loch Lomond, from Endrick mouth to a point 2 m. north of Inversnaid; a small portion of the upper end of Loch Katrine, from a point in the centre of the lake opposite to Stronachlachar to Glengyle at the head; Loch Arklet, in the north-west area, 1 m. long by 13 m. wide, forming part of the water supply of Glasgow; the small Loch Coulter, in the parish of St Ninians, and Black Loch, partly in Lanarkshire. The Forth and Clyde Canal crosses the south-eastern corner of the county from Grangemouth to Castlecary.
Geology.—The oldest rocks in the county are the Dalradian schists which occupy the north-west beyond a great fault which runs across from near the bottom end of Loch Lomond in a north-easterly direction passing not far from Aberfoyle. These schists are less altered and micaceous near the fault and there is some evidence for believing them to be of Ordovician age. On the south-eastern side of the fault are the conglomerates and sandstones of Lower Old Red Sandstone age, which are more highly inclined and coarser nearer the fault. Resting uniformly on the lower series is
