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"God, and the blessed Virgin Mary; and for the prosperity of king James the Fourth, and Margaret, his queen; and "for the soul of Margaret Colvil, his former spouse: also, for "the salvation of his own soul, and Margaret Chrichtoun, "his present spouse; of all his predecessors and successors, "and of all the faithful dead.” *

The following year this charter was confirmed at Edinburgh by the king; and a large revenue was granted for the maintenance of the little church beside the loch"the lands of Upper and Nether Pennelds, and the mill "thereof; and the lands of Auchlodmont; as also the tiends. "of Glasford were annexed to it."

A few years later, lord Sempille, the founder, fell on Flodden-field with the king.

Anno 1505 In honorem Dei et Beatae Virginis Mariae; et pro prosperitate Jacobi quarti Regis, et Margaretae, Reginae suae; et pro anima Margaretae Colvil, quondam spousae suae, nec non pro salute, animae suae et Margaretae Chrichtoun, spousae suae modernae, omnium Antecessorum et Successorum suorum et omnium fidelium defunctorum.-Crawfurd's "History of Renfrewshire."

QUEEN MARGARET'S PILGRIMAGE.

BLAME not my lute! for he must sound
Of this or that as liketh me:

For lack of wit, the lute is bound

To give such tunes as pleaseth me.

Though my songs be somewhat strange,

And speak such words as touch my change,-
Blame not my lute!

Sir Thomas Wyatt.

N unbeautiful country, rich in neither hill nor shadow,

with whinny knowes and woodless streams, and moors without the charm of moorland;-in the midst of it, a little old-fashioned town, as still as still can be; its churchyard on a tiny height, at the western end of the street; in the midst of the old churchyard, some bits of broken sculpture and masonry,—the insignia of the bishops of Galloway, and the old worn arms of Scotland: also, one fair Saxon arch, very nearly entire, the fairest and completest, it is said, within the four seas; one or two later pointed arches; and that is all of Whithorn!

A certain pure, truthful life, lived in the fourth century, made it a shrine for Christendom, and gave it its glory. For St. Ninian died here, where he had taught and prayed, and was buried somewhere in his own church,-the first church in Scotland built of stone.

In a

It was James Fourth's favourite pilgrimage. Once at least every year, he came to pray at St. Ninian's; and left offerings on the altars, and bounty for the poor. perilous illness of the queen, he had made this journey on foot; and Margaret's health had revived, it was said, from the hour when the king had knelt at the shrine.

So when the queen was recovered, a pilgrimage of thanksgiving was made by king and queen together, with a great retinue of state.

This pilgrimage has often been described, but not the incident in it, which gives it a place among the memories encircling the Abbey of Paisley. The journey was long from Stirling, among the pleasant summer fields, and across those bright veins of streamlets, which in Scotland, like happy wayfarers, make an unceasing song. And rest was grateful to the queen. The Paisley abbot was the king's friend, a friendship, perhaps, knit closer by that royal retreat three years ago. So at this monastery, also linked by peculiar ancestral bonds to the king, the pilgrim retinue halted, on their journey to St. Ninian's shrine.

The pale queen, in her litter, was borne to the Abbey gates, and received by the hospitable abbot on a day in the early July. The guesten hall was crowded, for the king and queen were attended by a very regal retinue in no pilgrim-guise. The "chapel-graith" of the

queen was held in two coffers; three horses carried the wardrobe of the king, and seventeen pack-horses were necessary for the various appurtenances of queen Margaret. Never had the old cloister rang to such sounds before.

The abbot of Paisley then was in the zenith of his power, reigning like a king over the king's gift,—the little new-made burgh, which lay at the abbot's feet, enjoying all the privileges which his predecessor had won, with escape of all the opprobrium which that winning may have cost.

That he was not the strictest of his order, certain old notices of his surroundings lead us to divine. As the population of the burgh gathered closer round the convent walls, the abbot built himself a summer house some few miles from his Abbey. The grounds of this summer dwelling touched the edge of Blackston Moss. And the house took its name from the moss, and had in this same moss. various rights of its own. It had also round it pleasant orchards, and wealth of shady trees; and the river Black Cart partly encircled it, as the White Cart encircled the Abbey.

How the abbot divided his residence between his private chosen Blackston, and his house in the cloister court among his monks, we are only left to surmise. But it was in the Abbey gateway that he received his royal guests in July, 1507, when the queen's pilgrimage was made. And it was in the old Abbey the royal train abode, leaving some few faint traces behind them for curious historians.

There appears in the royal accounts :-" 1507-Item ix day of Julii, to ane man to pass fra Paslay to Dumbartone "with ane letter to Andro Bertoun ijs."

In his galley from the Abbey orchards, down the quiet, clear Cart, between the cornfields and the oaks; past lonely, woody Inchinnan, with its Templars' graves three centuries old, and its legends of the Knights of St. John; cross the broad, solitary Frith, with its sandy reefs reaching far among the blue patches of water, to the grim old fortress rock, outlined in rugged grey and purple against the green Kilpatrick hills,-the king's messenger would pass on that errand, the purport of which none has told

us.

This royal visit was brief; for, eleven days later, the king and queen are again at Paisley, returned from St. Ninian's shrine. And again there are little broken bits of history-suggestions, and no more-made by entries in the treasurer's account of the king's expenditure.

"Item, xxiiij day of Julij, to the workmen in Paslay to "drinksilver, xiiijs."

"Item to the maissounis in drinksilver xxiijs."

So they were working still at that late time of monasticism, working still with a brooding downfall so ominously near. Perhaps the great hewn-stone wall, in which the first abbot Schawe had set his ostentatious distich, was still incomplete. With the tireless patience of devotion, they were still carving here and there, finial and moulding, round the shrines, and mottoes in unknown Latin, before which the humble burghers could only kneel and be silent.

On Saturday, 20th July, the king and queen returned to Paisley; and on the day following, when high mass was