CHURCH OF St. JOHN THE Baptist, Daury. C7 
I trust I will be excused for dwelling so long on this memor- 
able visit when I say that over four centuries pass away ere another 
notice occurs. The magnetic influence 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, 
form of royal expenses embodied m 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 pilgrimages. 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 Flodden with the flower of the nation. 
He 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 Dalry 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 erelis 
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 gluffis 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 “ oray to lyne the 
sex gounis,” with velvet ‘for the colaris and sleffis.” <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 chamberlain of Galloway charges 
