INCHMAHOME,
The Child-Queen's child garden, with her little walk and its boxwood, left to itself for three hundred years. Yes, without doubt, 'Here is the first garden of her simpleness.'
VII.
MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS.
James V., of Scotland, was dangerously ill owing to severe disappointments and defeats experienced in his border war with Henry VIII., of England, and dying at Falkland, when, on the 8th of December, 1542, a message came to him from Linlithgow Palace, stating that his Queen, Mary of Guise, had a baby daughter. The king, rendered sorrowful by his trials and his sickness, replied, in his own expressive language, "Ay, it cam' (meaning the kingdom of Scotland) wi' a lass, and it will gang wi' a lass," and this prediction seem fulfilled in Mary's fate.
The king, her father, only lingered five more days, and on his death the tiny infant became Queen of Scotland and the Isles.
When about nine months old, Mary was solemnly crowned, on the 9th of September, 1543, at Stirling Castle, having been carefully taken there from Linlithgow for the coronation by Cardinal Beaton, who performed the ceremony. Her mother was presently appointed regent.