"Thus there was peace and rest in the country the space of three-quarters of a year," says Pitscottie. This, however, is a mistake, for the time of the King's retirement was only three or four months, from St. Magdalene's Day to Michaelmas. Short or long, it was one of the most curious moments of interregnum that history knows. James was conveyed back to Edinburgh with every show of respect, attended by the triumphant lords, who despised his milder virtues, his preferences and tastes, not one of whom could manage either pencil or lute, who cared for none of these things--while his strained eyes could still see nothing but the vision against the daylight, the impromptu gibbet of the high-arched bridge over the Border stream, where his familiar friends had been strung up with every sign of infamy. He had to contain within himself the rage, the shame, the grief and loneliness of his heart, and endure as he best could the exultation which his captors would scarcely attempt to conceal. The historians tell us little or nothing of the Queen, Margaret of Denmark, to whom James had been married for several years, and who had brought with her the full allegiance of the isles, the Hebrides, which up to that time had paid a tribute to the Scandinavian kingdom, and Orkney and Shetland which were the Queen's portion. Whether he found any comfort in her and in his children, when he was thus brought back to them to the castle, which would seem to have been their favourite residence, we are not told. At all events the shame of such a return, and of the captivity which was veiled by so many ironical appearances of freedom, must have been grievous to him, even as reflected in the eyes of his foreign wife, or the wondering questions on his sudden return of his baby son.