LINLITHGOW,

and, alighting, took up our quarters at the Star and Garter Hotel, which,

like almost all the Scottish caravan-saries of which we have had

experience, turns out a comfortable one. . . . . We stayed within doors

for an hour or two, and I busied myself with writing up my journal. At

about three, however, the sky brightened a little, and we set forth

through the ancient, rusty, and queer-looking town of Linlithgow, towards

the palace and the ancient church, which latter was one of St. David's

edifices, and both of which stand close together, a little removed from

the long street of the village. But I can never describe them worthily,

and shall make nothing of the description if I attempt it now.

July 8th.--At about three o'clock yesterday, as I said, we walked

forth through the ancient street of Linlithgow, and, coming to the

market-place, stopped to look at an elaborate and heavy stone fountain,

which we found by an inscription to be the fac-simile of an old one that

used to stand on the same site. Turning to the right, the outer entrance

to the palace fronts on this market-place, if such it be; and close to

it, a little on one side, is the church. A young woman, with a key in

her hand, offered to admit us into the latter; so we went in, and found

it divided by a wall across the middle into two parts. The hither

portion, being the nave, was whitewashed, and looked as bare and

uninteresting as an old Gothic church of St. David's epoch possibly could

do. The interior portion, being the former choir, is covered with pews

over the whole floor, and further defaced by galleries, that unmercifully

cut midway across the stately and beautiful arches. It is likewise

whitewashed. There were, I believe, some mural monuments of Bailies and

other such people stuck up about the walls, but nothing that much

interested me, except an ancient oaken chair, which the girl said was the

chair of St. Crispin, and it was fastened to the wall, in the holiest

part of the church. I know not why it was there; but as it had been the

chair of so distinguished a personage, we all sat down in it. It was in

this church that the apparition of St. James appeared to King James IV.,

to warn him against engaging in that war which resulted in the battle of

Flodden, where he and the flower of his nobility were slain. The young

woman showed us the spot where the apparition spake to him,--a side

chapel, with a groined roof, at the end of the choir next the nave. The

Covenanters seem to have shown some respect to this one chapel, by

refraining from drawing the gallery across its height; so that, except

for the whitewash, and the loss of the painted glass in the window, and

probably of a good deal of rich architectural detail, it looks as it did

when the ghostly saint entered beneath its arch, while the king was

kneeling there.

We stayed but a little while in the church, and then proceeded to the

palace, which, as I said, is close at hand. On entering the outer

enclosure through an ancient gateway, we were surprised to find how

entire the walls seemed to be; but the reason is, I suppose, that the

ruins have not been used as a stone-quarry, as has almost always been the

case with old abbeys and castles. The palace took fire and was consumed,

so far as consumable, in 1745, while occupied by the soldiers of General

Hawley; but even yet the walls appear so stalwart that I should imagine

it quite possible to rebuild and restore the stately rooms on their

original plan. It was a noble palace, one hundred and seventy-five feet

in length by one hundred and sixty-five in breadth, and though destitute

of much architectural beauty externally, yet its aspect from the

quadrangle which the four sides enclose is venerable and sadly beautiful.

At each of the interior angles there is a circular tower, up the whole

height of the edifice and overtopping it, and another in the centre of

one of the sides, all containing winding staircases. The walls facing

upon the enclosed quadrangle are pierced with many windows, and have been

ornamented with sculpture, rich traces of which still remain over the

arched entrance-ways; and in the grassy centre of the court there is the

ruin and broken fragments of a fountain, which once used to play for the

delight of the king and queen, and lords and ladies, who looked down upon

it from hall and chamber. Many old carvings that belonged to it are

heaped together there; but the water has disappeared, though, had it been

a natural spring, it would have outlasted all the heavy stone-work.

As far as we were able, and could find our way, we went through every

room of the palace, all round the four sides. From the first floor

upwards it is entirely roofless. In some of the chambers there is an

accumulation of soil, and a goodly crop of grass; in others there is

still a flooring of flags or brick tiles, though damp and moss-grown, and

with weeds sprouting between the crevices. Grass and weeds, indeed, have

found soil enough to flourish in, even on the highest ranges of the

walls, though at a dizzy height above the ground; and it was like an old

and trite touch of romance, to see how the weeds sprouted on the many

hearth-stones and aspired under the chimney-flues, as if in emulation of

the long-extinguished flame. It was very mournful, very beautiful, very

delightful, too, to see how Nature takes back the palace, now that kings

have done with it, and adopts it as a part of her great garden.

