Notices of the King's Knot at Stirling Castle.- In the gardens is a mound of earth in form of a table, called the Knot, with benches of earth around, where, according to tradition, the court sometimes had fetes champetres. Vestiges of the walks and parterres, with a few stumps of trees, are still visible. "Barbour, in his account of the battle of Bannockburn, makes mention of a round table, which was then at the foot of the castle. He says that, when Edward of England was told by Mowbray, the governor, that he could not expect safety by being admitted into the castle, 'he took the way beneath the castle by the round table.' It is of great antiquity, and was possibly in that place long before the gardens were formed. Here probably they exercised the pastime called The Knights of the Round Table, of which several of the Scottish monarchs, particularly James IV., are said to have been fond. Mr. Gough remarks that a similar table had, not long before he wrote, existed at Windsor. (Edition of Cambden, 1789.) Among the gardens are vestiges of a canal, on which the royal family and court aired in barges." (Nimmo's History of Stirlingshire.)
