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.
.JPG "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.
.JPG "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.
.JPG "The Beheading Stone and view over Stirling to Wallace Monument")
.JPG "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.
.jpg "Skulferatu #74")
.JPG "Skulferatu #74 on hollow in the Beheading Stone")
.JPG "Skulferatu #74 on hollow in the Beheading Stone")
.jpg "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
Corpus of Middle English
Prose and Verse
