People don't play riddle games with Giants, or get tricked by Faerie Queens. They don't follow Blind Maniacs into Futures, or have their Lives saved by Death.
Timothy Hunter in The Books of Faerie
54 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Holymd
under his great seal, granted to David, Abbot of
Holyrood, a piece of land within the Castle of
Edinburgh whereon to erect a house, to which the
monks, their servants and families, might repair in
time of peace and war. This piece of ground
was eighty feet in length and eighty in breadth,
wherever the abbot might choose, ?beyond the
site of our manor? (the royal lodging?); ?the
said abbot and his successors paying therefor to
us and to our heirs a silver penny at the said
castle on Whitsunday yearly, if asked only, so
that the foresaid abbot and his successors and
their servants shall be bound to take the oath
of fidelity for the due security of the said castle
to the keeper thereof, who may be for the time,
have free ish and entry to the said castle at accustomed
and proper hours.?
On the 5th April, 1391, King Robert III., undei
his great seal, granted a charter to the Abbey of
Holyrood, confirming the charter of David 11. to
the abbey, dated 30th December, 1343. It is dated
at Edinburgh. When the abbey became a species
of palace has never been distinctly ascertained,
but Robert 111. appears sometimes to have made
Holyrood his residence. James I. occasionally
kept his court there; and in the abbey his queen
was delivered of twin princes, on the 16th October,
14 I 6-Alexandeq who died, and James, afterwards
second of that name.
In 1428 a remarkable episode occurred in the
abbey church. Alexander, Lord of the Isles, who
had been in rebellion against James I., but had
been utterly defeated by the royal troops in
Lochaber, sent messengers to the king to sue for
mercy. But the latter, justly incensed, refused to
enter into .my negotiations with an outlawed
fugitive. Alexander, driven to despair, and compelled
to fly from place to place, was compelled at
last to trust to the royal clemency. Travelling
secretly to Edinburgh, he suddenly presented himself,
upon a solemn festival, before the high altar 01
Holyrood, and holding his?drawn sword by the
point, he presented the hilt to the astonished king,
in token of his unconditional submission, and
falling on his knees, in presence of Queen Jane
and the whole court, implored the royal mercy.
The ill-fated James granted him his life, at the
tender intercession of his royal consort, but sent
him a prisoner to the sequestered castle of
Tantallon, on its sea-beat Tock, under the charge
of his nephew, the Earl of Angus. The island
chief eventually received a free pardon, was restored
to all his honours, castles, and estates, and stood
as sponsor for the twin princes, Alexander and
James, at the font
.
In 1437 the Parliament met at Edinburgh, on
the 25th March, after the murder of James I., and
adopted immediate measures for the government of
the country. Their first act was the coronation of
the young prince, in his sixth year, on whose head
at Holyrood, as James II., the crown was solemnly
placed by James Kennedy, Bishop of St. Andrews,
in presence of a great concourse of the nobles,
clergy, and representatives of towns, amid the usual
testimonies of devotion and loyalty.
On March 27th, 1439, Patrick Abbot of Holyrood
and his convent granted a charter to Sir Robert
Logan of Restalrig, and his heirs, of the ofice of
bailie over their lands of St. Leonard?s, in the town
of Leith, ?from the end of the great volut of
William Logane, on the east part of the common
gate that passes to the ford over the water of Leith,
beside the waste land near the house of John of
Turyng on the west part, and common Venale
called St. Leonard?s Wynd, as it extended of old
on the south part, and the water of the port OF
Leith on the north, and . . . . in the ninth year of
the pontificate of our most holy father and lord,
Eugenius IV., by Divine Providence Pope.?
Chronologically, the next event connected with
the abbey was the arrival of Mary of Gueldres in
1449. In company with John Railston, Bishop
of Dunkeld, and Nicholas Otterburn, official of
Lothian, the Lord Chancellor Crichton went to
France to seek among the princesses of that
friendly court a suitable bride for young James
11.; but no match being suitable, by the advice
of Charles VII. these ambassadors proceeded to
Burgundy, and, with the cordial concurrence of
Duke Philip the Good, made proposals to his
kinswoman, hlary, the only daughter and heiress
of Arnold, Duke of Gueldres, and in 1449 the
engagement was formally concluded. Philip promised
to pay _f60,boo in gold as a dowry, while
James, on the other hand, settled IO,OOO crowns
upon her, secured on land in Strathearn, Athole,
Methven, and East Lothian, while relinquishing all;
claim to the Duchy of Gueldres, in the event of
an heir male being born to Duke Arnold ; and the
Parliament met at Stirling, resolved that the royal
nuptials should be conducted on a scale of splendour
suited to the occasion.
The fleet containing the bride anchored in June
in the Forth. She was ?young, beautiful, and of a
masculine constitution,? says Hawthornden, and
came attended by a splendid train of knights and
nobles from France and Burgundy, including tlie
Archduke Sigisniund of Austria, the Duke of
Brittany, and the Lord of Campvere (the three
brothers-in-law of the King of Scotland), togetho
