, with three hundred mariners to work
her, and carrying "ane thousand men of warre" within those solid sides,
which, all wooden as they were, could resist cannon shot. "This ship lay
in the road, and the King took great pleasure every day to come down and
see her," and would dine and sup in her, and show his lords all her
order and provisions; No doubt there were many curious parties from
Edinburgh who followed the King to see that new wonder, and that groups
would gather on the ramparts of the castle to point out on the shining
Firth the great and lofty vessel, rising like another castle out of the
depths. James had also the other splendid taste, which his unfortunate
father had shared, of building, and set in order the castle at Falkland
in the heart of the green and wealthy Fife--where there was great
hunting and coursing, and perhaps as yet not much high farming in those
days--and continued the adornments of Stirling, already so richly if
rudely decorated in the previous reign.

[3] This name and assumed character is generally supposed to belong to
James V: but all the accompanying circumstances seem to point so much
more to what is recorded of James IV, that I venture to attribute them
to him. If it is an error there is this, at least, to be said in favour
of it, that the story is as applicable to one as to the other monarch.

But Edinburgh was the centre of all the feasting and splendour which
distinguished his time. The lists were set before the castle gates, on
that lofty and breezy plateau where all the winds blow. Sometimes there
were bands of foreign chivalry breaking lances with the high Scottish
nobles according to all the stately laws of that mimic war; sometimes
warriors of other conditions, fighting Borderers or Highlanders, would
meet for an encounter of arms, ending in deadly earnest, which was not
discouraged, as we are told with grim humour, since it was again to the
realm to be disembarrassed of these champions at any cost, and the best
way was that they should kill each other amicably and have no rancour
against Justiciar or King. Among the foreign guests who visited James
was Bernard Stuart of Aubigny, Monsieur Derbine, as Pitscottie calls
him, the representative of a branch of the royal race which had settled
in France, whom James received, his kinsman being an old man, with even
more than his usual grace, making him the judge in all feats of chivalry
"at justing and tourney, and calling him fath