Then came the Lord High Treasurer, John Hamilton, abbot of Paisley, brother of the Regent; and the Comptroller of Scotland, William Commendator, of Culross, each in the robes of his order. Then followed the Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal, bearing it in a velvet purse embroidered with the royal arms. This statesman was William Lord Ruthven, of the fated line of Gowrie, and father of the stern Ruthven, who looked so pale and ghastly through his barred helmet on that night twenty years after, when David Rizzio was slain in the north tower of Holyrood.
The Secretary of State, David Panater, bishop of Ross, keen-eyed and shaggy-browed, bent his stern glance over the multitude. This was a learned prelate, poet, and statesman, who was once prior of St. Mary's beautiful isle, and for seven years was Scottish ambassador in France. Then came the laird of Colinton, who was Lord Clerk Register, but who handled his two-handed sword better than his pen, riding beside the bishop of Orkney, who was lord president of the Court of Session, and a dabbler in the literature of the day—a scanty commodity withal.
The Great Chamberlain of Scotland came next. He was Malcolm Lord Fleming of Cumbernauld, a brave and proud peer, who possessed a vast estate, having no less than twelve royal charters of lands and baronies in various counties. He was without armour, but wore a doublet of shining cloth of gold, with a chain and medal, also of gold, at his neck. Thirty gentlemen in armour, and as many servants in livery coats, armed with swords and petronels, and all bearing the name, arms, and colours of Fleming, rode behind him. Then, amid many other gentlemen, rode Claude Hamilton, of Preston, with his train of rough fellows, armed with helmet, jack, and spear, headed by his drunken butler, Symon Brodie, who had encased his portly person in a suit of remarkably rusty old iron, furnished with a capacious casque of the fifteenth contury, from the hollow depths of which he swore at the crowd as confidently as if he had been an arquebusier of the royal guard.
Preceded by many barons of parliament, wearing their crimson-velvet caps, which were adorned by golden circles, studded with six equidistant pearls, and by many bishops, abbots, and priors, in many-coloured robes, came M. d'Oysell, the ambassador of France, and Monsignore Grimani, patriarch of Venice and legate of Pope Paul III. A Venetian, feeble, nervous, sallow-visaged, and black-eyed, he had come to urge upon the Scottish hierarchy "the necessity for crushing the growing heresy, lest the church of God should fall." As if he had been a cardinal priest, two silver pillars were borne before him by two Dominican friars, between whom rode a Scottish knight of Rhodes or Malta, from the preceptory of Torphichen, armed on all points, wearing the black mantle of his order, and bearing aloft the Roman banner, on which were gilded the triple crown of the sovereign pontiff and the symbolical keys of heaven.
The clamour of the populace was hushed as this solemn personage approached; but it was no spirit of reverence that repressed them; for, sullen and contemptuous, the Reformers as yet muttered only under their beards, and scowled beneath their bonnets at the envoy of "the pagan fu' o' pride;" for the time was one of change—the old faith all but dead, and the new was little respected and less understood.
We have said that the train of the Regent Arran joined that of the Queen-mother. He felt something of pique and envy at its splendour, yet he courteously rode bareheaded by her side. In taking his place there, Fawside fell back, and, being pressed by the density of the crowd against the corner of a house, was compelled to remain there inactive on horseback while this glittering procession, amid which so many of his personal enemies—such as Preston, Cassilis, Glencairn, and Ealmaurs—bore a part, passed on. The sight of these in succession filled his heart with a longing for retributive justice upon them—a longing so deep and high, that the emotion swelled his breast till the clasps of his cuirass were strained to starting; yet, remembering that he was there alone—but one among many, common prudence compelled him to remain quiescent for a time.
Led by Champfleurie came the Queen's band of armed pensioners or arquebusiers, wearing the arms and livery of Scotland and Lorraine. These soldiers were first embodied by the widow of James V., and existed as a portion of the Stirling garrison, wearing the Quaint costume of her time until 1803, when they were incorporated with one of the garrison battalions formed by George III. On this day they were preceded by the Queen's Swiss drummers, her trumpeters, violers, and tabourners, all clad in yellow Bruges satin, slashed and trimmed with red, and led by M. Antoine, in whom Florence immediately recognized the pretended dumb valet of his mysterious habitation.
Then came the widowed queen herself, looking rather pale, but beautiful as ever. She was seated in a chariot, then deemed a wonderful piece of mechanism. It was twelve feet long by six wide, and rumbled along on four elaborately-carved wheels. It was drawn by six switch-tailed Flemish mares, each led by a lackey in scarlet and yellow, and was lined and hung with "doole-claith, or French black," as old Sir James Kirkaldy of Grange, her treasurer, styles it. Before it, an esquire bore her husband's royal banner, for the painting of which, in gold and fine colours, Andro Watson, limner to King James V., received the sum of four pounds.
By her side was a little girl, whose sweet and childlike face was encircled by a triangular hood of purple velvet edged with pearls. This girl, with the dimpled cheeks and merry eyes, which dilated and glittered with alternate delight, surprise, and alarm at the bustle around her, was the queen of all the land, the only child of James V.; and old men who had fought at Solway, at Flodden, and at Ancrumford—aged soldiers, who had carried their white heads erect in Scotland's bloodiest battles,—veiled them now, and prayed aloud that God might bless her.
The conventional smile upon the beautiful face of Mary of Lorraine was like the cold brightness of a winter sun, for many upon whom her smiles were falling she loved little and suspected much; and thus she smiled on Arran when he bowed to his horse's mane to kiss her gloved hand. But the childlike Queen Mary laughed aloud, and held out both, her pretty hands to the bearded earl, with a smile so sweet and natural, that even the cold and politic noble was moved, for it was the simple greeting of youth to a familiar face; while with her mother he was on the terms of two well-bred people who are shrewdly playing a selfish game and quite understand each other. Yet, as he gazed on the clear bright limpid eyes and smiling face of the beautiful child, he more than half repented the departure from that treaty by which she was to have become the bride of his son, the Lord Hamilton, who was then a soldier in France—a treaty which would have placed the house of Arran on the Scottish throne. Mary's object was to obtain the regency, and with it the permanent custody of her daughter till she came of age; while Arran, as next heir to the throne, was resolved to hold both in his own hands, at all hazards and at all perils.