of a richer Court
than anything that Scotland could boast, who thus came among them full
of the highest hopes and purposes, and surrounded by unusual splendour
and wealth. It is true there was the burden behind him of a heavy ransom
to pay, but her English kindred, we may well believe, did not suffer the
Lady Jane to appear in her new kingdom without every accessory that
became a queen; and a noble retinue of adventurous knights, eager to try
their prowess against the countrymen of that great Douglas whose name
was still so well known, would swell the train of native nobles who
attended the sovereign. Old Edinburgh comes to light in the glow of this
arrival, not indeed with any distinctness of vision, but with something
of the aspect of a capital filled to overflowing with a many-coloured
and picturesque crowd. The country folk in their homespun, and all the
smaller rank of gentlemen, with their wives in the French hoods which
fashion already dictated, thronged the ways and filled every window to
see the King come in. It was more like the new setting up of a kingdom,
and first invention of that dignity, than a mere return: and eager
crowds came from every quarter to see the King, so long a mere name, now
suddenly blazing into reality, with all the primitive meaning of the
word so much greater and more living than anything that is understood in
it now. The King's Grace! after the long sway of the Regent, always
darkly feared and suspected, and the feeble deputyship full of abuses of
his son Murdoch, it was like a new world to have the true Prince come
back, the blood of Bruce, the genuine and native King, not to speak of
the fair Princess by his side and the quickened life they brought with
them. From the gates of the castle where they first alighted, down the
long ridge--through the half-grown town within its narrow walls, where a
few high houses, first evidences of the growth of the wealthy burgher
class, alternated with the low buildings which they were gradually
supplanting--through the massive masonry of the Port with its
battlements and towers to the country greenness and freshness of the
Canon's Gate which led to the great convent of the valley, there could
be no finer scene for a pageant. Holyrood was one of those great
monastic establishments in which kings could find a lodgment more
luxurious than in their own castles, and though there would scarcely
seem as yet to have been any palace attached to that holy hous