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Marie de Guise and Cultural Transfers

Franco-Scottish Architectural Exchanges circa 1535-60

Les échanges architecturaux franco-écossais entre 1535 et 1560
Ian Campbell

Abstracts

The principal argument of the article is that the architecture of the palaces of James V is more eclectic than previously assumed. The advanced French Renaissance character of parts of the Falkland Palace, dating from about 1537-41, is complemented by medieval elements in Falkland, Linlithgow and Stirling, and that this last also has stronger affinities with the buildings of the Habsburg dominions or Portugal than France. It also argues that the Linlithgow plan had a strong influence on the castle of Écouen and on Serlio's Ancy-le-Franc.

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Author's notes

** Images 1, 2, 4, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14 and 15 are not subject to Open Access licence terms. For permission to use images 1, 2, 4, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14 and 15 please contact Historic Environment Scotland.

Full text

I am very grateful to the Strathmartine Trust for funding the costs of illustrating this article and to the Avery Library for waiving the image fee for fig. 18 during the Covid-19 pandemic.

  • 1 Howard Colvin, A Biographical Dictionary of British Architects 1600-1840, 3rd edition, New Haven an (...)
  • 2 Mark Girouard, “Falkland Palace, Fife, parts I and II”, Country Life, 126, 1959, p. 118-121 and 178 (...)

1For almost three centuries after the union between England and Scotland in 1707, the grand narrative was that the Scots were living in a semi-barbaric state compared to their southern neighbours, with the aristocracy still living in old, and building new, castles until the later seventeenth century when Sir William Bruce (c. 1630 – 1 January 1710) began using the classical architectural orders canonically. He was already dubbed in the eighteenth century “the chief introducer of architecture in this country” and still in the late twentieth century Sir Howard Colvin called Bruce the “effective founder of classical architecture in Scotland”, before which “Scottish domestic architecture was still dominated by the basic forms of the late medieval castle…”1 A brief interlude was recognised between the marriages of James V (r. 1513-1542) to Madeleine de Valois and to Marie de Guise-Lorraine, in 1536 and 1537 respectively, and his death in 1542, during which the full-blown French Renaissance manifested itself in the remodelled palace of Falkland and the new palace block at Stirling Castle, both built with the aid of predominantly French craftsmen. Falkland has been described as “a display of early-Renaissance architecture without parallel in the British Isles” but, as another knighted architectural historian, Sir John Summerson, remarked “[t]he curious thing […] is that so little came of it…”.2

  • 3 Ian Campbell, “A Romanesque Revival and the Early Renaissance in Scotland, c. 1380-1513”, Journal o (...)
  • 4 John Gifford, Colin McWilliam and David Walker, with Christopher Wilson, Edinburgh, Harmondsworth, (...)
  • 5 Colin McWilliam, Lothian except Edinburgh, Harmondsworth, Penguin Books, p. 297; I. Campbell, art. (...)
  • 6 I. Campbell, art. cit., 1995, p. 314-315; I am very grateful to Dr Michael Pearce for drawing my at (...)

2It was only in the 1990s that this orthodoxy began to be seriously challenged with the increasing recognition that Italian Renaissance traits were already present in the royal works before the 1530s, as far back as the reign of James III (r. 1460-88) but especially in the works of James IV (r. 1488-1513).3 Thus Christopher Wilson’s doubts in the Buildings of Scotland volume on Edinburgh (1984), that the Italianate brackets supporting the roof of the Great Hall at Edinburgh Castle date to the reign of James IV, because their Renaissance character is more consistent with a dating to the reign of James V, were dispelled by John Dunbar’s pointing out that an Italian mason was in royal service in 1511-12, just when it is clear from surviving records that the hall was at the height of construction.4 Similarly at Linlithgow Palace, the round-headed windows with broad cavetto mouldings on the east face of the courtyard were re-dated to James IV’s works on the basis of documentary evidence, having been previously ascribed to the 1530s on the grounds of style.5 Moreover, I have argued that the overall evolution of Linlithgow, from the reign of James III, into a quadrangular courtyard palace with square corner towers looks to Italian models such as the Palazzo Venezia, Rome, although now I would also point to similarities with the great Palais Rihour, built from the 1450s to the 1470s for the dukes of Burgundy at Lille. (fig. 1).6

Fig. 1. Linlithgow Palace, aerial view

Fig. 1. Linlithgow Palace, aerial view

© Historic Environment Scotland

  • 7 William Douglas Simpson, “Glenbuchat and its castle”, in William Douglas Simpson (ed.), The Book of (...)
  • 8 Deborah Howard and the Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland, The Architecture of the Scott (...)
  • 9 Ian Campbell, “From du Cerceau to du Cerceau: Scottish Aristocratic Architectural Taste, c.1570–c.1 (...)
  • 10 M. Glendinning et. al, A History, op. cit., p. 20-21.

3For the century following James V’s death, there has been a similar re-assessment that the French Renaissance interlude was not completely forgotten. Already in the mid-twentieth century, W. Douglas Simpson suggested the possible influence of Philibert de l’Orme at Glenbuchat Castle, built around 1590 in a remote area of Aberdeenshire, and demonstrated unequivocally that the plan of Drochil Castle, in Peeblesshire, built for the fourth earl of Morton (1525-81), while Regent for part of James VI’s minority (1572-8) is inspired by engravings of Jacques Androuet du Cerceau the Elder.7 However, Simpson’s ideas failed to shift received scholarly opinion until the 1990s, beginning with the exhibition on the Scottish Renaissance curated by Deborah Howard and Charles McKean. McKean’s subsequent book, The Scottish Chateau (2001), argued forcefully that the majority of castles from the mid sixteenth-century were built for show rather than for serious defence and that the circular towers which began to be attached to the main blocks of castles were inspired by French examples.8 More French influence, especially from the works of du Cerceau, has subsequently been detected by others, continuing into the eighteenth century.9 Research has also begun to show that there is more Italianate influence in the earlier part of this period than hitherto realised with a geometrically-patterned coffered ceiling, dating from around 1550, which provides the earliest firm evidence that Serlio’s works were known in Scotland. This is at Kinneil “Palace”, a few miles north of Linlithgow, built for James Hamilton, third earl of Arran and duke of Châtellerault (c. 1516-1575), who was regent during the first part of Mary, Queen of Scots’ minority, from 1542-54, until replaced by Marie de Guise-Lorraine.10

  • 11 Ian Campbell, “Linlithgow's 'Princely Palace' and its Influence in Europe”, Architectural Heritage,(...)

4The innovative scholarship of the last three decades has allowed us to see the architecture stemming from James V’s French marriages as part of a continuum of interest in the continental Renaissance, rather than an aberration, and demands that it should be re-examined in the light of this richer context. The present paper will begin by looking briefly at the two major royal works initiated by James before his marriages, namely, alterations at the palaces of Holyroodhouse and Linlithgow. Secondly, it will consider the visit to France by James to marry Madeleine de Valois on 1 January 1537, and the subsequent importation of foreign craftsmen and visit by Scots craftsmen to France. Next we will look at the two principal domestic works after his marriages, namely the remodelling of Falkland Palace and the construction of the new palace block at Stirling Castle. Finally the paper will finish by revisiting an argument I made in 1994 that the plans of the châteaux of Écouen and Ancy-le-Franc resemble that of Linlithgow enough to suggest the latter influenced them.11

  • 12 John G. Dunbar, Scottish Royal Palaces, East Linton, Tuckwell Press, 1999, p. 61-64.
  • 13 Stewart Cruden, The Scottish Castle, Edinburgh, Spurbooks, 1981, p. 149, asserts the tower was comp (...)

5Work must have begun on constructing the north west tower at Holyroodhouse immediately after James assumed his majority in 1528, since by the time the earliest surviving account book begins in late 1529, the masons are already working on the first floor.12 Given such speed, it looks as if everything was ready to go in 1528 and one wonders if the tower had already been planned during the reign of James IV (fig. 2).13

Fig. 2. Holyroodhouse, Edinburgh, north west tower

Fig. 2. Holyroodhouse, Edinburgh, north west tower

© Crown Copyright: HES

6The base course of the tower consists of slightly smaller stones than those above, perhaps suggesting a break in work, which might mean the foundations had already been laid before 1513, although this must remain conjecture (fig. 3).

