day after the departure, and did not lift
till the following day, Monday, at eight o'clock in the morning. The
little flotilla, which all this time had been sailing haphazard, had got
among so many reefs that if the fog had lasted some minutes longer the
galley would certainly have grounded on some rock, and would have
perished like the vessel that had been seen engulfed on leaving port.
But, thanks to the fog's clearing, the pilot recognised the Scottish
coast, and, steering his four boats with great skill through all the
dangers, on the 20th August he put in at Leith, where no preparation had
been made for the queen's reception. Nevertheless, scarcely had she
arrived there than the chief persons of the town met together and came to
felicitate her. Meanwhile, they hastily collected some wretched nags,
with harness all falling in pieces, to conduct the queen to Edinburgh.

At sight of this, Mary could not help weeping again; for she thought of
the splendid palfreys and hackneys of her French knights and ladies, and
at this first view Scotland appeared to-her in all its poverty. Next day
it was to appear to her in all its wildness.

After having passed one night at Holyrood Palace, "during which," says
Brantome, "five to six hundred rascals from the town, instead of letting
her sleep, came to give her a wild morning greeting on wretched fiddles
and little rebecks," she expressed a wish to hear mass. Unfortunately,
the people of Edinburgh belonged almost entirely to the Reformed
religion; so that, furious at the queen's giving such a proof of papistry
at her first appearance, they entered the church by force, armed with
knives, sticks and stones, with the intention of putting to death the
poor priest, her chaplain. He left the altar, and took refuge near the
queen, while Mary's brother, the Prior of St. Andrews, who was more
inclined from this time forward to be a soldier than an ecclesiastic,
seized a sword, and, placing himself between the people and the queen,
declared that he would kill with his own hand the first man who should
take another step. This firmness, combined with the queen's imposing and
dignified air, checked the zeal of the Reformers.

As we have said, Mary had arrived in the midst of all the heat of the
first religious wars. A zealous Catholic, like all her family on the
maternal side, she inspired the Huguenots with the gravest fears:
besides, a rumour had got about that Mary, instead of lan