Stirling is under the jurisdiction of a council with provost and bailies, and, with Falkirk and Grangemouth, returns a member to Parliament. The Abbey Craig, an outlying spur of the Ochils, 12 m. north-east of Stirling, is a thickly-wooded hill on the top of which stands the Wallace monument (1869), a baronial tower, with a valhalla containing busts of eminent Scotsmen. Cambus kenneth abbey, on the left bank of the Forth, about 1 m. E.N.E. of Stirling, was founded by David I. in 1147 for monks of the order of St. Augustine. Several Scots parliaments met within its walls. At the Reformation Mary Queen of Scots bestowed it on the ist earl of Mar (1562), who is said to have used the stones for his palace in Stirling. All that remains of the abbey is the massive, four-storeyed tower, the west doorway and the foun dations of some of the walls. The bones of James III. and his queen, Margaret of Denmark, who were buried within the pre cincts, were discovered in 1864 and re-interred next year under a tomb at the high altar.
Stirling was known also as Snowdoun, which became the official title of the Scots heralds. The Romans probably had a station here. In 1119 it was a royal burgh and under Alexander I. was one of the Court of Four Burghs (superseded under James III. by the Convention of Royal Burghs). In 1174 it was handed over to the English in security for the treaty of Falaise, being restored to the Scots by Richard I. The earliest known charter was that granted in 1226 by Alexander II., who made the castle a royal residence. The fortress was repeatedly besieged during the wars of the Scottish Independence. In 1304 it fell with the town to Edward I. The English held it for ten years, and it was in order to raise the Scottish siege in 1314 that Edward II. risked the battle at Bannockburn. Edward Baliol surrendered it in in terms of his compact with Edward III., but the Scots regained
it in 1339.
From this time till the collapse of Queen Mary's fortunes in 1568, Stirling almost shared with Edinburgh the rank and privi leges of capital of the kingdom. It was the birthplace of James II. in 1430 and probably of James III. and James IV. In 1571 an attempt was made to surprise the castle by Mary's adherents, the regent Lennox being slain in the fray, and seven years later it was captured by James Douglas, 4th earl of Morton, after which a reconciliation took place between the Protestants and Roman Catholics. It was occupied in 1584 by the earls of Angus and Mar, the Protestant leaders, who, however, fled to England on the approach of the king. Next year they returned with a strong force and compelled James VI. to open the gates, his personal safety having been guaranteed. In 1594 Prince Henry was bap tized in the chapel royal, which had been rebuilt on a larger scale. After the union of the crowns (1603) Stirling ceased to play a prominent part on the national stage. The privy council and court of session met in the town in 1637 on account of the disturbed state of Edinburgh. In 1641 Charles I. gave it its last governing charter, and four years afterwards parliament was held in Stirling on account of the plague in the capital, but the out break of the pest in Stirling caused the legislators to remove to Perth. During the Civil War the Covenanters held the town, to which the committees of church and state adjourned after Crom well's victory at Dunbar (1650), but in August next year the castle was taken by General Monk. In 1715 the 3rd duke of Argyll held it to prevent the passage of the Forth by the Jacobites, and in 1746 it was ineffectually besieged by Prince Charles Edward.