Per Mare, Per Terras

We went to Stirling to pay a call on Sir William Alexander, 1st Earl of Stirling and Viscount Canada, himself.

We began at Stirling Castle where Sir William was a favorite at the Court of King James VI. The castle perched on the remnants of an ancient volcano, high above the surrounding plain. William Wallace, Robert the Bruce, and a long succession of Jameses called Stirling home. Mary Queen of Scots was born here, and Oliver Cromwell used it as a military stronghold. For us, the portcullis was raised and we walked through the gatehouse and onto the ramparts.

It did not take much imagination to see the castle and lands below as they appeared in the 1500s; at the base of the north wall, a patchwork of farm fields stretched across the valley of the River Fourth. Small copses of trees and hedgerows marked the remnants of the King's hunting grounds, now more open and manicured: a golf course. The Royal Palace has been restored, the carved Stirling heads brightly painted, and the walls of the Queen's inner chamber hung with replicas of the original tapestries showing a unicorn hunt. (The photograph I used for "Ancestors", incidentally, was an original now on display at the Cloisters Museum in NYC. I had no idea, when I took the picture, nor when I used it for the post, of its origin!)

Docents in period costume strolled through the royal chambers answering questions, in character, and time, of course. When the jester asked, we told him we came from New York. He screwed his eyes shut in concentration and corrected us quickly. "Florida, you mean, that whole coast line from where Ponce de León landed up into the colder bits. We have no interest in that land, at two hundred and fifty miles wide, a good horse can cross it in five days." He pulled his lute from behind the Queen's dais and began to croon mis-sung covers of Led Zeppelin and Golden Earring. Then he brought out the unicorn horn, "used," he told us in a whisper "to cure poison, or those troubles of older male courtiers.. just scrape a bit off, dissolve it in wine.... Some folks say it comes from a mighty beast that lives in the ocean, but we know better." When Sir William walked within these walls, did he find the same amusement in the circuitous ramblings of the court jester?

We were directed to Argyle's Lodging, the house just down from the castle that housed Sir William and his wife the Countess, before James VI moved court to London, and became James I of England.

There stood his coat of arms carved above the entry way, with the family motto Per Mare, Per Terras enscrolled above the beaver and oak. The high dining room and cozy parlor where the nobleman and his wife would entertain. He was, I learned, a prolific poet, his longest work, Domes-day, or the great day of the Lord's Judgement strides across twelve volumes. King James, his patron, undertook the drafting of a new version of the bible, and as a poet and advisor to the king, Sir William surely had a hand in its writing.

Fair poet and courtier, yes, but Sir William was a poor businessman, and died in London, bankrupt and indebted in 1640. His body was returned to Stirling for burial. The Church of the Holy Rude was closed for the day, but we walked by its massive stone walls and through the church yard on our way to the walk outside the town wall.