130 SCOTLAND ILLUSTRATED. 



taken place since the days of the Stuarts. Wherever a few feet of space could 

 be had, stages and scaffoldmg were erected ; and on these, and crowding the 

 windows and balconies on either side, dense masses of well-dressed people 

 watched the progress of the royal cortege. The king advanced in a close state 

 carriage. " The High-street was now bright with the blaze of day. Its parapets 

 and pinnacles — the height, and wildness, and high antique confusion of its 

 architecture, winding and sweeping away down the hill — had the look of the 

 most beautiful and impressive object that architecture ever gave the eye" — the 

 interior of some vast cathedral, when seen at its full. 



" Squire and knight and belted peer — 

 Lowland cliief and mountaineer — 

 The best, the bravest, all are here, — Carle, now the King's come I" 



The procession commenced at half-past two, and moved from Holyrood-house 

 under a roar of congratulation. But the sky had promised rain, and its promise 

 now began to be amply fulfilled. The glory of the open galleries was shadowed 

 ill a moment, and never was popular good-will more severely drenched. Still 

 tlie procession ascended, through waving handkerchiefs and applauding hands, 

 till it reached the Castle-hill, where the entrance of the multitude was forbidden, 

 and the pageant, impressed by the crowd, expanded in all its beauty. Heralds, 

 squires, and chieftains — the hereditary officers of the throne, bearing badges and 

 batons — followed in ghttering succession, with intervening guards of highland 

 clans and lowland cavalry. Old Froissart would have dwelt with delight on 

 the stately bearing of these "' mirrors of chivalry ;" and some novelist in after 

 times, when all who figured in the scene are beyond the reach of tale or 

 toiftnament, will tell of " the crimson coat that flowed down to the golden 

 spurs of the lyon-king-at-arms — the green velvet tunic, gold embroidered — 

 the golden rigol round the cap of crimson — the enamelled staflT, flowered 

 with golden thistles — and the Arabian that he ' caracoled and caprioled' with 

 such knightly dexterity." 



The sword of state — an enormous two-handed blade — worthy of the grasp 

 of Arthur or Wallace, was borne by the earl of Morton, in a modern 

 uniform that looked humiliated beside the superb barbarism of the old costume. 

 The sceptre— a short staff \\dth a large head of crystal — was carried by the H(/n. 

 Morton Stuart, dressed in simple green ; but his plaid, his splendid arms, and 

 the beautiful cliarger on which he sat with peculiar grace, made him conspicuous. 

 TJie duke of Hamilton, in the dress of a courtier of the first Chai-les — the velvet 

 hat, satin slashed doublet, and deep vandyked collar — bore the crown. The king 



