"Amidst them, borne within a golden chair, O'er-fret with pearls and colours most preclair, That drawen was by hackneys all milk-white, Was set a queen as lily sweetly fair, In purple robe hemmed with gold ilk-where; With gemmed clasps closed in all perfite, A diadem most pleasantly polite, Sate on the tresses of her golden hair, And in her hand a sceptre of delight. So next her rode in granate-violet, Twelve damsels, ilka ane on their estate, Which seemed of her counsel most secrete; And next them was a lusty rout, God wot! Lords, ladies, and full mony a fair prelate, Both born of low estate and high degree, Forth with their queen they all by-passed me, At easy pace--they riding forth the gate, And I abode alone within the tree." Margaret's life, after her second marriage, was a series of adventures and disasters partly occasioned by the turbulent spirit and endless disorders of the times, partly by her own passions. She was a true Tudor in her disposition. Like her brother, "she spared no man in her lust, and no woman in her hate." When she died, at the age of forty-eight, she had already married four husbands, of whom _three were still alive_. She divorced, not beheaded, when she was tired of her lovers: in that respect she was better than Henry. By the second of these husbands she had a daughter, named Margaret, whose birth took place in the following circumstances, characteristic alike of the age and country:-- "The welcome message of Dacre arrived at Coldstream almost in the last minute that Queen Margaret could be moved. So desperately ill was she taken on the road, that her convoy were forced to stop by the way, and hurry her into Harbottle or Hardbattle Castle, one of the grimmest and gauntest stone-donjons that frowned on the English frontier. It was just then garrisoned by Lord Dacre in person, who had commenced the fierce war on the Borders to which the arrival of the Duke of Albany in Scotland had given rise. The portcullis of Harbottle was raised to admit the fainting Queen of Scotland; but not one Scot, man or woman, Lord Dacre vowed, should enter with her. Here was a terrible situation for Margaret. She was received into the rugged Border-fortress, October 5, and, after remaining in mortal agony for more than forty-eight hours, gave birth to a daughter, the Lady Margaret Douglas, whose name is familiar to every one on the pages of general history, as the immediate ancestress of our present royal family." The death of Margaret Tudor suggests the following reflections to our author, the justice and beauty of which makes us regret that she does not more frequently speak in her own person, instead of the quaint style of ancient annalists.