Fig. 3. Holyroodhouse, base of north west tower

Fig. 3. Holyroodhouse, base of north west tower

© Ian Campbell

7If James V was merely realising his father’s plan it might explain why the three-storey rectangular tower with corner rounds appears slightly old-fashioned, bearing a strong resemblance to the forework at Stirling built around 1500 (fig. 4),

Fig. 4. ‘The Prospect of their Ma[jes]ties Castle of Sterling’; John Slezer, Theatrum Scotiae (1693), pl. 7

Fig. 4. ‘The Prospect of their Ma[jes]ties Castle of Sterling’; John Slezer, Theatrum Scotiae (1693), pl. 7

© Courtesy of HES

  • 14 On the Stirling forework, see J. Dunbar, Scottish Royal Palaces, op. cit., p. 42-48; on Greenwich, (...)
  • 15 Ian Campbell and Aonghus MacKechnie, “The ‘Great Temple of Solomon’ at Stirling Castle”, Architectu (...)

8and to the donjon Henry VII of England built at Greenwich Palace occupying an analogous position at the end of a lodging range.14 Nor should we exclude the possibility that the three-storey design alludes in broad terms to woodcuts of Solomon’s Temple and Palace in Anton Koberger’s edition of Nicholas of Lyra’s Bible commentary first published in 1481, and re-used in the Nuremberg Chronicle of 1493, a source I have suggested which inspired other royal works of the Stewart monarchs from James IV to James VI (fig. 5).15

Fig. 5. Solomon’s Temple and Palace; Hartmann Schedel, Nuremberg Chronicle (1493), fol. 66v

Fig. 5. Solomon’s Temple and Palace; Hartmann Schedel, Nuremberg Chronicle (1493), fol. 66v

© Courtesy of Bayerische Staatsbibliothek

  • 16 J. Dunbar, Scottish Royal Palaces, op. cit., p. 65-69; on Richmond and Hampton Court, S. Thurley, R (...)

9The tower was more or less complete by 1532, and then there appears to have been a pause at Holyrood until 1535 when there began a rapid remodelling of the palace in anticipation of the marriage, which included the wholesale rebuilding of the west entrance quarter. From a print of 1649, we can see that the façade with round towers flanking the entrance and bay windows at either end, all with large mullion and transom windows (like those surviving at the Great Hall at Edinburgh Castle), owes much to English Tudor examples at Richmond and Hampton Court (fig. 6).16

Fig. 6. James Gordon of Rothiemay Palatium Regium Edinense,…. The royal palace of holy rood hous, engraving (1649)

Fig. 6. James Gordon of Rothiemay Palatium Regium Edinense,…. The royal palace of holy rood hous, engraving (1649)

Wikimedia commons: public domain

  • 17 J. Dunbar, Scottish Royal Palaces, op. cit, p. 18-20.
  • 18 Accounts of the Masters of Works for building and repairing Royal Palaces and Castle; Volume II: 16 (...)

10At Linlithgow, records show that major works were underway between 1534 and 1536, no doubt in preparation for the marriage since the palace was to be given to the queen.17 It is clear that although there was some general refurbishment throughout the palace, most of the expenditure went on remodelling the western part of the south quarter where a new principal entrance was created, presumably for the convenience of its connection to the burgh of Linlithgow, although the old entrance on the east quarter still retained its ceremonial primacy for the entry of Charles I in 1633 (fig. 7).18

Fig. 7. Linlithgow Palace, plan

Fig. 7. Linlithgow Palace, plan

© Courtesy of HES

  • 19 C. McWilliam, Lothian except Edinburgh, op. cit., p. 295.

11The south-west façade was regularised, which included blocking some windows and facing it in ashlar and the entrance arch to the palace was given a projecting porch flanked by miniature round towers, preceded by a miniature freestanding gateway with octagonal towers heralding those of the porch and decorated with reliefs showing the heraldic achievements of the four chivalric orders of which James was a member, the Garter (England), the Thistle (Scotland), the Golden Fleece (Burgundy) and St Michel (France) (figs 8 and 9).19

Fig. 8. Linlithgow, Palace, south façade

Fig. 8. Linlithgow, Palace, south façade

© Crown Copyright: HES

Fig. 9. Linlithgow Palace, south gate

Fig. 9. Linlithgow Palace, south gate

© Crown Copyright: HES

  • 20 J. Dunbar, Scottish Royal Palaces, op. cit., p. 20.

12The upper works of the South west tower were also rebuilt to match those of the South east tower, dating from the reign of James IV.20

  • 21 The great fountain in the courtyard, does have some Renaissance features, but being essentially scu (...)
  • 22 Charles McKean, “Sir James Hamilton of Finnart: A Renaissance Courtier-Architect”, Architectural Hi (...)
  • 23 J. Dunbar, Scottish Royal Palaces, op. cit., p. 14.
  • 24 Ian Campbell, “James IV and Edinburgh’s first triumphal arches” in D. Mays (ed.), The Architecture (...)

13Nothing in these works is particularly Renaissance in style.21 Charles McKean looks back to the early fifteenth-century gatehouse in the enceinte surrounding the donjon of the Château de Vincennes for a precedent for the porch and forework, but that is vastly different in scale and was intended to be as much functionally defensive as monumental, whereas its counterparts at Linlithgow are more ornamental miniatures, medievalising in character.22 They are no more truly defensive than the low round towers built in front of the northern part of the east quarter by James IV, to disguise the buttressing works to the north east tower, which must have already been showing signs of instability.23 James V’s gateway and porch can perhaps best be compared to some of the ephemeral arches erected for joyous entries in northern Europe such as those erected in Bruges in 1515 for the future Charles V.24

  • 25 J. Lesley, The History of Scotland, ed. T. Thomson, Bannatyne Club, 38, 1830, p. 158; Charles McKea (...)
  • 26 C. McKean, art. cit., p. 141-143.
  • 27 J. Dunbar, Scottish Royal Palaces, op. cit., p. 222.

14The responsibility for the works at Linlithgow is unclear. Bishop John Leslie’s History of Scotland (1570) attributes both them and those at Stirling to Sir James Hamilton of Finnart (c. 1495-1540), the bastard son of the first earl of Arran, who was an intimate of James V until his downfall in 1540 and had been made Keeper of Linlithgow Palace in 1526, and in 1539 the king’s Master of Works “Principal”.25 McKean argues that Finnart can be regarded as an architectural designer and that time he spent in France in his early life informed his works.26 While this may be so at Stirling, there is little evidence of French influence at Linlithgow. Even if, as Keeper, Finnart was closely involved in the building works, Thomas Johnson is recorded as the actual master of works from 1534.27

  • 28 Jamie Cameron, James V: the Personal Rule 1528-1542, East Linton, Tuckwell Press, 1998, p. 122.
  • 29 Ibid, p. 131-133.
  • 30 Accounts of the Masters of Works for building and repairing of Royal Palaces and Castles; Volume I: (...)
  • 31 Masters of Works, I, op. cit., p. 213-214.
  • 32 A. Thomas, Glory and Honour, op. cit., p. 78.
  • 33 J. Dunbar, Scottish Royal Palaces, op. cit., p. 228; Masters of Works, I, op. cit., p. xxxiv.

15Hence, had James V died even sooner, or married the Scot Margaret Erskine or the English Mary Tudor, two of the many candidates for his hand considered during the early 1530s, the architecture of his reign would be dismissed as rather old-fashioned and insular compared to his father’s. However, the fact that François I finally honoured the Treaty of Rouen (1517) which stipulated that James V would in due course marry one of his daughters, changed all that.28 James travelled in person to France to marry Madeleine de Valois in Notre-Dame on 1 January 1537. His progress through France began at Dieppe on 9/10 September 1536 and after a diversion to Saint-Quentin, the court of the Duke of Vendôme in Picardy (whose daughter was another marriage candidate proposed by François) he headed south meeting François at Chapelle on the upper reaches of the Loire, north west of Lyon on 13 October. From there the two kings travelled slowly back to Paris in time for the wedding, after which James and Madeleine stayed another four months before finally departing from Le Havre on 10 May.29 During this extended stay, James saw some of the most splendid palaces and châteaux in France, including Amboise, Blois, Fontainebleau, the Louvre, Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Chantilly and Compiègne, which cannot have failed to have made a profound impression on him and others who accompanied him, not least the French mason Moyse (or ‘Mogin’) Martyne, already resident in Scotland, whom, at Orléans on 1 December 1536, James created one of three royal Master Masons.30 Two other craftsmen, probably principally gunners and neither sounding like native-Scots, William Smibert and Piers Rouen, are recorded in the king’s retinue in France, and in spring 1538, James sent a party of “wrights” to France, led by John Drummond of Mylnab, who was both the king’s master wright, or principal carpenter, and also keeper of the king’s artillery.31 They seem to have returned with the party escorting Marie de Guise-Lorraine (1515-1560), as James’s second bride, Queen Madeleine having died after a mere 40 days in Scotland.32 As well as Martyne and the Scottish wrights who had seen at first hand the latest buildings in the latest François premier style, six masons were sent over from France in spring 1539, by Marie’s mother, the duchess of Guise, the most prominent being Nicholas Roy, who was appointed royal master mason two days after arriving in Scotland and was working at Falkland Palace with three assistants by July.33

  • 34 J. Dunbar, Scottish Royal Palaces, op. cit., p. 29.

