272 NOVEMBER 



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, 

 commanding 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 can have been deficient in neither, 

 for she encouraged the addresses of that flower of 

 chivalry, James IV., and, in fact, became his mis- 

 tress. James, it will be remembered, was an ex- 

 ceedingly devout young man, and outlay on behalf 

 of ' the lady,' as the fair Janet is discreetly termed 

 in his household accounts, appears sandwiched with 

 expenses on his frequent pilgrimages to St. Ninian's 

 shrine at Whithorn and other religious exercises, as 

 well as those incurred at golf and ' the tables/ 



Bell-the-Cat had made over to his betrothed the 

 lands of Braidwood and Crawford-Lindsay; these 

 the pious king quietly annexed, on the plea that 



