Edinburgh
Castle - Edinburgh, Lothian (HS)
Like Stirling Castle to the
north west, Edinburgh stands on a high basalt rock, making use of the natural defences of
the site. It was used as a Bronze Age hill fort and during the Roman occupation it was a
thriving settlement. By the eleventh century AD it had become firmly established as one of
the principal royal residences in Scotland and Queen Margaret died there in 1093. Her
youngest son, David I, built the earliest surviving part of the castle in his mother's
honour and today St. Margaret's Chapel is a restrained reminder of the castle's varied and
ancient past. After the Reformation, it was used as a gunpowder store, but was restored to
its present appearance in the nineteenth century and the Romanesque chevron patterned
chancel arch is in good condition.
The £1.00 Scottish Bank Note!
Because of its importance to the Scottish nation, Edinburgh has been
attacked and rebuilt at various times and the military and defensive aspects predominate
over the palatial and residential. The great fourteenth century L-shaped Tower House of
Robert Bruce's son, David II, was almost flattened by the 'Lang Siege' of 1571-3 and its
base is now hidden by the Half-Moon Battery, built to restore the defences of the castle
after the siege. Other earlier buildings around the Crown Square, once the centre of the
Renaissance Palace at Edinburgh, were subsequently used as military barracks (in the Great
Hall) and altered to accommodate the headquarters of the Regiments that came to be based
here after the centre of power went south with King James VI in 1603. James only returned
once to Edinburgh and his son Charles I was the last monarch to sleep at the castle when
he stayed overnight before his Scottish Coronation in 1633.
The Castle Defences
Cromwell's army made further alterations to the appearance of the castle
and the subsequent permanent army based there destroyed and erected buildings without
regard for aesthetic or historic concerns. The massive vaults under the Great Hall were
well used as prisons during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, housing French,
American, Spanish, Dutch, German and Italian prisoners of war.
The focus of the castle began to change however due to the re-emergence of
interest in Scottish Heritage in the nineteenth century. The author Sir Walter Scott
applied for and obtained permission from the Prince Regent to search for the missing
Scottish Honours, the sixteenth century Crown Jewels, which had been hidden away following
the Treaty of Union in 1707. He found them safely kept in the castle, just as they had
been left 111 years before and they were put on display to the public for the admission
price of one shilling. Further rooms were opened and restoration of the Great Hall, now a
magnificent Victorian interior, was carried out. The momentum continued and the main
garrison finally left the castle in 1923.
The Scottish National War Memorial was built in 1923 and is still a moving
reminder of the nation's history of conflict and national pride and heroism. Each day
except Sunday a Second World War 25-pounder gun is fired from the Mills Mount Battery at
1pm, a time check for the citizens below and a tourist attraction for the castle's
visitors from all over the world. Each Summer the Edinburgh Military Tattoo takes place on
the Esplanade in front of the castle, providing an impressive setting and continuing the
military connection. In 1996, on St. Andrew's Day, the Stone of Scone, or Destiny, was
returned from its seven hundred year exile in Westminster Abbey in London to Edinburgh
Castle, to be on display with the Honours and thus reinforcing the royal connection of the
castle.
Check out this other site covering Edinburgh
Castle
