a peculiar interest felt when, as was the case
in this instance, the queen to be crowned is an infant just old enough
to bear the journey. There was a very great interest felt in Mary's
coronation. The different courts and monarchs of Europe sent
embassadors to be present at the ceremony, and to pay their respects
to the infant queen; and Stirling became, for the time being, the
center of universal attraction.

Stirling is in the very heart of Scotland. It is a castle, built upon
a rock, or, rather, upon a rocky hill, which rises like an island out
of the midst of a vast region of beautiful and fertile country, rich
and verdant beyond description. Beyond the confines of this region of
beauty, dark mountains rise on all sides; and wherever you are,
whether riding along the roads in the plain, or climbing the
declivities of the mountains, you see Stirling Castle, from every
point, capping its rocky hill, the center and ornament of the broad
expanse of beauty which surrounds it.

Stirling Castle is north of Linlithgow, and is distant about fifteen
or twenty miles from it. The road to it lies not far from the shores
of the Frith of Forth, a broad and beautiful sheet of water. The
castle, as has been before remarked, was on the summit of a rocky
hill. There are precipitous crags on three sides of the hill, and a
gradual approach by a long ascent on the fourth side. At the top of
this ascent you enter the great gates of the castle, crossing a
broad and deep ditch by means of a draw-bridge. You enter then a
series of paved courts, with towers and walls around them, and
finally come to the more interior edifices, where the private
apartments are situated, and where the little queen was crowned.

It was an occasion of great pomp and ceremony, though Mary, of
course, was unconscious of the meaning of it all. She was surrounded
by barons and earls, by embassadors and princes from foreign courts,
and by the principal lords and ladies of the Scottish nobility, all
dressed in magnificent costumes. They held little Mary up, and a
cardinal, that is, a great dignitary of the Roman Catholic Church,
placed the crown upon her head. Half pleased with the glittering
show, and half frightened at the strange faces which she saw every
where around her, she gazed unconsciously upon the scene, while her
mother, who could better understand its import, was elated with pride
and joy.

Linlithgow and Stirling are in the open and cultivated part