16Given this operation to acquaint craftsmen, both Scots and foreigners already resident in Scotland, with the latest developments in French architecture, plus the import of masons from France, it is hardly surprising that the rebuilding of Falkland Palace shows such advanced taste. Work began in 1537, reaching a peak in 1539 when there were as many as sixty masons working there, with work largely complete by 1541, under the overall supervision of John Scrymgeour, as Master of Works.34 The main works appear to have been remodelling the east quarter, built by James IV, which housed the royal lodgings, and rebuilding the chapel on the south quarter above the early sixteenth-century cellarage and adding a gatehouse at the south-west corner (fig. 10).

Fig. 10. Falkland Palace, plan

Fig. 10. Falkland Palace, plan

© Crown Copyright: HES

  • 35 S. Cruden, The Scottish Castle, op. cit., p. 149; John Gifford, Fife, London, Penguin Books, 1988, (...)

17The form of the gate house, with round towers, inset with tourelles, flanking the gate has been thought to have been begun by James IV, and the bulk of the chapel dated 1508-11, because both appear so old-fashioned and Gothic in contrast with the internal elevations (fig. 11).35

Fig. 11. Falkland Palace, gatehouse

Fig. 11. Falkland Palace, gatehouse

© Margaret O’Neill

  • 36 J. Dunbar, Scottish Royal Palaces, op. cit., p. 33-36.
  • 37 Ibid., p. 36-37; I. Campbell, review of Dunbar, Scottish Royal Palaces, op. cit., p. 119-20.

18John Dunbar, however, argues convincingly that the masonry of both elevations is contemporary and that the differences in style can be attributed to their design being the work of different masons, with the native Scottish master masons, John Brownhill and James Black, responsible for the exterior, while the internal elevations were begun by Moyse Martyne on his return from France in 1537, sharing responsibility for the east quarter with Brownhill. Martyne, however, died in 1538 (though his son of the same name continued to work there) and it looks as if Thomas French, another experienced royal master mason was drafted in, in July 1538, later joined by Nicholas Roy on his arrival in 1539.36 But the stylistic differences can also again be seen as medievalising, with a more martial front to the outside world, contrasting with the elegant internal domestic façades.37

19For the courtyard façade of the east quarter, the six bays were articulated by six pilaster buttresses, dated 1537, from which projected an engaged square column, supporting an engaged Corinthian round column (the shafts of which have all gone), which were in turn capped by a statue niche reaching to the eaves level. In addition, above the tall hood moulded James IV-period windows of the first storey, pairs of Italianate medallions, containing heads seen in profile were inserted, while the dormer windows of the attic storey were given segmental pediments (fig. 12).

Fig. 12. Falkland Palace, east quarter, internal façade

Fig. 12. Falkland Palace, east quarter, internal façade

Wikimedia commons: Mike Beltzner

20The internal south quarter elevation, which was all new work, has six column buttresses dated 1539, similar to those of the east quarter but capped by inverted acanthus-decorated consoles, to support statues which would have projected above the eaves (fig. 13).

Fig. 13. Falkland Palace, south quarter, internal façade

Fig. 13. Falkland Palace, south quarter, internal façade

© Crown copyright: HES

21The windows of each of the five bays consist of small semi-basement single-lights at ground level, four-light transom windows at the first floor and a two-light cross window at the second floor, the latter being flanked by pairs of portrait medallions, with foliated circular frames and busts portrayed frontally rather than in profile. The overall effect is more assured than that of the east quarter and probably reflects more the input of Nicholas Roy and his team.

  • 38 John Dunbar, “Some sixteenth-century French parallels for the palace of Falkland”, Rosc: Review of (...)
  • 39 Dana Bentley-Cranch, “An early sixteenth-century French architectural source for the palace of Falk (...)
  • 40 A. Thomas, Glory and Honour, op. cit., p. 74 says Villers Cotterets was on the French court itinera (...)

22John Dunbar was the first to point to Villers-Cotterets, begun for François I in 1533, as a close parallel for the courtyard façades, articulated by very similar column buttresses.38 The portrait medallions are not found there but, having originated in northern Italy in the fifteenth century, were enthusiastically taken up by the French after the invasion of Charles VIII in 1494, and were prominent at Bury where James is known to have stayed during his 1536-7 tour.39 Whether James himself visited Villers-Cotterets in 1536-7 is not recorded but it is not far from Paris and Martyne certainly could easily have done so. 40

  • 41 The ceiling in the gallery outside the chapel copies a design from Sebastiano Serlio’s Regole, Veni (...)
  • 42 J. Dunbar, Scottish Royal Palaces, op. cit., p. 162-164.

23Finally on Falkland, mention should be made briefly of the only significant sixteenth-century survival inside the palace, the compartmented chapel ceiling, for which the wright Richard Stewart was paid in 1541 along with fitting out the rest of the chapel. It is an accomplished example of such a ceiling but the geometric design is generic and has not yet been pinned down to a particular source, French or otherwise.41 It had been anticipated by the similar ceilings in the James V tower at Holyrood, and simpler square compartmented ceilings were already present in James IV’s lodgings at Linlithgow and Edinburgh Castle.42

  • 43 Ibid., p. 50.
  • 44 Ibid., p. 52.
  • 45 Ibid.
  • 46 Ibid., p. 52 and 162.
  • 47 Ibid., p. 52.

24If Falkland is easy to explain as the desire to fashion a palace à la mode française for James’s V two French queens, the same cannot be said of the new palace block he erected at Stirling Castle to house new lodgings for him and Marie de Guise-Lorraine. We are hampered by the lack of detailed masters of works’ accounts for the palace, and are reliant on other sources to piece together the outline of construction works. A surviving account for Stirling for early 1538 suggests no substantial works were underway before May that year when Sir James Hamilton of Finnart replaced James Nicholson as master of works. As we have already seen Finnart is elevated to “Master of Works Principall” in 1539 until his execution in 1540, after which Nicholson returns to post at Stirling until August 1541 when Robert Robertson, a wright and carver, takes over. Works seem to have been largely finished before James’s death in December 1542, although the evidence of dormer heads (now gone), one with the initials “M R” and another with the date “1557” suggests some work was done later in Marie de Guise-Lorraine’s regency.43 The paucity of archival sources means we cannot say for certain who the actual craftsmen working on the palace were, apart from Robert Robertson, who had previously worked at Falkland before his elevation as master of works.44 A seventeenth-century source attributes the bulk of the timber work, including, one assumes, the compartmented ceiling of the King’s Presence Chamber containing the celebrated ‘Stirling Heads’, to the master wright, John Drummond.45 The suggestion is not unreasonable, although the individual roundels were probably executed by specialist carvers, such as Robertson and perhaps, the French carpenter Andrew Mansioun, who was active in the royal works at this time.46 There is little evidence to identify the masons at Stirling and, while one might expect some from Falkland might also have worked there, the difference in style between the two buildings would then be even harder to explain. Dunbar, however, points out that of the six masons sent by the duchess of Guise to Scotland in 1539, only four at first and then three were employed at Falkland, so that the others may have gone to Stirling. He also notes that during 1543-1544, Nicholas Roy, the master mason at Falkland, is in the household of Marie de Guise-Lorraine at Stirling, working in the royal park.47

  • 48 Ibid, p. 55; Royal Commission on the ancient and historical monuments of Scotland, Stirlingshire, 2 (...)

