20 EDINBURGH PAST AND PRESENT.
principle of selection let us name some of the leading men, in various departments
of eminence, more or less connected with the city. And first among
our Monarchs. It was rather late in OUT early history that the seat of the
Scottish monarchy was removed from Scone to Edinburgh, the attraction
being at first the strength of the Castle. But since it has been honoured
by the presence and linked to the fate.of our most famous kings,-James the
fiery-faced, of Flodden memory, who summoned his army to assemble on the
Borough Muir of Edinburgh, and to whom at the Cross of the city came the
awful midnight summons, meant, but in vain, to deter him from his dangerous
southern journey; Mary Stuart, who here spent her guiltiest yet perhaps
happiest days, and ‘has added at once a classical charm and a. weight of
COUECR AND SDUTB BRiDGe STREET.
mystery to the Got, although the College has now annexed and obliterated
the Kirk of Field ; lames VI. and I., who was born in the CastIe here, and
who here passed the earlier portion of his inglorious reign ; Charles I., also
* born here, and whose visits to the city afterwards were more frequent than to
it welcome or. honourable to himself; Charles II., who came to it half as a
monakh and half as a captive, and who, reverting to this visit in after life,
thought probably more of the curb of the Covenant than of the glory of the
Scottish Crown ; Cromwell, who entered the Northern Metropolis flushed
with the victory of Dunbar-and sureIy never a braver, truer man trode the
streets of the proud city, although perhaps with ‘greater pride,’ even while
his watchword was Th:Lord hath delivered it into my hands j’ James VII.,
