Unlike the rough, rude tower which crowns the tremendous precipice that overhangs the valley, and from the small windows of which our earlier monarchs, such as the four Malcolms, the three Alexanders, and the three Roberts, were wont to survey the mighty landscape of wood and wold, mountain and rock, through which the snaky Forth winds far away to sea,—with the giant Grampians, deep, dark, and purple, cut by the hand of God into a hundred splintered peaks, mellowing in distance amid the skies of gold and azure,—unlike this rude tower, we say, from the battlements of which men had seen Wallace win his victory, by the old bridge, and Bruce sweep Edward's host from Bannockburn,—the buildings of James III. in Stirling Castle are covered by quaint pilasters, deep niches, elaborate carvings, and rich mouldings; by columns and brackets, supporting statues of Venus, Diana, Perseus, Cleopatra, James V., and Omphale.
The hall had a lofty roof of oak, from which hung English, Moorish, and Portuguese banners, taken in battles at sea by the gallant Bartons; by Sir Andrew Wood, of Largo, in his famous Yellow Frigate; and by Sir Alexander Mathieson, the "old king of the sea." Its walls were covered by gaudy frescoes, or pieces of tapestry, the work of Margaret of Oldenburg and the ladies of her court. At the upper end stood the throne, under the old purple canopy of James IV., until whose reign the royal colour in Scotland had been purple; and on a table, before this lofty chair, lay the sceptre, the sword of state, and the crown,—that crown of thorns, and of sorrow, which more than one valiant king of Scotland has bequeathed to his son on the battlefield,—the fatal heritage of a fated line of kings.
During a flourish of trumpets, the little queen was placed upon the throne, where she gazed about her smiling, while a mixture of childlike wonder, alarm, and drollery glittered in her dark and dilating eyes. On her left hand sat Mary of Lorraine, a step lower down; on her right stood the Regent, in his shining doublet, leaning on his long sword. Behind the former were grouped the Countesses of Yarrow, Mar, Huntly, Errol, and Orkney, in their long dool-cloaks; behind the latter was a gay suite of lesser barons and gentlemen of the surname of Hamilton, gorgeously attired and armed.
With an emotion of irrepressible sadness, Mary of Lorraine gazed round the beautiful hall, and on the splendid but silent crowd which filled it; glittering in armour, lace, velvet, silk, jewellery, plumage, and embroidery. Then her fine eyes drooped on the child by her side.
To her, Stirling Castle was a place of many sad and stirring associations. There, her husband, the magnificent and gallant James V., was born, and crowned in the same year in which his father fell in battle. It was his favourite residence, and the scene of many of his merry frolics, as the gudeman of Ballengeich; and there their only surviving child, Queen Mary, had been crowned in 1543, when only nine months old,—crowned queen of a people who were to cast her forth as a waif upon the sea of misfortune; but on whose annals the story of her sorrows, and of their shame has cast a shadow that may never fade.
Many conflicting public and private interests were involved in the result of this convention of estates, or conference at Stirling.
The marriage of the young queen with the heir of France, or with the boy Edward VI.; and hence the great question of peace or war with England; involving the lives of thousands, who were doomed never to see the close of autumn.
Bothwell looked forward with confidence to the rejection of the French marriage, and to himself obtaining the hand of an English princess, when he could exult over Mary of Lorraine, who had trifled with his love, as with the love of many others, as already related, for reasons of her own, and slighted him in the end.
M. d'Oysell, the ambassador of Henry II., confidently anticipated the successful issue of that diplomacy which would ultimately make him a peer of France, knight of St. Michael, and perhaps lord of some forfeited Huguenot seigneurie.
M. Grimani, the patriarch of Venice, had also in view the maintenance of the ancient league between France and Scotland; that the hydra-headed heresy of the latter might be destroyed by fire and sword, if the power of the preacher failed.