Stirling Castle A few structures of the fourteenth century remain, while the outer defences fronting the town date from the early eighteenth century. Before the union with England, Stirling Castle was also one of the most used of the many Scottish royal residences, very much a palace as well as a fortress. Several Scottish Kings and Queens have been crowned at Stirling, including Mary, Queen of Scots, in 1542, and others were born or died there. There have been at least eight sieges of Stirling Castle, including several during the Wars of Scottish Independence, with the last being in 1746, when Bonnie
Mary Queen of Scots (1969 book) Mary Queen of Scots (1969 book) Mary Queen of Scots (1969) is a biography of Mary, Queen of Scots, by Antonia Fraser. A 40th-anniversary edition of the book was published in 2009. As she states in her "Author's Note", Fraser aims to test the truth or falsehood of the many legends on Mary and to set her in the context of the age in which she lived. The portrayal is largely sympathetic. Fraser stresses what she sees as Mary's key virtues but believes that Scotland at the time required an extraordinarily strong ruler to pull the nobles into line. The