NOVEMBER 219 



inferiority of the workmanship, whether constructive or 

 decorative, applied to Scottish domestic architecture of 

 this date, to the magnificence of the design and ex- 

 cellence of handiwork shown in contemporary ecclesias- 

 tical buildings. 



Doune Castle was never finished; probably the works 

 were interrupted by the execution of the unlucky 

 Murdoch; still, the green promontory between the 

 confluent streams of Teith and Ardoch bears a noble 

 mass of masonry, enough to show the scale of the 

 original design. Some of the rooms are of noble pro- 

 portions. The common hall in the keep measures 

 fourty-four feet by twenty-six ; but the banqueting hall 

 in the west wing, entered from the courtyard by an 

 outside staircase, is sixty-eight feet long by twenty- 

 seven wide, and once had an ornamental open roof. 

 It was constructed with an eye to business as well as to 

 beauty, for there is a serving-room handy, communi- 

 cating with the great vaulted kitchen through two 

 arched openings. The arched entrance to the castle 

 passes under the common hall in the keep, and the 

 iron-grated doors still hang at the end of the portcullis. 



When Albany laid down his life on the heading hill 

 of Stirling, his splendid, half-built castle passed to the 

 Crown, to which it was an important fortress, com- 

 manding as it did two of the principal passes into the 

 Highlands. The beautiful Janet Kennedy, daughter 

 of the second Lord Kennedy of Cassilis, was betrothed 

 to Archibald ' Bell-the-Cat/ Earl of Angus, with whom 

 to trifle required a cool head and a stout heart. She 



