Holyrood.] ROYAT, MARRIAGES. 55
with the Dukes of Savoy and Burgundy. She
landed at Leith amid a vast concourse of all
classes of the people, and, escorted by a bodyguard
of 300 men-at-arms, all cap-d+e, with
the citizens also in their armour, under Patrick
Cockburn of Nevtbigging, Provost of Edinburgh
and Governor of the Castle, was escorted to the
monastery of the Greyfriars, where she was warmly
welcomed by her future husband, then in his
twentietb year, and was visited by the queenmother
on the following day.
The week which intervened between her arrival
and?her marriage was spent in a series of magnificent
entertainments, during which, from her great
beauty and charms of manner, she won the devoted
affection of the loyal nobles and people.
A contemporary chronicler has given a minute
account of one of the many chivalrous tournaments
that took place, in which three Burgundian nobles,
two of them brothers named Lalain, and the thud
HervC Meriadet, challenged any three Scottish
knights to joust with lance, battle-axe, sword, and
dagger, a defiance at once accepted by Sir James
Douglas, James Douglas of Lochleven, and Sir
John Ross of Halkhead, Constable of Renfrew.
Lances were shivered and sword and axe resorted
to with nearly equal fortune, till the king threw
down his truncheon and ended the combat.
The royal marriage, which took place in the
church at Holyrood amid universal joy, concluded
these stirring scenes. At the bridal feast the first
dish was in the form of a boar?s head, painted and
stuck full df tufts of coarse flax, served up on an
enormous platter, with thirty-two banners, bearing
the arms of the king and principal nobles ; and the
flax was set aflame, amid the acclamations of the
numerous assembly that filled the banquet-hall.
Ten years after Holyrood beheld a sorrowful
scene, when, in 1460, James, who had been slain
by the bursting of a cannon at the siege of Roxburgh
on the 3rd August, in his thirtieth year, was
laid in the royal vault, ?with the teares of his
people and his hail1 army,? says Balfour.
In 1467 there came from Rome, dated zznd
February, the bull of Pope Paul II., granting, on
the petition of the provost, bailies, and community
of the city, a con~mission to the Bishop of Galloway,
?et dilectojZio Abbafi Monasterii Sancta Cmcis mini
viuros de Rdynburgh,? to erect the Church of St.
Giles into a collegiate institution.
Two years afterwards Holyrood was again the
scene of nuptial festivities, when the Parliamen!
met, and Margaret of Norway, Denmark, and
Sweden, escorted by the Earl of Arran and a
gallant train of Scottish aad Danish nobles, landed
at Leith in July, 1469. She was in her sixteenth
year, and had as her dowry the isles of Orkney
and Shetland, over which her ancestors had hitherto
claimed feudal superiority. James III., her
husband, had barely completed his eighteenth
year when they were married in the abbey church,
where she was crowned queenconsort. ?? The marriage
and coronation gave occasion to prolonged
festivities in the metropolis and plentiful congratulations
throughout the kingdom. Nor was the
flattering welcome undeserved by the queen ; in the
bloom of youth and beauty, amiable and virtuous,
educated in all the feminine accomplishments of
the age, and so richly endowed, she brought as
valuable an accession of lustre to the court as of
territory to the kingdom.?
In 1477 there arrived ?heir in grate pompe,?
says Balfour, ?Husman, the legate of Pope
Xystus the Fourth,? to enforce the sentence of
deprivation and imprisonment pronounced by Hjs
Holiness upon Patrick Graham, Archbishop of St.
Andrews, an eminent and unfortunate dignitary of
the Church of Scotland. He was the first who
bore that rank, and on making a journey to Rome,
returned as legate, and thus gained the displeasure
of the king and of the clergy, who dreaded his
power. He was shut up in the monastery of Inchcolm,
and finally in the castle of Lochleven. Meanwhile,
in the following year, William Schivez, a
great courtier and favourite of the king, was
solemnly consecrated in Holyrood Church by the
papal legate, from whose hands he received a pall,
the ensign of archiepiscopal dignity, and with great
solemnity was proclaimed ?? Primate and Legate of
the realm of Scotland.? His luckless rival died
of a broken heart, and was buried in St. Serf?s
Isle, where his remains were recently discovered,
buried in a peculiar posture, with the knees drawn
up and the hands down by the side.
In 1531, when Robert Cairncross was abbot,
there occurred an event, known as ? the miracle of
John Scott,? which made some noise in its time.
This man, a citizen of Edinburgh, having taken
shelter from his creditors in the sanctuary of Holyrood,
subsisted there, it is alleged, for forty days
without food of any kind.
Impressed by this circumstance, of which some
exaggerated account had perhaps been given to
him, James V. ordered his apparel to be changed
and strictly searched. He ordered also that he
should be conveyed from Holyrood to a vaulted
room in David?s Tower in the castle, where he was
barred from access by all and closely guarded.
Daily a small allowance of bread and water were
placed before him, but he abstained from both for
