with the certainty of the new reign. But the bravery and
fine colours of such a procession, though made doubly effective by the
background of noble houses and all the lofty gables and great churches
in the crowded picturesque centre at the foot of the Castle Hill, were
not then as now strange to the "grey metropolis of the North." No
country in Christendom would seem to have so changed under the influence
of the Reformation as Scotland. The absence of pageant and ceremonial,
the discouragement of display, the suppression of the picturesque in
action, in the midst of one of the most picturesque scenes in the world,
are all of modern growth. In the fifteenth century, and especially in
the reign that was now begun, the town ran over with bright colour and
splendid spectacle. When the lists were formed upon the breezy platform,
overlooking the fair plains of Lothian, the great Firth, and the
surrounding circle of hills, at the castle gate--how brilliant must have
been both scene and setting, the living picture and the wonderful frame,
and how every window would be crowded to see the hundred little
processions of knights to the jousts and ladies to the tribunes, and the
King and Queen riding with all their fine attendants "up the toun" all
the way from Holyrood! Nor would the curiosity be much less when, coming
in from the country, with every kind of quaint surrounding, the great
nobles with their glittering retinue, the lairds each with a little
posse of stout men-at-arms, as many as he could muster, the burgesses
from the towns, the clergy from all the great centres of the Church, on
mules and soft-pacing palfreys, would gather for the meetings of
Parliament. It scarcely wanted a knight-errant like the fourth James,
with his chivalrous tastes and devices, to fill the noble town with
brightness, for all these fine sights were familiar to Edinburgh. But
the brightest day was now to come.

[Illustration: OLD HOUSE IN LAWNMARKET]

The Parliament which assembled in all the emotion of that curious
crisis, while still the wonder and dismay of the King's tragic
disappearance were in the air, was a strange one. It was evidently
convened with the intention of shielding the party which had taken arms
against James III, while making a cunning attempt to throw the blame on
those who had stood by him: these natural sentiments being combined with
the determination, most expedient in the circumstances, to reconcile all
by punishing none