25The Stirling palace block consists of a tight quadrangle built on sloping ground around the Lions’ Den, a central court, “too small and secluded” to permit much architectural elaboration, three quarters surviving largely intact, but the fourth, the west quarter now only represented by a “transe” or gallery connecting the north and south quarters, the rest of the quarter having collapsed during the eighteenth century (fig. 14).48

Fig. 14. Stirling Castle, plan

Fig. 14. Stirling Castle, plan

© Crown Copyright: HES

26The north, east and south external façades each consist of a plain basement storey, its height varying according to the slope, supporting the tall piano nobile of the royal lodgings, crowned by a battlemented parapet, which hides a modest attic storey containing lodgings for courtiers and servants. The entrance at the north west corner is at the top of the slope of the inner court thereby avoiding steps. The façades are articulated into shallow projecting bays with large iron-grilled first floor windows each capped by a segmental tympanum but without a pediment, between recesses capped by cusped arches, and each sheltering a full-length statue. The statues on the south quarter, which look out of the castle over the forework have a more martial character and stand on spirally-fluted cylindrical column shafts, supported by a corbel carved as a half-length statue (fig. 15).

Fig. 15. Stirling Palace Block, south façade

Fig. 15. Stirling Palace Block, south façade

© Courtesy of HES (Konstam Collection)

27The statues of the east and north quarters which are fully visible from the inner court, stand on two-tier “candelabra” columns, with balusters above and richly-carved cylindrical shafts below, again supported on half-length statues (fig. 16).

Fig. 16. Stirling Palace Block, east façade

Fig. 16. Stirling Palace Block, east façade

© Dave Collins / picfair.com

  • 49 They are fully described and illustrated in Royal Commission, Stirlingshire, I, p. 220-223. A usefu (...)
  • 50 J. Dunbar, Scottish royal palaces, op. cit., p. 55.
  • 51 Ibid.; Jean-Pierre Babelon, Châteaux de France au siècle de la Renaissance, Paris, Flammarion/ Pica (...)
  • 52 J. Dunbar, Scottish Royal Palaces, op. cit., p. 55; J.-P., Babelon, Châteaux de France, op. cit., p (...)
  • 53 J. Dunbar, Scottish Royal Palaces, op. cit., p. 55; J.-P., Babelon, Châteaux de France, op. cit., p (...)
  • 54 Charles McKean, “Finnart’s Platt”, Architectural Heritage, 2, 1991, p. 3-17, here p. 16, n.20: J. D (...)
  • 55 C. McKean, “Hamilton, Sir James”, op. cit.; C. McKean, “Finnart’s Platt”, op. cit., p. 3.

28Capitals and mouldings are far from the canonical classicism of Falkland, and at best can be described as classicizing. Crowning the first storey is a cornice consisting of a lower cabled moulding and an upper moulding decorated with winged cherubs’ heads. The parapet above is decorated with more full-length statues on stubby columnar pedestals springing from the cornice. This is clearly a composition of great exuberance, designed to an extensive sculptural programme, comprising over forty full- and half-length statues, the significance into which we cannot enter here, except to remark that it is unique in Great Britain.49 John Dunbar’s attempts to find parallels for the architectural details in “near contemporary” French examples raise as many questions as they answer.50 The north wing of Châteaudun, which has cusped arches, was only completed by Marie de Guise’s first husband, the duke of Longueville in 1532 but was begun in 1511 and is more Louis XII in style than François I.51 A similar point can be made about the palace of her uncle, the duke of Lorraine, at Nancy, which had, besides an entrance with cusped arch panels above, a great circular staircase the buttresses and parapet of which were decorated with statues on balusters: they too date from the early sixteenth century.52 The château at Joinville built by Marie’s father, the duke of Guise, is contemporary with Stirling and does indeed bear a generic similarity in consisting of a low basement, grand piano nobile and an attic storey, but its decorative system is wholly different in character with a much more refined Italianate vocabulary showing a far greater understanding of classicism more comparable to Falkland than Stirling.53 One explanation suggested for the apparently retardataire style of Stirling is that the palace had been begun by the duke of Albany, while regent twenty years earlier, and James V was merely finishing it, but the facts that so much money is spent in 1539-41 and that it is referred to as the “new work” suggest otherwise.54 An alternative suggestion is that Finnart, who was clearly involved in some capacity in the construction of the palace, was also responsible for the overall design. Since he is not recorded as visiting France after the early 1520s, he would have been relying largely on his knowledge of the architecture he saw then.55 This argument, however, can hardly be sustained given that James V had seen and stayed in the latest French court style himself, and had taken Moyse Martyne with him presumably to make sure someone with professional expertise could take such knowledge back to Scotland.

  • 56 John Gifford and Frank Arneil Walker, Stirling and Central Scotland, New Haven and London, Yale Uni (...)
  • 57 John Dunbar, The Stirling Heads, Edinburgh, Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1975, p. 26; J.-P., Ba (...)
  • 58 Ibid.; H. M. Shire, “The King in his House”, op. cit., p. 92; A. Thomas, Glory and Honour, op. cit.(...)

29The alternation of projecting and recessed bays with the windows unexpectedly in the former has led some to characterise the palace as Mannerist, and even to suggest parallels with Giulio Romano’s Mannerist works in Mantua, pointing out that Primaticcio, who was at Fontainebleau from 1532, had worked at Mantua.56 However, although it is certainly not impossible that whoever designed Stirling had knowledge of Italian sources, there is nothing in the architecture to suggest they wanted to imitate them closely. Similarly, inside the palace, the coffered ceiling of the king’s presence chamber, framing the Stirling Heads, originally fifty-six in number, has no close parallels in either France or Italy, except perhaps, in terms of form, for the individual medallions framed in square compartments executed in stone for the ceiling of the stair of the château of Azay-le-Rideau, built 1518-27.57 A timber ceiling in the Cuadra Dorada in Casa de los Tiros in Granada, built in the 1520 and 30s includes heads but not in medallions. The closest parallel is the timber-coffered ceiling of the Hall of the Deputies (also known as the Ambassadors’ Chamber) at the Wawel Castle, Cracow, then the principal seat of the Polish monarchy. It originally had one hundred and ninety four heads, smaller, albeit in higher relief, carved in the 1530s by two Germans from Breslau (now Wroclaw) in Silesia.58

  • 59 S. Cruden, The Scottish Castle, op. cit., p. 148.
  • 60 Diplomacy was among the chief duties of heralds at this date, along with devising royal pageantry, (...)
  • 61 Ian Campbell, “Crown steeples and crowns imperial” in L. Golden (ed.), Raising the Eyebrow: John On (...)

30It may be that James V was not as fixated on the latest French or Italian fashion as we are conditioned to think, knowing as we do that ultimately canonical classicism would prevail across Europe. Instead it is worth re-examining a neglected observation of Stewart Cruden, that we should look further afield and specifically to the Low Countries, Spain and Portugal.59 Before the marriage to Madeleine de Valois was agreed, James was scouring Europe for a suitable bride, and his diplomats, often heralds, would have had knowledge of architectural works in the realms of other prestigious European monarchs, among whom the chief was the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, whose dominions extended to Spain, Germany and the Low Countries.60 Given that James finally had the Scottish crown remodelled as a crown imperial realising the intention of his father and grandfather who are both portrayed wearing crowns imperial, looking to the Habsburg Empire would make sense.61 Throughout the Habsburg Empire and Portugal in the sixteenth century, architecture tends to be more eclectic with Gothic and Renaissance motifs freely mixed.

  • 62 Robert Lindsay of Pitscottie, Historie and Cronicles of Scotland, ed. Aeneas Mackay, 3 vols, Edinbu (...)
  • 63 J. Dunbar, Scottish Royal Palaces, op. cit., p. 64.
  • 64 Paolo Pereira, The Jerónimos Abbey of Santa Maria, London, Scala, 2002, p. 34 and 110.
  • 65 Walter Crum Watson, Portuguese Architecture, London, Archibald Constable and Co., 1908, p. 200, fig (...)
  • 66 David Lindsay, “The Testament and Complaynt of the Papyngo”, ll. 638-9: see The Works of Sir David (...)
  • 67 Charles Burnett, “Outward Signs of Majesty, 1513-1540” in J. Hadley Williams, op. cit., p. 289-302, (...)
  • 68 Accounts of the Lord High Treasurer of Scotland: Volume IV, A.D. 1507-1513, ed. James Balfour Paul, (...)

