Yesterday we visited Stirling Castle, home to King James V of Scotland, among other illustrious monarchs. The main feature of the day was a series of (semi-) historical reenactments. These seemed to be arranged so that one girly reenactment (The Queen gets a new dress! Grooming of the sixteenth century!) and one interesting reenactment (Arms and Armor; Crime and Punishment) are going on at the same time. Guess which ones we attended.

The first show, in the Great Hall, introduced the cast of characters: King James V; his young wife Mary of Guise; two of his advisors; and several soldiers. It tended more towards vaudeville than reenactment, and sitting in the front row turned out to be a bit of a mistake. I'm guessing the actors thought I was somewhat older than fourteen.

The second show moved outside to Queen Mary's Garden; in this one, two of the soldiers demonstrated period weapons. They used real muskets, minus only the bullets, then moved on to pikes, swords and handaxes. It finished with a faux-combat with axes and shields. It wasn't great as these things go--it was fairly obvious that the actors were aiming for the shields--but as an unexpected touch of realism, one of the actors missed and hit the other in the face, cutting his lip quite badly. Fun fun fun. They let us ask questions afterwards; I asked if their weapons were full weight, and they said that they were. I was thoroughly impressed, and very pleased when they let me handle their sword and axe. Then one of them got into a very graphic description of the uses of a pike, and poor Maeve ran off crying. So we went to get lunch.

After a bag of 'crisps', as they call them here, we moved on to War and Diplomacy. This show also tended towards the vaudeville side, but it also involved a weapons demonstration, so all were quite satisfied. (Except for Maeve of course. When they started going into the uses of the pike again, "Through the eye into the brain. Through the mouth up into the brain. Through the stomach and twist in the guts..." she was near tears again.) 

Last of all was the only really historical show, featuring King James in his last hours angsting about his lack of a son, followed by his widow telling about her young daughter, Mary Queen of Scots-to-be. 

 "I don't know if the nobles will follow a girl. Some will, and some won't."

"We will, Ma'am! And you? [to the audience] Do you want Mary?"

"YES!"

"Will you follow Mary?"

"YES!"

And those of us Americans who fought a revolutionary war to be free from England were left going "Um--no, actually."

Finally we got to visit the military museum, featuring broadswords which had seen war and real Scottish dirks. Yours truly was very pleased.

--Sophia