90 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH.
faith unchanged, and revisit the Scottish capital every three years. He committed his
children, whom he left behind, to the care of the Earl of Mar and others of his most
trusty nobles, and took his departure for England on the 5th of April 1603.
The accession of James to the English throne produced, at the time, no other change
on Edinburgh than the removal of the Court and some of the chief nobility to London.
The King continued to manifest a lively interest in his ancient capital ; in 1608 he wrote
to the magistrates, guarding them in an unwonted manner againet countenancing any
interference with the right of the citizens to have one of themselves chosen to fill the ofice
of Provost. In the following year, he granted them duties on every tun of wine, for sustaining
the dignity of the civic rulers; he also empowered the Provost to have a sword
borne before him on all public occasions, and gave orders that the magistrates should be
provided with gowns, similar to those worn by the Aldermen of London.
It is very characteristic of King James, that, not content with issuing his royal mandate
on this important occasion, he forwarded them two ready-made gowns as patterns,
lest the honourable Corporation of the Tailors of Edinburgh should prove unequal to the
At length, after an absence of fourteen years, the King intimated his gracious intention
of honouring the capital of his ancient kingdom with a visit. He accordingly arrived there
on the 16th of May 1617, and was received at the West Port by the magistrates in their
official robes, attended by the chief citizens habited in velvet. The town-clerk delivered
a most magnificent address, wherein he blessed God that their eyes were once more permitted
(( to feed upon the royal countenance of our‘ true phenix, the bright star of our
northern firmament. . . . . Our sun (the powerful adamant of our wealth), by whose
removing from our hemisphere we were darkened; deep sorrow and fear possessed our
hearts, The very hills and groves, accustomed before to be refreshed with the dew of your
Majesty’s presence, not putting on their wonted apparel, but with pale looks, representing
their misery for the departure of their royal King. . . . A King in heart as upright
as David, wise as Solomon, and godlie as Josias 1 ”
In like eloquent strains the orator proceeds through a long address, after which the King
and nobility were entertained at a sumptuous banquet, where the City presented his Majesty
with the sum of ten thousand merks, in double golden angels, tendered to him in a gilt
basin of silver.a
The King had been no less anxious than the citizens (‘to let the nobles of Ingland
knaw that his cuntrie was nothing inferior to them in anie respect.” By his orders the
Palace was completely repaired and put in order, and the Chapel “ decorit with organis,
and uthir temporal1 policie,” while a ship laden with wines, was sent before him ‘‘ to lay in
the cavys of his Palicis of Halyruidhous, and uther partis of his resort.”
A Parliament was held in Edinburgh on this occasion, wherein the King availed himself
of the popular feelings excited by his presence, to secure the first steps of his favourite
project for restoring Episcopal government to the Church.
The King at length bade farewell to his Scottish subjects in September 1617, and
little occurred to disturb the tranquillity of Edinburgh during the remainder of his
reign.
duty.’
Council Register, Sept. 7th, 1609. &itland, p. 60. 8 Hist. of Jamee the Sext., p. 395.
