80 CORONATION OF CHARLES THE FIRST.
streaming from the windows of the city ; the rich cos tumes of the barons, bishops, and other nobility ; the king, in his robes of crimson velvet, attending devoutly to the sacred services of the day, receiving the oaths of allegiance, or scattering, through his almoner, broad gold pieces among the people, are detailed with minute ness and delight by the Scottish chroniclers of that period. " Because this was the most glorious and magnifique coronatione that ever was seine in this kingdom," says Sir James Balfour, " and the first king of Greate Britain that ever was crowned in Scot land, to behold these triumphs and ceremonies, many strangers of grate quality resorted hither from divers countries."
Who can muse at Holyrood without retracing the disastrous fortunes of the house of Stuart, whose images seem to glide from among the ruined arches, where they once held dominion. James the First was a pris oner through the whole of his early life, and died under the assassin s steel. James the Second was destroyed by the bursting of one of his own cannon at the siege of Roxburgh. James the Third was defeated in battle by rebels headed by his own son, and afterwards assas sinated. James the Fourth fell, with the flower of his army, at Flodden Field, and failed even of the rites of sepulture. James the Fifth died of grief, in the prime of life, at the moment of the birth of his daughter, who, after twenty years of imprisonment in England, was eondemned to the scaffold. James the First of Eng land, though apparently more fortunate than his ances-
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