After another long minority, such as had occurred with each of the Jameses, the wax candles at Holyrood once again lit up Court scenes. The royal palace, the building of which had been begun about 1503 by James IV.,[15] had been inhabited in the interval by the Duke of Albany, the Regent, during his sojourns in Scotland, who had, no doubt, brought his French ideas of elegance to bear on it. James V.,--the “Red Tod” of so many adventures,--who had been born within its walls, held his councils and his Court there, and, between 1529 and 1535, completed the building begun by his father, and spoilt by the English soldiers. To Holyrood, when he was but two-and-twenty, James V. brought his fragile little French bride, Madeleine, daughter of Francis I., whom he had married in Nôtre Dame at Paris. The poet Ronsard was a twelve-year-old page in the Queen’s train when she came to Holyrood; and another in her train was the founder of the great Scottish family of Hope, including that Sir Thomas Hope who was King’s Advocate in Charles I.’s time. The gentle French princess, when she landed with James at Leith on the 19th of May 1537, was already dying of consumption. She stooped and kissed the “Scottis eard” when she set foot on it; and seven weeks afterwards, within Holyrood Abbey, she was laid pitifully beneath the same kindly “Scottis eard.” Thief! saw thou nocht the great preparatives Of Edinburgh, the noble famous town? Thou saw the people labouring for their lives To mak triumph with trump and clarioun: Sic pleasour never was in this regioun As suld have been the day of her entrace, With great propinis given to her Grace. Provost, Bailies, and Lordis of the town, The Senatours, in order consequent, Cled into silk of purpur, black, and brown; Syne the great Lordis of the Parliament, With mony knichtly Baron and Banrent, In silk and gold, in colours comfortable: But thou, alas! all turnit into sable.[16]