31Robert Lindsay of Pitscottie, writing in the late sixteenth century, claims that James brought in craftsmen of every sort, including masons and wrights, “Frenchmen, Spanzards, Dutchemen and Inglischmen” to work on his palaces.62 Certainly we find in much contemporary Spanish architecture an exuberant fusion of Gothic and Renaissance motifs, not unlike Stirling, but we have no named Spanish craftsmen in Scotland from this period, although some of the iron imported for metalwork came from Spain.63 We can also look to the Manueline architecture of neighbouring Portugal, especially the Jeronimos monastery of Sta Maria at Belem, Lisbon, where the cloister begun in the early sixteenth century was still being built in the 1540s with both cusped arches and two-tier columns, as well as many portrait medallions, very similar to those at Falkland and the Stirling Heads.64 Similarly the contemporary cloister of the monastery of Santa Cruz at Coimbra has two-tier columns very close to those at Stirling.65 How knowledge of Manueline architecture would have reached Scotland is not clear. The humanist George Buchanan (1506-1582) was in Coimbra and Lisbon from 1547-1552, too late for our purposes, but, intriguingly Sir David Lindsay of the Mount (c. 1490-1555), who had been James V’s tutor before beginning his diplomatic career as a herald, in a poem from the 1530s suggests Linlithgow Palace might be compared to those in Portugal and France.66 It looks as if he may have visited Portugal but apparently not until 1541.67 As far as evidence of Portuguese craftsmen in Scotland, there is only the record of some wrights in royal service at Dumbarton in 1507, though it should be pointed out that much of the Manueline work at Coimbra was executed by French masons.68

  • 69 Royal Commission, op. cit. I, p. 221-222.
  • 70 S. Cruden, The Scottish Castle, op. cit., p. 148.
  • 71 Henry-Russell Hitchcock, German Renaissance Architecture, Princeton, Princeton University Press, p. (...)
  • 72 Ibid., p. 32.

32The Holy Roman Empire may prove more fertile ground for our purposes. We know that prints of Hans Burgkmair of Augsburg (1473-1531) were the models for some of the statues of planetary deities on the façades of the palace block and so it is not unreasonable to think that the architecture may come from the same area.69 Cruden cites the Maison Échevinale in Malines/Mechelen, begun 1526, in relation to Stirling but we find cusped arches and multi-tiered classicizing columns in use in buildings across the Low Countries and Germany.70 A good example of the use of cusped arches on single columns is the arcade on the early Renaissance garden front at Schloss Binsfeld, near Aachen (c. 1533), while the rood screen at St Maria im Kapitol at Cologne, a work ordered from Malines/Mechelen in Flanders and erected in the early 1520s, includes very elaborately cusped arches including putti, and columns with both cylindrical shafts and balusters.71 Multi-tiered columns are also found in the cloister of Regensburg Cathedral from a similar date.72

  • 73 Mark Dilworth, The Scots in Franconia, Edinburgh and London, Scottish Academic Press, 1974, p 18-19 (...)
  • 74 Masters of Work, I, op. cit., p. 256 and 278.
  • 75 The “French” miners brought in by James V in 1539 to develop the gold mines at Crawfordmuir were ce (...)
  • 76 Heinrich Vogtherr, Ein Frembds und Wunderbars Kunstbuchlin, Strasbourg, 1537-1538. A reprint in 154 (...)

33Scots could easily have known such works: the abbot of St James, Regensburg, who visited the court of James V in 1529, was Scottish, while David Lindsay of the Mount made an embassy to the Empire in 1531, including a seven-week stay in Flanders73. But more important for the present context are craftsmen familiar with such works. Fortunately, besides Pitscottie’s general reference to “Dutchemen”, we have specific references at Falkland to Peter “Flemishman”, carving images and Peter “Dutchman” paid as a mason.74These may refer to a single person from the Netherlands, but the adjective “Dutch” at this date applied equally to Germans, so that there may have been two Peters. Nor can we be certain of the nationality of all the masons supplied by the duchess of Guise in 1539. It is not a given that all were French and we should remember that the duchy of Lorraine was within the bounds of the Holy Roman Empire.75 It is a striking coincidence that the first artists’ pattern book to be published, which includes designs of multi-tiered columns, was printed in Strasbourg, just across the Vosges mountains from Lorraine, in 1537-1538.76 Although the designs are more elaborate than those at Stirling, it was standard practice for carvers to own such pattern books of drawings both to inspire their own creations and to show to patrons, and those working on Falkland and Stirling would almost certainly have had access to some.

34It looks then, as if James and his advisers deliberately chose two contemporary but very different architectural styles for Falkland and Stirling. For the former, a refined Italianate classicism in fashion at the French court, was thought appropriate for what was essentially a country retreat, a place of relaxation. For Stirling, however, the most impressive royal seat in Scotland, they opted for a showier hybrid style, in fashion throughout the Habsburg and Portuguese empires, mixing Gothic and classicizing details. While apparently less sophisticated to our eyes, the palace at Stirling would have left no contemporary in doubt at the ambitions of James V.

  • 77 David H. Caldwell and Gordon Ewart, “Excavations at Eyemouth, Berwickshire, in a mid 16th-century t (...)
  • 78 David Laing, “Notice respecting the Monument to the Regent Earl of Murray, now restored, within the (...)
  • 79 Ciro Birra, “Lorenzo Pomarelli, un architetto del XVI secolo tra Siena e Napoli”, Rendiconti della (...)

35After James’s death in 1542, most major works on the royal palaces ceased and we know little of the fate of the foreign craftsmen who had been working on them. However, as was said at the beginning of this paper, scholars are now beginning to identify more continental influence in the architecture of the following generations than hitherto recognised, and it is likely that some of it was executed by them. Marie de Guise-Lorraine appointed the Frenchman Jean Roytell as principal master mason in 1556/7. He was already in Scotland in 1550, probably brought over in the late 1540s with other French and Italian military engineers, including the renowned Piero Strozzi and Migliorino Ubaldini to strengthen existing and build new fortifications against the English.77 Roytell may have been responsible for the dormer heads dated 1557 on the Stirling Palace and is credited with creating the earl of Moray’s tomb in St Giles in 1569/70.78 Another Italian architect brought over to work on fortifications was the Sienese Lorenzo Pomarelli (fl. 1543-73), who was connected with Baldassare Peruzzi, one of the greatest Renaissance architects. Pomarelli first appears in the important post of Sottomastro delle Strade in Rome in 1543, before working for the Farnese family on the fortifications of Castro, from where he moved to France in the 1550s, and thence to Scotland, from c.1560-1566. Although a specialist in fortifications, he was also involved in Italy in civil and ecclesiastical projects, and it is surely likely such knowledge did not go unused in Scotland.79

  • 80 Ian Campbell, art. cit., 1994, p. 1.
  • 81 Mark Girouard, Elizabethan Architecture: its Rise and Fall 1540-1640, New Haven and London, p. 88-8 (...)

36However, this is beyond the scope of the present paper and I want to conclude by revisiting an argument I made in 1994, which took as its starting point the report that Marie de Guise-Lorraine, on first setting eyes on Linlithgow Palace in 1538, said she had never seen a more princely palace.80 I argued its plan was not only influenced by palaces in continental Europe but returned the compliment by informing the design of the châteaux of Écouen and Ancy-le-Franc in France. It is fair to say that the argument has not found general acceptance, probably because Linlithgow in its present state is far less impressive and even in its sixteenth-century heyday was smaller than they were, suggesting that Marie de Guise-Lorraine’s remark, even if she said it, was more for the sake of politeness than that she truly believed it to be so. Nevertheless, I believe the similarities are so compelling as to suggest a plan of Linlithgow was circulating in France around 1540, perhaps brought over by someone in the party of James V in 1536-1537 or by John Drummond on his visit in 1538. That a plan can inspire others to design something on a different scale and with stylistically different elevations is demonstrated by John Thorpe’s adopting the plan of Palladio’s Villa Valmarana at Lisiera as the basis of his at Somerhill, Kent, built around 1613.81

  • 82 J.-P., Babelon, Châteaux de France, op. cit., p. 329-338.