On one side of the quadrangle we found the roofless chamber where Mary,

Queen of Scots, was born, and in the same range the bedchamber that was

occupied by several of the Scottish Jameses; and in one corner of the

latter apartment there is a narrow, winding staircase, down which I

groped, expecting to find a door, either into the enclosed quadrangle or

to the outside of the palace. But it ends in nothing, unless it be a

dungeon; and one does not well see why the bedchamber of the king should

be so convenient to a dungeon. It is said that King James III. once

escaped down this secret stair, and lay concealed from some conspirators

who had entered his chamber to murder him. This range of apartments is

terminated, like the other sides of the palace, by a circular tower

enclosing a staircase, up which we mounted, winding round and round, and

emerging at various heights, until at last we found ourselves at the very

topmost point of the edifice; and here there is a small pepper-box of a

turret, almost as entire as when the stones were first laid. It is

called Queen Margaret's bower, and looks forth on a lovely prospect of

mountain and plain, and on the old red roofs of Linlithgow town, and on

the little loch that lies within the palace grounds. The cold north-wind

blew chill upon us through the empty window-frames, which very likely

were never glazed; but it must be a delightful nook in a calmer and

warmer summer evening.

Descending from this high perch, we walked along ledges and through

arched corridors, and stood, contemplative, in the dampness of the

banqueting-hall, and sat down on the seats that still occupy the

embrasures of the deep windows. In one of the rooms, the sculpture of a

huge fireplace has recently been imitated and restored, so as to give an

idea of what the richness of the adornments must have been when the

building was perfect. We burrowed down, too, a little way, in the

direction of the cells, where prisoners used to be confined; but these

were too ugly and too impenetrably dark to tempt us far. One vault,

exactly beneath a queen's very bedchamber, was designated as a prison. I

should think bad dreams would have winged up, and made her pillow an

uncomfortable one.

There seems to be no certain record as respects the date of this palace,

except that the most recent part was built by James I., of England, and

bears the figures 1620 on its central tower. In this part were the

kitchens and other domestic offices. In Robert Bruce's time there was a

castle here, instead of a palace, and an ancestor of our friend Bennoch

was the means of taking it from the English by a stratagem in which valor

went halves. Four centuries afterwards, it was a royal residence, and

might still have been nominally so, had not Hawley's dragoons lighted

their fires on the floors of the magnificent rooms; but, on the whole, I

think it more valuable as a ruin than if it were still perfect.

Scotland, and the world, needs only one Holyrood; and Linlithgow, were it

still a perfect palace, must have been second in interest to that, from

its lack of association with historic events so grand and striking.

After tea we took another walk, and this time went along the High Street,

in quest of the house whence Bothwellhaugh fired the shot that killed the

Regent Murray. It has been taken down, however; or, if any part of it

remain, it has been built into and incorporated with a small house of

dark stone, which forms one range with two others that stand a few feet

back from the general line of the street. It is as mean-looking and

commonplace an edifice as is anywhere to be seen, and is now occupied by

one Steele, a tailor. We went under a square arch (if an arch can be

square), that goes quite through the house, and found ourselves in a

little court; but it was not easy to identify anything as connected with

the historic event, so we did but glance about us, and returned into the

street. It is here narrow, and as Bothwellhaugh stood in a projecting

gallery, the Regent must have been within a few yards of the muzzle of

his carbine. The street looks as old as any that I have seen, except,

perhaps, a vista here and there in Chester,--the houses all of stone,

many of them tall, with notched gables, and with stone staircases going

up outside, the steps much worn by feet now dust; a pervading ugliness,

which yet does not fail to be picturesque; a general filth and evil odor

of gutters and people, suggesting sorrowful ideas of what the inner

houses must be, when the outside looks and smells so badly; and, finally,

a great rabble of the inhabitants, talking, idling, sporting, staring

about their own thresholds and those of dram-shops, the town being most

alive in the long twilight of the summer evening. There was nothing

uncivil in the deportment of these dirty people, old or young; but they

did stare at us most unmercifully.

We walked very late, entering, after all that we had seen, into the

palace grounds, and skirting along Linlithgow Loch, which would be very

beautiful if its banks were made shadowy with trees, instead of being

almost bare. We viewed the palace on the outside, too, and saw what had

once been the principal entrance, but now looked like an arched window,

pretty high in the wall; for it had not been accessible except by a

drawbridge. I might write pages in telling how venerable the ruin,

looked, as the twilight fell deeper and deeper around it; but we have had

enough of Linlithgow, especially as there have been so many old palaces

and old towns to write about, and there will still be more. We left

Linlithgow early this morning, and reached Edinburgh in half an hour.

To-morrow I suppose I shall try to set down what I see; at least, some

points of it.