FALKLAND, a royal burgh and parish, Fifeshire, Scotland. Pop. It is at the northern base of the hill of East Lo mond (1,471 ft. high), 21 m. from Falkland Road station on the L.N.E.R. main line to Dundee, 21 m. N. of Edinburgh as the crow flies. Many ancient houses still stand. Most of the inhabitants are engaged in the manufacture of linen and linoleum. The place is famed for the ancient palace of the Stuarts. An older building that occupied this site was a hunting-tower of the Macduffs, earls of Fife, and was transferred with the earldom in 1371 to Robert Stewart, earl of Fife and Menteith, afterwards duke of Albany, second son of Robert II. Because of his father's long illness and the incapacity of Robert III., his brother Albany was during many years virtual ruler of Scotland, and, in the hope of secur ing the crown, caused the heir-apparent—David, duke of Rothe say—to be conveyed to the castle by force and there starved to death, in 1402. The conversion of the Thane's tower into the existing palace was begun by James III. and completed in 1538. The western part had two round towers, similar to those at Holy rood, which were also built by James V., and the southern eleva tion was ornamented with niches and statues. From the palace James V. when a boy fled to Stirling by night from the custody of the earl of Angus, and in it he died in 1S42. Here, too, Queen Mary spent some of her happiest days. James VI. upset the schemes of the Gowrie conspirators by escaping from Falkland to St. Andrews, and it was while he was residing in the palace that the fifth earl of Bothwell, in 1592, attempted to kidnap him. In September 1596 a dramatic interview took place in the palace between the king and Andrew Melville and other Presbyterian ministers sent by the General Assembly at Cupar to remonstrate with him on allowing the Roman Catholic lords to return to Scot land. In 1654 the eastern wing was accidentally destroyed by fire, during its tenancy by the soldiers of Cromwell, by whose orders the fine old oaks in the park were cut down for the building of a fort at Perth. In 1715 Rob Roy garrisoned the palace and levied dues on the burgh and neighbourhood. The third marquess of Bute acquired the estate and buildings in i888, and undertook the restoration of the palace.
Falkland became a royal burgh in 1458 and its charter was renewed in ; before the earlier date it had been a seat of the Templars. It gives the title of viscount to the English family of Cary, the patent having been granted in 1620 by James VI. The town's most distinguished native was Richard Cameron, the Covenanter. His house—a three-storeyed structure with yellow harled front and thatched roof—still stands on the south side of the square in the main street.