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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.,
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A PEEP INTO QUEEN MARTS ROOM. HERE. ON THE igTH OF JUNE 1566. JAMS5 I. OF ENGLAND WAS BORN,
Volume 11 Page 35
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