Page:New Poems by James I.djvu/170

 On June 18, 1589, George Keith, the Earl Marshal, who was chosen as the King's deputy, set sail with a large company to act in the preliminary ceremony and bring the bride to Scotland, and on August 20 the marriage was performed. In the meantime, the King, who was at first reported a cool lover, had worked himself into a fever of impatient excitement. Messages flew back and forth across the North Sea, entreaties from James that the Queen and her company "come away in Scotland." (Papers relative to the Marriage of King James the Sixth, Bann. Club, p. 18.) James was alone at Craigmillar Castle, where he "culd not sleip nor rest" (Melville's Memoirs, p. 370), "impatient and sorrowful" at the delay. It is interesting to know that the poems were thus the fruit of real passion, even though it was for an 'unknown mistress.'

At last, on September 15, word reached Scotland that a storm had scattered the Scottish fleet and forced the Queen to take refuge at Opslo (now Christiania), on the coast of Norway. After another month of waiting, the King found further delay both dangerous and unbearable, and on the night of October 22 stole secretly down to the quays of Leith and set sail in quest of his bride. (Cf. Peter Young's Ephemeride, in Vitæ Quorundam . . . Virorum, Th. Smith, London, 1707.) The explanation of his romantic venture appeared the next day in a letter to the Council (Papers relative to the Marriage, p. 12 ff.), written with a colloquial freedom rare in royal proclamations. He had resolved on the voyage "upon the instant, yea very moment" the news reached him, but had kept his decision from the Chancellor lest the latter be accused of "leiding me by the nose." He wished to prove himself no "barren stock," nor "irresolute asse quha can do nathing of himselff." The government during his absence was to be in the hands of the Duke of Lennox, with the Earl of Bothwell second in power.

After a stormy passage, the King reached Norway October 28, and two weeks more of rough travel by sea and land brought him to the Queen. The final ceremony took place at Opslo, November 23. It was considered too late in the