I had intended to skip Edinburgh Castle, as I had been there during our family's European summer after my schooling in France. The memories of the pipers and drummers of the Military Tattoo of that long ago August Edinburgh Festival still seemed fresh, so I planned to walk the Royal Mile seeing other sights. But when I arrived at the base of the stone castle walls and heard a lone piper start to play as the gates opened, I was drawn inside to rediscover the mighty Castle Rock.
Although this volcanic precipice has been inhabited for over 3,000 years, the earliest ruins are the crumbling King David's Tower and the charming chapel he had built in 1130 in memory of his mother, St. Margaret, who died of a broken heart upon hearing that her husband, Malcolm III, had been killed at Alnwick. In 1296, the castle was conquered by the English; then it was reconquered by the Scots; then the English; then again by the Scots where it continued as a royal palace of the Stuarts, housing the oldest crown jewels in the British Isles--the Scottish Honours (crown, sword, and sceptre), and the massive medieval Mons Meg cannon (1457).
Mary Queen of Scots preferred to live in the newer, less drafty Holyroodhouse Palace, but went up the hill when she was ready to give birth to her son, James VI, in 1566. In 1603, he became King James I of a "united" England and Scotland at the death of Queen Elizabeth I. There were still battles to be fought between the English and Scots over Edinburgh Castle, but none of the later kings and queens of Great Britain returned to lived there. The Honours of Scotland were hidden for 111 years until rediscovered by Sir Walter Scott; the famed Stone of Destiny upon which the Scottish kings were enthroned was only returned to Edinburgh in 1996 after having been taken to England by Edward I in 1296.
Click link for slideshow:
Edinburgh Castle
Music: Amazing Grace
More information:
http://www.edinburghcastle.gov.uk/
http://www.edintattoo.co.uk/
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