Messire Jacques de Lalain, on perceiving the turn matters took with his prisoner, began to fear that in the zealous execution of his office he had made a mistake. He offered innumerable apologies to Gray, and as he was not ungenerous, he presented him with a rich suit of Flemish armour, a fine Toledo, a Spanish gennet, and a catella or chain, having fifty links of fine gold, as an amende for all he had endured.
Of all who accompanied the chancellor, he inquired about the Douglases; but could only learn that they were at Rome, and probably would not return until after the great jubilee, which took place then every fiftieth year, in honour of the foundation of Christianity.
The young queen's train embarked at Sluys, in Scottish ships, and crossed the German sea in safety.
On the 1st of April, 1448, she landed at Leith, and as an illustration of "how dull and common-place fiction is when compared with truth," the Dyck Graf of Bommel, and Sir Patrick Gray, who had been so long and so hopelessly his prisoner, rode side by side, as she proceeded towards Edinburgh, and they bore over her head a canopy of cloth of gold upon the points of their lances.
Gray's noble horse and gorgeous armour were now as conspicuous as his soldierly bearing and manly beauty; for both had now returned, and in his five years of captivity the scars inflicted by the ghisarma of Douglas had disappeared, or nearly so.
Patrick Cockburn, of Newbigging, now provost of Edinburgh and governor of the castle, received the queen at the head of the magistrates and all the men of the city, in armour—"boden in effeir of weir," as it was then termed.
Mary was accompanied by the lord chancellor Crichton, John Raulston, bishop of Dunkeld, who was lord privy seal, and Nicholas Otterburn, a canon of Glasgow. The prince of Ravenstein, the marquis of Berg, and Englebert, count of Nassau, hereditary Burg Graf of Antwerp, who were each followed by a brilliant train of attendants, wore the collars and mantles of the Golden Fleece. The prince bore the banner of the bride's uncle, Philip III., surnamed the Good, duke of Burgundy.
Then came the bishops of Liege and Cambrai, riding upon white mules, with long footcloths.
The king's two brothers-in-law came next, Francis, duke of Brittany (a prince who slew his brother Giles), and the Archduke Sigismund of Austria, each attended by knights, banners, squires, and pages, in glittering costumes. With them came Louis II., duke of Savoy, prince of Piedmont, and husband of the princess royal of Cyprus, with his banner borne by the duke of Montferrat, who wore a scarlet tabard, with the silver cross of Savoy.
The lord of Campvere, a handsome and black-bearded man, the husband of Mary of Scotland (fifth sister of James), came next in a suit of armour glittering with gold carvings and precious stones. He bore a great banner—azure, with the lion or, crowned for Gueldreland, and azure a lion gules for Zutphen, impaled, with the lion of Scotland, within its double tressure of fleur-de-lis.