Notwithstanding his injunctions to others, the king could not altogether restrain his own demeanour, but remained sullen and irritable all day. He inquired twice whether the earl had arrived in Edinburgh; and when told that he had come to the house of one of his relations, whither a number of the old friends of his family flocked to meet and congratulate him, he exclaimed, "The fickle fools! They go as blithesome to a burial." The following morning, as he was seated with the queen, receiving some of the nobles of the court, with the Duchess of Lennox, Gowrie's sister, on one side of Anne of Denmark, and Beatrice Ruthven behind her chair, some loud shouts, uttered in the streets of the town, made themselves heard even in the royal apartments. "What are the fools skirling at now?" cried the king; "is it another Tolbooth fray?" "Not so, your majesty," replied Lord Inchaffray, who had just entered; "as I rode hither a moment ago, the young Earl of Gowrie was passing up the street with a large number of noble gentlemen, his friends; and some hundreds of people were running after his horse's heels, shouting and wishing him joy on his return." James's brow darkened immediately, and lolling his tongue in his cheek, with a bitter and meaning smile, he said, loud enough for several persons to hear, "There were as many people who convoyed his father to the scaffold at Stirling." The Duchess of Lennox instantly turned deadly pale, and fell, so that she would have struck her head against the queen's chair, had she not been caught in the arms of her sister Beatrice. The court was immediately thrown into strange confusion; and the king, as if totally unconscious that the illness of the young duchess was produced by his own act, exclaimed, "De'il's in the woman! What's the matter with her? The rooms not so hot." "But your majesty's words were sharp," said Beatrice; "my sister is not accustomed to hear the death of a father she loved made sport of." "You are saucy, mistress, I think," said the king, frowning upon her. "And your majesty unkind," said Beatrice, boldly; but Anne of Denmark interfered, and caused some of the gentlemen present to assist in conveying the duchess to another room. James himself felt in some degree, it would appear, that he had acted in a cruel and discourteous manner, for he said, in a low but somewhat apologetic tone, "Fegs! I forgot she was the earl's daughter. One cannot always remember, in this good land of ours, who is of kin to those who have had their heads chopped off."