Stirling Heads

James V of Scotland rebuilt the royal lodgings at Stirling Castle to form a new Palace, which included suites for the king and his consort Mary of Guise.^[3] The building works were supervised by James Hamilton of Finnart.^[4] There is very little documentation for the works.^[5] James V may have been inspired by a current belief that the Roman general Gnaeus Julius Agricola had rebuilt Stirling Castle "with diligence and sumptuous expense",^[6] and some of the medallion head carvings may have been intended to depict ancient heroes as supposed forebears of the Stewart dynasty.^[7]

The Stirling Heads represent James's ambitions for the interiors of his palaces, and seem based on French models which derive in turn from North Italian fashions.^[8] The carvings were traditionally attributed to a Scottish craftsman John Drummond of Milnab,^[9] and it is likely that a French colleague Andrew Mansioun was a significant contributor to the project.^[10] A carpenter and carver, Robert Robertson, was recorded working at Stirling Castle in this period, and was paid for work on the ceiling of the Queen's inner chamber at Falkland Palace.^[11]

The decorated coffer ceilings at Stirling were mentioned by a small number of travel writers including John Taylor, John Ray, John Macky, and John Loveday, before the King's inner chamber or inner hall ceiling was dismantled in 1777, and the heads were dispersed among antiquarian collectors.^[12] An illustrated book by Jane Graham, Lacunar Strevelinense, recorded the medallions and the names of various owners in 1817. This work indicates that the surviving heads came from the King's inner hall. The surviving timber structure (now concealed) of the adjacent King's bed chamber ceiling is unusual, indicating that its ceiling was also elaborately decorated.^[13]

The writer George Buchanan described the late 1530s as a period of relative stability in Scotland, and because James V was provided with heirs, he turned his attention to "useless buildings" and taxed the church and nobility to fund these projects.^[14] Robert Lindsay of Pitscottie, writing about the same years, praised James V for his patronage of expert craftsmen, especially foreign artisans.^[15][16]