37Écouen was begun in 1539 for Anne, duke of Montmorency, Constable of France and favourite of François I, and therefore undoubtedly made contact with James V and his party. It has a quadrangular plan with rectangular corner pavilions, for which there is no close French precedent, round towers having been the rule since the late fourteenth-century Louvre of Charles V (fig. 17).82

Fig. 17. Plan of Ecouen: Jacques Androuet du Cerceau, Les plus excellents bastiments, de France (1579), vol. 2

Fig. 17. Plan of Ecouen: Jacques Androuet du Cerceau, Les plus excellents bastiments, de France (1579), vol. 2

Photo © RMN-Grand Palais (musée de la Renaissance, château d'Ecouen) / image RMN-GP

  • 83 I. Campbell, art. cit., 1994, p. 7.
  • 84 Ibid., fig. 1.5.

38Like Linlithgow each pavilion is accessed by a spiral stair in an abutting smaller circular tower, albeit in the angles between the projecting pavilions and the outer façades of the south and north quarters, rather than in the courtyard. Although similar juxtapositions of rectangular pavilions and small circular towers are found at the Château de Madrid outside Paris, and the Château Neuf at Fontainebleau, both dating from 1528, Linlithgow anticipates them by twenty years.83 Finally, a particularly close correspondence is that the two entrances of Écouen are preceded by two small gates flanked by circular towers, for which again there are no obvious French parallels. Although their style is very different from those at Linlithgow, one cannot discern that from their plan.84

  • 85 J.-P., Babelon, Châteaux de France, op. cit, p. 384-93; Sabine Kühbacher, “Il problema di Ancy-le- (...)
  • 86 Pietro C. Marani, “A Reworking by Baldassare Peruzzi of Francesco di Giorgio's Plan of a Villa”, Jo (...)
  • 87 I. Campbell, art. cit., 1994, p. 7-8.

39At Ancy-le-Franc, begun in 1541, soon after Sebastiano Serlio’s arrival in France, for another prominent member of the French court, Antoine de Clermont-Tonnerre (1498-1578), the correspondences are equally strong.85 Serlio designed it as an example of the “fortified villa” type, which had been first explored by his master, Baldassare Peruzzi.86 The quadrangular plan with rectangular towers is generic with this type, but the stairs contained each corner of the courtyard are not. They correspond in position with those at Linlithgow even if not expressed externally (fig. 18).87

Fig. 18. Plan of Ancy-le-Franc: Manuscript of Sebastiano Serlio’s Sixth Book (c. 1550)

Fig. 18. Plan of Ancy-le-Franc: Manuscript of Sebastiano Serlio’s Sixth Book (c. 1550)

© Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library, Columbia University

  • 88 J. Dunbar, Scottish Royal Palaces, op. cit., p. 16-17, fig. 1.4. The palace at Stirling had a simil (...)

40The other specific parallel is the presence of two arcades on opposite sides of the courtyard, with galleries or corridors on the upper floors, which echo the original arrangement at Linlithgow. There, in the north quarter rebuilt after its collapse in 1607, one pier survives embedded, indicating that an arcade opened on to the courtyard, which probably had corridors above it. Facing it on the south quarter runs a three-storey glazed “transe” or gallery on the south quarter.88 Again there is no close earlier French precedent.

  • 89 I. Campbell, art. cit., 1995, p. 312.

41The notion that the great importer of canonical Renaissance architecture to France might be influenced by a medievalising palace in Scotland does sound highly improbable at first but we can also point to the design of the gateway to the Stirling forework built around 1500 anticipating a Serlio design for a gate of a fortress or city by forty years.89 It is difficult for us to conceive of architectural influences travelling from north to south so conditioned are we to a diffusionist interpretation of the Renaissance, but, as already suggested, if Linlithgow were known from only a plan, the question of style would not have arisen. It was merely another potential model for a mason or architect seeking inspiration. Why should it not come from Scotland?

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Notes

1 Howard Colvin, A Biographical Dictionary of British Architects 1600-1840, 3rd edition, New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 1995, p. 174.

2 Mark Girouard, “Falkland Palace, Fife, parts I and II”, Country Life, 126, 1959, p. 118-121 and 178-181, here p. 121; John Summerson, Architecture in Britain 1530-1830, 1st paperback edition, Harmondsworth, 1970, p. 526-528.

3 Ian Campbell, “A Romanesque Revival and the Early Renaissance in Scotland, c. 1380-1513”, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, 54, 1995, p. 302-325; Miles Glendinning, Ranald MacInnes and Aonghus MacKechnie, A History of Scottish Architecture from the Renaissance to the Present Day, Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press, 1996, p. 6-16.

4 John Gifford, Colin McWilliam and David Walker, with Christopher Wilson, Edinburgh, Harmondsworth, Penguin Books, 1984, p. 97-8; John Dunbar, “French Influence in Scottish architecture during the sixteenth century," Scottish Records Association Conference Papers, 12, 1989, p. 3-8, here p. 4.

5 Colin McWilliam, Lothian except Edinburgh, Harmondsworth, Penguin Books, p. 297; I. Campbell, art. cit., 1995, p. 315.

6 I. Campbell, art. cit., 1995, p. 314-315; I am very grateful to Dr Michael Pearce for drawing my attention to the Palais Rihour.

7 William Douglas Simpson, “Glenbuchat and its castle”, in William Douglas Simpson (ed.), The Book of Glenbuchat, Aberdeen, Third Spalding Club, 1942, p. 35-7; William Douglas Simpson, “Drochil Castle and the Plan Tout Une Masse”, Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, 86, 1951-2, p. 70-8.

8 Deborah Howard and the Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland, The Architecture of the Scottish Renaissance, RIAS, Edinburgh, 1990; Charles McKean, The Scottish Chateau: The Country House of Renaissance Scotland, Sutton Publishing, Stroud, 2001. To be fair, John Summerson, op. cit., p. 529-30, does detect French influence in some mid-sixteenth century castles and houses but fails to explore it thoroughly.

9 Ian Campbell, “From du Cerceau to du Cerceau: Scottish Aristocratic Architectural Taste, c.1570–c.1750”, Architectural Heritage, 26, 2015, p. 55-71.

10 M. Glendinning et. al, A History, op. cit., p. 20-21.

11 Ian Campbell, “Linlithgow's 'Princely Palace' and its Influence in Europe”, Architectural Heritage, 5, 1994, p. 1-20 here p. 7-9.

12 John G. Dunbar, Scottish Royal Palaces, East Linton, Tuckwell Press, 1999, p. 61-64.

13 Stewart Cruden, The Scottish Castle, Edinburgh, Spurbooks, 1981, p. 149, asserts the tower was completed by James IV, but the documentary evidence does not bear this out. Andrea Thomas, Glory and honour: the Renaissance in Scotland, Edinburgh, Birlinn, 2013, p. 21, speculates that the tower deliberately looks back to the works of James IV.

14 On the Stirling forework, see J. Dunbar, Scottish Royal Palaces, op. cit., p. 42-48; on Greenwich, see Simon Thurley, The Royal Palaces of Tudor England, New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 1993, p. 34-35

15 Ian Campbell and Aonghus MacKechnie, “The ‘Great Temple of Solomon’ at Stirling Castle”, Architectural History, 54, 2011, p. 91-118, illustrated at p. 107, fig. 12; Ian Campbell, “The ‘Solomonic window’ in Renaissance Scotland and at large” in Joseph Masheck (ed.), Mostly Modern: Essays in Art and Architecture, Stockbridge, Hard Press, 2015, p. 66-72, illustrated at p. 68, fig. 5.2.

16 J. Dunbar, Scottish Royal Palaces, op. cit., p. 65-69; on Richmond and Hampton Court, S. Thurley, Royal Palaces, op. cit., p. 27-32 and 51-52.

17 J. Dunbar, Scottish Royal Palaces, op. cit, p. 18-20.

18 Accounts of the Masters of Works for building and repairing Royal Palaces and Castle; Volume II: 1616-1649, ed. John Imrie and John Dunbar, Edinburgh, Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1982, p. 345.

19 C. McWilliam, Lothian except Edinburgh, op. cit., p. 295.

20 J. Dunbar, Scottish Royal Palaces, op. cit., p. 20.

21 The great fountain in the courtyard, does have some Renaissance features, but being essentially sculptural is outside the scope of this paper. In any case it appears to be contemporary with the works at Falkland and the palace block at Stirling discussed below, and was probably executed by some of the same craftsmen: see Andrea Thomas, Princelie Majestie: the Court of James of Scotland, 1528-1542, Edinburgh, John Donald, 2005, p. 70. See also, Giovanna Guidicini, “The Political and Cultural Influence of James V’s Court on the Decoration of the King’s Fountain in Linlithgow Palace”, in Sandra Cardarelli and Emily Jane Anderson (eds.), Art and Identity: Visual Culture, Politics and Religion in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, Cambridge, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2012, p. 167-192.

