Untold to Rothsay, certain schemes had, in the meantime, been in agitation between the Earl of March and a party at court, the object of which was to get a match brought about between Rothsay and Elizabeth of Dunbar. These, for a time, wrought so favourably, that March, who never knew what had taken place between Rothsay and his daughter, entertained the strongest hopes of success. He had offered an immense dowry, which the great extent of his estates near the Borders enabled him to pay, as the price of the connection with royalty; and it would seem that he had received from head-quarters strong pledges that his wishes would be gratified. Ramorgny secretly joined the March party; but all their endeavours could not prevent the final triumph of the Douglas, who had also offered a large sum with his daughter, and who was, besides, backed by the queen, and by the secret wishes of Rothsay himself. The nuptials of the prince with Elizabeth Douglas were celebrated with great rejoicings at Edinburgh. They were graced by the presence of the king and the queen, and all the principal nobility of the land. Among the rest were to be seen two persons destined to supply afterwards the materials of an extraordinary chapter in the history of Scotland; the shadows of which, if presentiment had thrown them before, would have wrapped the gay scene of the marriage in the gloomy mantle of the dismal Atropos. The first of these was Rothsay's uncle Albany, who, ever since he was displaced from his governorship by the faction who awarded to the young prince the lieutenantcy of the kingdom, had prayed fervently for the death of the royal stripling, that had, with precocious audacity, dared to compete with disciplined age in the management of the affairs of the kingdom. The other was Ramorgny, who appeared at the celebration of the nuptials, dressed in the gayest style, and wearing on his lips the fallacious smile of the treacherous courtier, while his heart was filled with rage and jealousy, and his fancy teemed with schemes of deadly revenge. The picture, to one who could have seen into futurity, would have presented the extraordinary foreground of an apparent universal joy, filling all hearts and making all glad; and, close behind, the grinning furies of revenge writhing in their agonies of a wild desire to break in upon the unconscious victims, and spread death and desolation where pleasure was alone to be found.