inated the Lowlands and acted as a bar against southern invasion. Dunbar, Edinburgh, and Stirling were the three chief strongholds of the south of Scotland, and round those three points centred the wars of centuries. Little wonder that the noblemen holding such fortresses waxed powerful till their position often menaced the stability of the throne itself. Gradually, however, in Scotland as in England, though there at a somewhat later period, this state of continual war and strife changes to a more settled prosperity, and the old castle gives place to the palace and the manor house. Falkland and Linlithgow Palaces mark the increased desire for comfort and luxury, no longer to be satisfied with the grim strength of Dunbar and Tantallon, and many of the old castles were practically rebuilt as palaces, as was the case with Stirling. Yet there is a still more significant sign of the growing civilisation of Scotland, the rise of the old royal burghs which fringe both shores of the Forth. For the real prosperity of a nation lies not in the power and riches of its nobles, but in the completeness with which |