22 Charles McKean, “Sir James Hamilton of Finnart: A Renaissance Courtier-Architect”, Architectural History, 42, 1999, p. 141–172, here p. 151; Ian Campbell, review of J. Dunbar, Scottish Royal Palaces, in The Scottish Historical Review, 80, 2001, p. 119-120.

23 J. Dunbar, Scottish Royal Palaces, op. cit., p. 14.

24 Ian Campbell, “James IV and Edinburgh’s first triumphal arches” in D. Mays (ed.), The Architecture of Scottish Cities, East Linton, Tuckwell Press, 1997, p. 26-33, here p. 29-30.

25 J. Lesley, The History of Scotland, ed. T. Thomson, Bannatyne Club, 38, 1830, p. 158; Charles McKean, “Hamilton, Sir James, of Finnart (c. 1495–1540), administrator and architect”, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-12080) last accessed 13 July 2019.

26 C. McKean, art. cit., p. 141-143.

27 J. Dunbar, Scottish Royal Palaces, op. cit., p. 222.

28 Jamie Cameron, James V: the Personal Rule 1528-1542, East Linton, Tuckwell Press, 1998, p. 122.

29 Ibid, p. 131-133.

30 Accounts of the Masters of Works for building and repairing of Royal Palaces and Castles; Volume I: 1529-1615, ed. Henry M. Paton, Edinburgh, Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1957, pp. xxxiii-xxxiv; A. Thomas, Glory and Honour, op. cit., p. 72-73; Bryony Coombs, “John Stuart, Duke of Albany and his contribution to military science in Scotland and Italy, 1514-36: from Dunbar to Rome”, Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, 148, 2018, p. 231-266, here 257, n. 63.

31 Masters of Works, I, op. cit., p. 213-214.

32 A. Thomas, Glory and Honour, op. cit., p. 78.

33 J. Dunbar, Scottish Royal Palaces, op. cit., p. 228; Masters of Works, I, op. cit., p. xxxiv.

34 J. Dunbar, Scottish Royal Palaces, op. cit., p. 29.

35 S. Cruden, The Scottish Castle, op. cit., p. 149; John Gifford, Fife, London, Penguin Books, 1988, p. 212-214.

36 J. Dunbar, Scottish Royal Palaces, op. cit., p. 33-36.

37 Ibid., p. 36-37; I. Campbell, review of Dunbar, Scottish Royal Palaces, op. cit., p. 119-20.

38 John Dunbar, “Some sixteenth-century French parallels for the palace of Falkland”, Rosc: Review of Scottish Culture, 7, 1993, p. 3-8, here p. 4-6.

39 Dana Bentley-Cranch, “An early sixteenth-century French architectural source for the palace of Falkland”, Rosc: Review of Scottish Culture, 2, 1986, p. 85-95, here p. 88.

40 A. Thomas, Glory and Honour, op. cit., p. 74 says Villers Cotterets was on the French court itinerary while James was with it, but it fails to appear unequivocally in both the sources she gives, and on the lists of places visited in Bentley-Cranch, op. cit., p. 88 and J. Cameron, James V, op. cit., p. 130-133.

41 The ceiling in the gallery outside the chapel copies a design from Sebastiano Serlio’s Regole, Venice, 1537, fol. LXIIv. However, Deborah Mays (pers. comm. June 2020) believes it was the invention of John Kinross who restored the palace for the third Marquess of Bute in the 1890s and that any original work had been lost in a mid-nineteenth century programme of repair for the previous owner, Onisephorus Tyndall-Bruce.

42 J. Dunbar, Scottish Royal Palaces, op. cit., p. 162-164.

43 Ibid., p. 50.

44 Ibid., p. 52.

45 Ibid.

46 Ibid., p. 52 and 162.

47 Ibid., p. 52.

48 Ibid, p. 55; Royal Commission on the ancient and historical monuments of Scotland, Stirlingshire, 2 vols, Edinburgh, Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1963, vol. I, p. 197-200.

49 They are fully described and illustrated in Royal Commission, Stirlingshire, I, p. 220-223. A useful attempt at interpretation is found in Helena M. Shire, “The King in his House: Three Architectural Artefacts belonging to the Reign of James V” in Janet Hadley Williams (ed.), Stewart Style 1513-42: Essays on the Court of James V, ed. Janet Hadley Williams, East Linton, Tuckwell Press, p. 62-6, here p. 72-84. For an ambitious new attempt at interpretation, see Giovanna Guidicini, “Ordering the World: Games in the Architectural Iconography of Stirling Castle, Scotland” in Robin O’Bryan (ed.), Games and Game Playing in European Art and Literature (16th-17th centuries), Amsterdam, Amsterdam University Press, 2019, p. 221-248.

50 J. Dunbar, Scottish royal palaces, op. cit., p. 55.

51 Ibid.; Jean-Pierre Babelon, Châteaux de France au siècle de la Renaissance, Paris, Flammarion/ Picard, 1989, p. 74.

52 J. Dunbar, Scottish Royal Palaces, op. cit., p. 55; J.-P., Babelon, Châteaux de France, op. cit., p. 96-98.

53 J. Dunbar, Scottish Royal Palaces, op. cit., p. 55; J.-P., Babelon, Châteaux de France, op. cit., p. 394-399.

54 Charles McKean, “Finnart’s Platt”, Architectural Heritage, 2, 1991, p. 3-17, here p. 16, n.20: J. Dunbar, Scottish Royal Palaces, op. cit., p. 50

55 C. McKean, “Hamilton, Sir James”, op. cit.; C. McKean, “Finnart’s Platt”, op. cit., p. 3.

56 John Gifford and Frank Arneil Walker, Stirling and Central Scotland, New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 2002, p. 681; Gordon Ewart and Dennis Gallagher, With thy Towers High: the Archaeology of Stirling Castle and Palace, Edinburgh, Historic Scotland, 2015, p. 89.

57 John Dunbar, The Stirling Heads, Edinburgh, Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1975, p. 26; J.-P., Babelon, Châteaux de France, op. cit., p. 126-127.

58 Ibid.; H. M. Shire, “The King in his House”, op. cit., p. 92; A. Thomas, Glory and Honour, op. cit., p. 51.

59 S. Cruden, The Scottish Castle, op. cit., p. 148.

60 Diplomacy was among the chief duties of heralds at this date, along with devising royal pageantry, which I have elsewhere suggested may mean that they were at least the commissioners, if not the actual designers of the ephemeral architecture often used on such occasion: see I. Campbell, “Edinburgh’s First Triumphal Arches”, op. cit., p. 31 and 33 n. 31.

61 Ian Campbell, “Crown steeples and crowns imperial” in L. Golden (ed.), Raising the Eyebrow: John Onians and World Art Studies, Oxford, Archaeopress, 2001, p. 25-34.

62 Robert Lindsay of Pitscottie, Historie and Cronicles of Scotland, ed. Aeneas Mackay, 3 vols, Edinburgh, Scottish Text Society, 1899-1911, I, p. 353-354.

63 J. Dunbar, Scottish Royal Palaces, op. cit., p. 64.

64 Paolo Pereira, The Jerónimos Abbey of Santa Maria, London, Scala, 2002, p. 34 and 110.

65 Walter Crum Watson, Portuguese Architecture, London, Archibald Constable and Co., 1908, p. 200, fig. 70;

66 David Lindsay, “The Testament and Complaynt of the Papyngo”, ll. 638-9: see The Works of Sir David Lindsay of the Mount 1490-1555, 4 vols., ed. Douglas Hamer, Edinburgh and London, Scottish Text Society 1931-4, I, p. 75.

67 Charles Burnett, “Outward Signs of Majesty, 1513-1540” in J. Hadley Williams, op. cit., p. 289-302, here p. 299.

68 Accounts of the Lord High Treasurer of Scotland: Volume IV, A.D. 1507-1513, ed. James Balfour Paul, Edinburgh, Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, p. 401; W. C. Watson, op. cit., p. 201-203.

