Showing posts with label throwaway.ecologist.meanings. Show all posts
Showing posts with label throwaway.ecologist.meanings. Show all posts

Tuesday 28 June 2022

Skulferatu #74 - The Beheading Stone, Mote Hill, Stirling

 

On a hill, not far from Stirling Castle there is a strange little monument.  It looks like an iron cage sitting on a stone pedestal with a lump of rock locked in under the bars.  This is the Beheading Stone.

 

A photo of the Beheading Stone in Stirling. It is a large grey stone that is sitting on a round stone plinth and it is enclosed in an iron cage.  There is a plaque on the front that reads - Protected by the public at the instance of the Stirling Natural History and Archaeological Society 1887.  Photograph by Kevin Nosferatu for the Skulferatu Project.
The Beheading Stone

 

The Beheading Stone was the traditional execution block in Medieval Stirling.  It sat, as it does now, on Mote Hill which was the place ‘of assembly, of judgement, and of execution in days of yore.’  It is thought that the stone was used to support a wooden block, and that the condemned man would place his chest on the stone and his head on the block.  The executioner would then use his axe to lop of the doomed man’s head.

 

A view on the top of Mote Hill with two old style black cannons in the foreground and the Beheading Stone in the background.  Photograph by Kevin Nosferatu for the Skulferatu Project.
A couple of cannons and the Beheading Stone on Mote Hill

 

In 1425 Murdoch Stewart, the Duke of Albany was executed here along with two of his sons and his father in law.  Stewart had served as Governor of Scotland while the future King James I was held captive in England.  After a rather large ransom had been paid for his release, James returned to Scotland.  Shortly after being crowned, James decided to consolidate his power and get rid of all those who may be a threat to him.  At the top of this list of potential threats was Murdoch Stewart.  On the King’s command he was arrested for treason along with several members of his family and a host of other members of the Scottish nobility.  A trial then took place against Murdoch Stewart, his two sons and his father in law, over which the King sat as the Judge.  Not surprisingly all were found guilty of treason.  They were then quickly marched down to Mote Hill and beheaded.  All their lands and properties were then forfeited to the Crown, so as well as getting rid of any potential threats to his rule, this was a nice little earner for James.

 

All of this made James quite an unpopular King and soon a group of scheming nobles decided it was time for him to go and for Walter Stewart, the Earl of Atholl to take the throne. Amongst this group of conspirators was one of the many nobles who had at one time been imprisoned by James, Sir Robert Graham.

 

On the night of 20 February 1437, King James and his Queen were staying in Blackfriars Monastery in Perth.  A group of around thirty men, with Sir Robert Graham at their head were let into the monastery by one of the King’s servants.  They made their way to his chambers where they stabbed him to death, with Graham administering the fatal blow.  The Queen, who had been wounded trying to protect her husband managed to escape.  She quickly took on the role of Regent for her young son James and then ordered the execution of all those involved in the killing of her husband.  It wasn’t long before many of those who had been involved in the assassination were captured, and in April of that year Graham was apprehended and taken to Stirling.  There he was tortured horribly over a period of three days before finally being beheaded on Mote Hill, with the old Beheading Stone playing its part in his execution.

 

The Beheading Stone was mounted on a plinth and enclosed in a cage of iron bars in 1887.  The money for this being raised by the Stirling Natural History and Archaeological Society through public subscription.

 

A view of the beheading Stone looking out over to the Wallace Monument.  Photograph by Kevin Nosferatu for the Skulferatu Project.
The Beheading Stone and view over Stirling to Wallace Monument

 

An old sepia photograph showing the view from Mote Hill in 1897 with the Beheading Stone in the foreground looking out over to the Wallace Monument - taken from the Merchants Guide to Stirling and District
View from Mote Hill in 1897 - from the Merchants Guide to Stirling and District

 

A view of the Wallace Monument, a large, square sided tower with a steep sloped roof, on a hill in Stirling with a mountain in the background.  Photograph by Kevin Nosferatu for the Skulferatu Project.
View of the Wallace Monument from Mote Hill

 

Mote Hill is now quite a sedate place and near to the Beheading Stone are some benches to sit on, take in the view over Stirling, and quietly contemplate life, the universe and anything else worth pondering on.

 

I left the Skulferatu that accompanied me on my walk today in a hollow in the Beheading Stone.

 

A photo of a small, ceramic skull (Skulferatu 74) being held up with the Beheading Stone in the background.  Photograph by Kevin Nosferatu for the Skulferatu Project.
Skulferatu #74

 

A photo of a small, ceramic skull (Skulferatu 74) lying in a hollow in the Beheading Stone on Mote Hill in Stirling.  In the background are the iron bars of the cage in which the stone is kept in.  Photograph by Kevin Nosferatu for the Skulferatu Project.
Skulferatu #74 on hollow in the Beheading Stone

 

A photo of a small, ceramic skull (Skulferatu 74) lying in a hollow in the Beheading Stone on Mote Hill in Stirling. Photograph by Kevin Nosferatu for the Skulferatu Project.
Skulferatu #74 on hollow in the Beheading Stone

 

Google Map showing the location of Skulferatu #74
Google Map showing the location of Skulferatu #74

 

The coordinates for the location of the Skulferatu are –

 

Latitude 56.127709

Longitude -3.942775


I used the following sources for information on the Beheading Stone –

 

The Merchant’s Guide to Stirling and District

1897

 

The Illustrated London News, September 22, 1906

 

Information Notices at the site

 

Wikipedia

Wikipedia - Sir Robert Graham

 

Corpus of Middle English Prose and Verse

The dethe of James Kynge of Scotis