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
Scottish art in the eighteenth century suggesting the ultimate motivation for art was love. The same theme was painted by another of Hamilton's proteges, David Allan, two years later. In the late eighteenth century Ossian became a common subject for Scottish artists, and works were undertaken by Alexander Runciman and David Allan among others. Alexander also produced one of the earliest examples of a Scottish historical painting, showing the escape of Mary, Queen of Scots from Loch Leven Castle, which would become a major form in the nineteenth century. Allan returned to Edinburgh in 1780, became director and master of the Academy of Arts in 1786.