69 Royal Commission, op. cit. I, p. 221-222.

70 S. Cruden, The Scottish Castle, op. cit., p. 148.

71 Henry-Russell Hitchcock, German Renaissance Architecture, Princeton, Princeton University Press, p. 57-58 and 70.

72 Ibid., p. 32.

73 Mark Dilworth, The Scots in Franconia, Edinburgh and London, Scottish Academic Press, 1974, p 18-19 and 213; Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, Volume 5, 1531-1532, ed. James Gairdner, London, Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1880, no. 324 (https://www.british-history.ac.uk/letters-papers-hen8/vol5, last accessed 7 August 2018).

74 Masters of Work, I, op. cit., p. 256 and 278.

75 The “French” miners brought in by James V in 1539 to develop the gold mines at Crawfordmuir were certainly from the Vosges mountains which separate Lorraine form Alsace; J. Cameron, James V, op. cit. p. 199.

76 Heinrich Vogtherr, Ein Frembds und Wunderbars Kunstbuchlin, Strasbourg, 1537-1538. A reprint in 1540, Libellus artificiosus omnibus pictoribus, statuariis, aurifabris, lapidicidis, arculariis, laminariis, & cultrariis fabris, is accessible online: https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b52000593x.image (last accessed 7 August 2018).

77 David H. Caldwell and Gordon Ewart, “Excavations at Eyemouth, Berwickshire, in a mid 16th-century trace italienne fort,” Post-Medieval Archaeology, 31, 1997, p. 61-119, (DOI: 10.1179/pma.1997.002 ), here p. 71; Marcus Merriman, The Rough Wooings, Mary Queen of Scots, 1542-1551, East Linton, Tuckwell Press, 2000, p. 321-330; A. Thomas, Glory and Honour, op. cit., p. 122-123.

78 David Laing, “Notice respecting the Monument to the Regent Earl of Murray, now restored, within the Church of St Giles, Edinburgh”, Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, 6, 1864-1866, p. 49-55, here p. 5; see also Amy Blakeway. “The Response to the Regent Moray’s Assassination”, The Scottish Historical Review, 88, 2009, p. 9–33 (DOI: 10.3366/E0036924109000560), here p. 24-25.

79 Ciro Birra, “Lorenzo Pomarelli, un architetto del XVI secolo tra Siena e Napoli”, Rendiconti della Accademia di Archeologia, Lettere e Belle Arti, n. s. 77, 2014-15, p. 287-302. I would like to thank Michael Pearce for drawing Pomarelli to my attention and Ciro Birra for kindly sending me his fascinating article.

80 Ian Campbell, art. cit., 1994, p. 1.

81 Mark Girouard, Elizabethan Architecture: its Rise and Fall 1540-1640, New Haven and London, p. 88-89, figs 86 and 87.

82 J.-P., Babelon, Châteaux de France, op. cit., p. 329-338.

83 I. Campbell, art. cit., 1994, p. 7.

84 Ibid., fig. 1.5.

85 J.-P., Babelon, Châteaux de France, op. cit, p. 384-93; Sabine Kühbacher, “Il problema di Ancy-le-Franc”, in Sebastiano Serlio (Sesto seminario internazionale di storia dell'architettura: Vicenza 31 agosto - 4 settembre 1987), ed. Christof Thoenes, Milan, Electa, 1989, p. 79-91; Sabine Frommel, Sebastiano Serlio architetto, Milan, Electa, 2000, p. 81-216.

86 Pietro C. Marani, “A Reworking by Baldassare Peruzzi of Francesco di Giorgio's Plan of a Villa”, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, 41, 1982, p.181-188; S. Frommel, Sebastiano Serlio, op. cit, p. 209-11; Sabine Frommel, “Piacevolezza e difesa: Peruzzi e la villa fortificata”, in Christoph L. Frommel et al. (eds.), Baldassare Peruzzi 1481-1536, Venice, Marsilio, 2009, p. 333-351; Sebastiano Serlio, On Domestic Architecture : Different Dwellings from the Meanest Hovel to the Most Ornate Palace ; the Sixteenth-Century Manuscript of Book VI in the Avery Library of Columbia University, ed. Myra Nan Rosenfeld, New York, Architectural History Foundation, 1978, p. 52-53.

87 I. Campbell, art. cit., 1994, p. 7-8.

88 J. Dunbar, Scottish Royal Palaces, op. cit., p. 16-17, fig. 1.4. The palace at Stirling had a similar arrangement of transes or corridors facing each other on the east and west quarters; Royal Commission, Stirlingshire, I, p. 198, fig. 73.

89 I. Campbell, art. cit., 1995, p. 312.

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List of illustrations

Title Fig. 1. Linlithgow Palace, aerial view
Credits © Historic Environment Scotland
URL http://journals.openedition.org/episteme/docannexe/image/7958/img-1.png
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Title Fig. 2. Holyroodhouse, Edinburgh, north west tower
Credits © Crown Copyright: HES
URL http://journals.openedition.org/episteme/docannexe/image/7958/img-2.png
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Title Fig. 3. Holyroodhouse, base of north west tower
Credits © Ian Campbell
URL http://journals.openedition.org/episteme/docannexe/image/7958/img-3.png
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Title Fig. 4. ‘The Prospect of their Ma[jes]ties Castle of Sterling’; John Slezer, Theatrum Scotiae (1693), pl. 7
Credits © Courtesy of HES
URL http://journals.openedition.org/episteme/docannexe/image/7958/img-4.png
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Title Fig. 5. Solomon’s Temple and Palace; Hartmann Schedel, Nuremberg Chronicle (1493), fol. 66v
Credits © Courtesy of Bayerische Staatsbibliothek
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Title Fig. 6. James Gordon of Rothiemay Palatium Regium Edinense,…. The royal palace of holy rood hous, engraving (1649)
Credits Wikimedia commons: public domain
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Title Fig. 7. Linlithgow Palace, plan
Credits © Courtesy of HES
URL http://journals.openedition.org/episteme/docannexe/image/7958/img-7.png
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Title Fig. 8. Linlithgow, Palace, south façade
Credits © Crown Copyright: HES
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Title Fig. 9. Linlithgow Palace, south gate
Credits © Crown Copyright: HES
URL http://journals.openedition.org/episteme/docannexe/image/7958/img-9.png
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Title Fig. 10. Falkland Palace, plan
Credits © Crown Copyright: HES
URL http://journals.openedition.org/episteme/docannexe/image/7958/img-10.png
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Title Fig. 11. Falkland Palace, gatehouse
Credits © Margaret O’Neill
URL http://journals.openedition.org/episteme/docannexe/image/7958/img-11.png
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Title Fig. 12. Falkland Palace, east quarter, internal façade
Credits Wikimedia commons: Mike Beltzner
URL http://journals.openedition.org/episteme/docannexe/image/7958/img-12.png
File image/png, 388k
Title Fig. 13. Falkland Palace, south quarter, internal façade
Credits © Crown copyright: HES
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Title Fig. 14. Stirling Castle, plan
Credits © Crown Copyright: HES
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Title Fig. 15. Stirling Palace Block, south façade
Credits © Courtesy of HES (Konstam Collection)
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Title Fig. 16. Stirling Palace Block, east façade
Credits © Dave Collins / picfair.com
URL http://journals.openedition.org/episteme/docannexe/image/7958/img-16.png
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Title Fig. 17. Plan of Ecouen: Jacques Androuet du Cerceau, Les plus excellents bastiments, de France (1579), vol. 2
Credits Photo © RMN-Grand Palais (musée de la Renaissance, château d'Ecouen) / image RMN-GP
URL http://journals.openedition.org/episteme/docannexe/image/7958/img-17.png
File image/png, 387k
Title Fig. 18. Plan of Ancy-le-Franc: Manuscript of Sebastiano Serlio’s Sixth Book (c. 1550)
Credits © Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library, Columbia University
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References

Electronic reference

Ian Campbell, Franco-Scottish Architectural Exchanges circa 1535-60Études Épistémè [Online], 37 | 2020, Online since 01 October 2020, connection on 16 April 2024. URL: http://journals.openedition.org/episteme/7958; DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/episteme.7958

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About the author

Ian Campbell

Ian Campbell was Professor of Architectural History and Theory at Edinburgh College of Art and the University of Edinburgh from 2005 until 2017. He specialises in Renaissance architecture, mostly Italian and Scottish, and is currently writing a book on the latter subject, as well as beginning to work on an edition of Pirro Ligorio’s Paris Codex with Robert Gaston.

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Copyright

CC-BY-NC-ND-4.0

The text only may be used under licence CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. All other elements (illustrations, imported files) are “All rights reserved”, unless otherwise stated.

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