It was a curious little town of narrow streets, overshadowed by galleried houses of quaint aspect, with projecting eaves and steep roofs; old churches, grim and mysterious in architecture; and convents with high and sombre walls. The mass of the population seemed to be industrious Flemish artisans, mingled with the usual number of peasants, who brought their wares to market; cowled monks, dozing at the gates in the sunshine; and helmeted men-at-arms dicing and drinking in the hostelries. Twenty great bombards were fired from the ramparts of the ducal castle, as a salute in honour of Sir Patrick's arrival, and the great banner of the duchy, _azure_ a lion _or_ crowned, for Gueldres; with a lion _gules_ for Zutphen, was displayed on the keep, while a body of knights, archers, and well-mounted men-at-arms stood in military array within the gates. Gueldres was then famous for its cavalry, and for the spirit of its people, who were deemed so warlike, that to lessen their military genius and secure the possession of that province in his family, Charles V., in after times, excluded its natives from his armies. The great ducal fortress, a portion of which was built in 878 by Wichardus a Ponte, the first lord of Gueldres, on his marriage with a daughter of the count of Zutphen, was deemed the strongest castle in the Netherlands, till its demolition by the Prussians in 1764. There, in that old castle, situated amid the thick woods and rushlands, through which the Niers flows towards the Maese, Gray was presented to the duchess, Katherine of Cleves; to her daughter, the future queen of Scotland; the little princess Mary, then in her ninth year; and to her brother, prince Adolphus, by whose wickedness in after years the house of Gueldres was ruined, and its possessions merged into the line of Burgundy. For when Adolphus rebelled against his father, old Arnold d'Egmont, and shut him up in a close prison, he was disinherited, and his title and patrimony sold in 1473 to Charles the Terrible, Duke of Burgundy, for a yearly pension of fourscore and ten thousand golden crowns of the Rhine; but no thought or anticipation had they then of those dark days that were coming, when civil war and misrule would rend the land asunder; and so old Duke Arnold feasted royally the knight who had come from the Scottish court, in presence of all his peers, the knights of the duchy, the governors of the country districts, and the deputies of Nimeguen, Arnheim, Ruremond, and Zutphen, his four great counties or provinces. He presented him with a cassock, embroidered with gold and precious stones, worth a thousand ducats. The Duchess Katherine in the name of the princess, her daughter, entrusted him with a valuable ring for the young king, her future son-in-law, to whose ministers letters were prepared, expressive of the pleasure with which the coming ambassadors would be received.