Stirling is one of Scotland’s most important historic cities.  The site of a high volcanic castle rock and located strategically at the lowest crossing point of the River Forth, Stirling has been key to any force wanting to control central Scotland.  Legend says King Arthur built a castle here, but the earliest definite evidence of fortification dates from the reign of Alexander I of Scotland (1078-1124).

Reflecting its military and strategic importance, the castle has been attacked or besieged at least 16 times.  Two crucial battles in Scotland’s history were fought in its immediate vicinity, and a third a short distance away.

Stirling Castle was a flash point in the Wars of Scottish Independence.  Edward I of England took the castle in 1296, but the following year Scottish forces led by Sir William Wallace defeated the English at the Battle of Stirling Bridge and re-captured the castle.  The following summer, however, Wallace and his soldiers were defeated at the Battle of Falkirk, a few miles south of Stirling.  Wallace was later captured and brought to London where he was executed for treason at Smithfield Market in 1305.

The Scottish King Robert the Bruce won a great victory over numerically superior English forces at the Battle of Bannockburn, just south of Stirling, in 1314.  By 1336, however, Stirling was again under English control; it was finally retaken for the Scots in 1342.

The Church of the Holy Rude (meaning “Holy Cross”) is the second oldest building in the city, after Stirling Castle.  The church would probably be more widely known and admired were it not located almost adjacent to the magnificent castle.

The photo at left shows the church’s west tower and south-west porch entrance.

Click on all photos for larger views.

The church was founded in 1129 during the reign of David I (king 1124-1153) as the parish church of Stirling under the jurisdiction of Dunfermline Abbey .

The original church building was destroyed along with most of Stirling in a great fire in March 1405.  The present church was built in two stages.  The oldest part, including the nave and the lower portion of the west tower, was completed around 1470, and the second half around 1555.

The photo at right was taken from the back of the nave looking east through the crossing toward the choir and apse.  The church was built on a slope so that the choir is higher than the nave.  It was intended that the nave roof would be raised to match the height of the choir, but the Reformation halted this and other planned work, including a central tower above the crossing.

The most remarkable part of the nave is the rare medieval oak-beam roof held together with oak pegs (pictured at left).  The beams show the marks of the adzes used to carve them.  Now over 500 years old, this is one of the few medieval timber-roofs left in Scotland.

About twelve years after the choir was completed, on 29 July 1567, the 13-month-old son of Mary Queen of Scots was crowned James VI King of Scots.  The boy’s Roman Catholic mother had been forced to abdicate only five days earlier.  The sermon was preached by John Knox and, for the first time, the rites were Protestant and not, as at James' baptism, Roman Catholic, while "the whole ceremony was made and done" in the Scottish tongue and not Latin.  The subject of the great Reformer's coronation sermon was the slaying of Queen Athaliah and the crowning of young King Joash.

(Only seven months earlier, James had been baptised in the Chapel Royal at Stirling Castle, in a lavish Roman Catholic ceremony.)

A commemorative plaque in the floor of the choir marking the spot where the infant was crowned is shown at right.  Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II unveiled the plaque during a visit to the church about 430 years after her ancestor’s coronation.

This is the only surviving church in Scotland, and apparently the only active church in the United Kingdom apart from Westminster Abbey, to have witnessed a coronation.

The photo at left shows the entrance to St Andrew’s Chapel, the only one of four chapels still extant.  Above the glazed screen door is a carving of the royal arms of Scotland with the collar and badge of the Order of the Thistle.  These arms, dating from the 17th or early 18th century, were originally placed in a King’s (or Queen’s) Loft, now long removed.  They now serve as a reminder that kings and queens of Scotland have worshipped here frequently.

Two important figures in Scottish church history are buried in the churchyard.  Both were ministers at Church of the Holy Rude.

Rev James Guthrie, a prominent Covenanter, was inducted here in 1650 and hanged in Edinburgh in 1661 for denying Charles II’s authority over the Church of Scotland.

The other is Rev Ebenezer Erskine, founder of the Secession Church in Scotland, who served here from 1731.  Shortly thereafter, he preached against a proposed patronage system because he was convinced that it took away the right of Christian people to call and elect their minister.  He was suspended in 1733, whereupon he and four others founded an “Associated Presbytery”, which soon developed into the Secession Church.  Ebenezer’s brother Ralph ministered at Dunfermline Abbey until 1740, when he too was deposed and joined the Secession Church.

The website of Church of the Holy Rude includes a fine photo album.

Links to all my blog posts about British churches and Christian sites can be accessed through the box located at the top of the page.