In August 1503 she was brought to Scotland, with a train of knights and nobles, and James rode as far as Dalkeith to meet her, “gallantly dressed in a jacket of crimson velvet bordered with cloth of gold.”[12] Before the procession entered the city the King mounted in front of his bride on her palfrey--his own charger being too restive to bear a double burden--and so they rode into the decorated and expectant capital, where the people filled the windows, and gaily dressed ladies thronged the “fore-stairs”--open stairways outside the houses,--and all shouted or waved their loyalty and their welcome. Tournaments and shows took place; and, when they were alone, the king played to the little princess on the virginal, and [Illustration: HOLYROOD PALACE FROM THE PUBLIC GARDENS UNDER CALTON HILL Holyrood Palace stretches across the picture east and west, and is dominated by Arthur’s Seat and Salisbury Crags. The dark turret at the west end of the nearest and north wing contains the private supper-room of Queen Mary, the room from which the Italian Rizzio was taken to his death. The end of the south wing shows beyond, and through a gap in the mean buildings, occupying the foreground of the picture, is seen the open space in front of the Palace, the restored fountain, and the entrance to a carriage road called the Queen’s Drive. The conical roofs of the towers of the Guard House appear to the extreme right. The gable and east window of the Chapel Royal (part of the ancient Abbey), together with the tower, show at the eastern extremity of the north wing.] then listened with bent knee and bared head whilst she sang and played to him. The marriage took place at Holyrood with much magnificence; and Dunbar the Laureate wrote “The Thristle and the Rois.” All this life and poetry and splendour glowed in Holyrood, in a braver and a warmer time than ours,--perhaps the brightest age Edinburgh has known. Little wonder that Dunbar pitied his royal master when he had to leave it even for a visit to Stirling, and wrote greeting to him from-- We that here in Hevenis glory * * * * * I mean we folk in Paradyis In Edinburgh with all merriness.