Chuech of St. Juhn the Baptist, Dalhy. 77 



1 trust I will be excused for dwelling so long on this memor- 

 able visit when 1 say that over four centuiies pass away ere another 

 notice occurs. The magnetic inlluence of St. Ninian had not ceased. 

 and the pilgrim tide no doubt flowed on increasingly year after 

 year, but no record has survived until, in the meagre, yet truthful, 

 fonn of royal expenses embodied in State accounts, we find in the 

 autumn of 1473 the youthful sovereigns, King James III. and 

 Margaret of Denmark, traversing the rugged wilderness that led 

 to the chief of Scotland's four great i:)ilgrimages. They came in 

 State, their object being to render thanks for the birth of an heir 

 to the Crown — that James IV. who, just forty years afterwards, 

 was destined, on one of the most fatal and disastrous days in 

 Scottish annals, to fall at Floddeu with the flower of the nation. 

 lie fell girt with iron belt and shirt of hair, penitentially worn for 

 complicity in the death of that young sovereign — his own father — 

 who, in all the joy and pride of early manhood, with his still more 

 youthful queen, paid his devoirs at St. John's Kirk of Dairy on 

 that early day in September, 1473. 



Margaret of Denmark was then only in her sixteenth year, 

 and the Lord High Treasurer's accounts contain various entries as 

 to the due apparelling and convenience of herself and her retinue. 

 There were three and a half ells " of blak for a riding goune to 

 the Quene," with the same amount of velvet, and an ell and a half 

 of " brade clatht." Also two and a half ells of "blak for a clok 

 and a capiteberne for the Quene," with the same amount of " Scottis 

 blak to lyne the samyne clok." There were also " panzell crelis 

 to the Quene and hir passage to Sanct Ninianis," and " a pare of 

 bulgz," no doubt bags. Six shillings were also " gevin to a 

 Skynnare of Strineling for a dusane of glufBs to the Quene," also 

 " Satyne for turatis to the Quene," and other items. For her 

 retinue there are " lyveray gounis to sex ladys of the Quenis 

 chalmire at hire passing to Quhytehirne," with " gray to lyne the 

 sex gounis," with velvet " for the colaris and slefSs." A careful 

 comparison of these various entries, with those relating- to the 

 King at the same period, brings out the interesting' fact that 

 Margaret of Denmark was herself the true heroine of the visit, 

 and that the Scottish people then were just as proud of their 

 connection with Denmark's Royal House as they have reason to 

 be now. There can be no doubt King James accompanied her. 

 In his accounts for this year the chaml)erlain of Galloway charges 



