Street, to the castle, no doubt gathering with them on their way all the eager crowd which could free itself from shop or booth, all the passers-by in the streets, a continually-increasing throng. Who the four lords were we are not told. The whole incident is recorded in a letter of Lord Dacre to the English Council. No doubt he had his information either from the Queen herself or from members of her household. Of the four men chosen by Albany the Queen was at liberty to reject one, and no doubt they were men of weight and gravity, probably not unworthy of the trust. It is not difficult to realise the flying rumour which would go like the wind before them announcing their errand, and how windows and doorways and stairheads would fill with eager spectators, and all the moving population would press up the hill after them to see what was to be seen. The high houses full on every story of eager heads thrust forth, relieving with unintentional yet lively decoration the many-windowed fronts, the shopkeepers crowding at their doors or seizing cap and halberd to follow, the hum and excitement of the roused town, surround the envoys like the background of a picture. Most probably they went on foot, the distance being so short, preceded by a glittering herald and pursuivant--perhaps David Lindsay, who can tell? still too young to wear the Lion of Scotland on his tabard, but keen and curious to see this scene--he who had seen the envoy of heaven in Linlithgow Church and so many other wonderful things. The crowd surged upwards, keeping a respectful space in the midst for the lords with their train, and filled with colour and movement and the murmuring of numbers that great square before the castle gates which had held the same excited throng so often. And before the heralds could summon the wardens or demand entrance in the name of the Regent, the great gates rolled back, and all who were near enough to see gazed in amazement at such a group in the gateway as must have filled many eyes with tears, and which gave at once the most astonishing climax to that wonderful picture. There Margaret stood, a young woman of twenty-five, not a noble type of beauty, perhaps, but with the fresh and florid Tudor good looks, and no doubt the imperious Tudor port imposing to the crowd, with her child in his little cloak and plumed bonnet, four years old, holding her hand. Among her little troop of attendants, the ladies of her subdued Court, and the cluster of cavaliers who surrounded her young husband, there might well be another name of gentler fame--the then Provost of St. Giles, Gawin Douglas, poet and statesman, who was her counsellor and the negotiator of her many troubled affairs. But in this emergency it was the Queen herself who bade the startled lords stand and deliver their message. They stepped forward in some confusion, one would guess, not having calculated upon this sudden encounter with such an unexpected champion, difficult to