means such scholarships would be of goes to the public-house; dirt and opening up to women one more branch neglect attract alms. Thrift hardly of honorable and useful remunerative exists among our poor, and the selfwork, preparing them not to do some controlled among them may well ask new design in crewels, or ornamental themselves whether it pays or not, so leather, which a jaded public may be lavish are the scattered gifts of foolish induced to buy in "charity " at a fash- donors. Considering all these ominous ionable bazaar, but setting them in for- facts, one feels as if, whatever wild lorn and desolate districts, where their things the inexperienced may do, some wisdom and strength are urgently of us must set ourselves to make our needed; where, ready with counsel, people worth more, must help them to with clear knowledge, with trained be their best selves, to prepare their sagacity and self-control, they may children for useful work, to use the stand by the poor, having learned to hardly earned wages well, to put by for render them help which shall endure; the rainy day. We must try to bring enabling such women to feel that when all the knowledge of the present day they draw their salary and take it back to bear on their lives, to make their to help their own home, they have homes happy-often to learn from earned it by work which was really themselves how we can help them. All wanted. Let those who could help this needs preparation and experience, remember that, if they can manage for gained not at the cost of the poor, but a year or two thus to arrange for train- side by side with experienced workers. ing one or two workers without any paraphernalia of perpetual scholarships, they will have helped to set a standard of necessary preparation which may go far to save our poor from the degrad- THE WEDDING TOUR OF JAMES VI. IN ing curse of our shiftless and unreasoning almsgiving, as well as having started willing and good women on a useful professional career.

From The Scottish Review.

NORWAY.

THROUGHOUT the long and varied career of James VI. there is only one incident that stands forth prominently Every year brings forward some new as showing that he had a dash of the huge and widely advertised panacea for romantic Stuart blood in his veins poverty which can only be met by his chivalrous voyage to Norway to steady, quiet, and wise action; every bring home his bride. There is a tinge fall of snow, or suspicion of slackness, of romance in the dubious story of the causes an outcry that some fresh rem- Gowrie Conspiracy, but it is not of a edy is necessary. Great are the temp- kind that reflects much glory upon the tations to politicians, to newspaper king. The valiant expeditions which writers, to philanthropists, to the in- he led to the North against Huntly, dolent whose uneasy consciences are seem to show that the crown still graced aroused, to rush into hasty action which the brow of a worthy descendant of the ever more degrades, and induces a gam- king who fought and fell at Flodden bling recklessness in the miserable and yet the careful student of the hisreceivers of gifts suddenly lavished, tory of the period will find that James and again suddenly withheld. Men VI. did not place his precious person flock in from the country to London, in great jeopardy until he had made tempted by these huge schemes, from sure that there was little danger to be which they hope to receive something apprehended. But it was far otherwise without due labor. Every young man when he committed his royal person fresh from college has his certain cure and fortunes to the mercy of the raging for social evils. Labor is paid for at a North Sea in winter, and set sail across higher rate in London than elsewhere; the stormy waters to bring home the nearly everything is cheaper here than wedded wife whom he had never seen. elsewhere; a large proportion of wages He could not take refuge behind his

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men-at-arms against the attacks of blus- | from the stories told by some of the tering Boreas, as he had done to escape brilliant company in the king's train; h the rage of the Ruthvens at Gowrie but nothing is said as to the adventures House; and to face the stormy waters of the king before his marriage, nor of at the most tempestuous time of the the remarkable incidents in that strange year, he must have encased his heart voyage. Melville also details a few of in the "triple brass" which Horace the events in this episode, though his desiderated for the first navigator. It information is very incomplete. In the is more than remarkable, therefore, Records of the Privy Council, Vol. that Scottish historians have passed IV., Professor Masson has drawn toover this incident almost in silence, gether in a series of footnotes nearly and that one looks in vain throughout all that these historians have related, the contemporary records of the time quoting also the interesting letter from for a faithful and exhaustive account the king to Robert Bruce regarding his of the king's adventures in Norway. home-coming, which is given in extenso There are ample details of the secret by Calderwood (Vol. V., pp. 81, 82). preparations made by the king for his Tytler, founding upon some mysterious departure from Leith. The letter in authority to which he does not refer, which he announced the appointment states that the marriage took place in of regents during his absence, and "the Church of Upsal," by which he commanded his people to obey them, may have meant Upsala in Sweden, is preserved, and has been frequently though all the previous writers call the printed. The names of the trusty no-town "Upslaw," which we may take bles whom he took with him have been as the Scottish version of the name faithfully recorded, and even their trifling disputes as to precedence have been detailed. A gossiping story is told by Moysie regarding the king's first meeting with his bride at Oslo, and the bare fact of his marriage there is beyond doubt. The great preparations made to welcome the king on his return to Scotland with his queen, and Meditating upon this subject, and the imposing ceremonies observed at entirely at a loss to know where I should their coronation, have been very fully turn for reliable material wherewith to detailed by more than one chronicler. fill up this serious gap in the life of But the strange and romantic adven-James VI., I suddenly recollected that tures of James VI. during the six the Rev. W. Dunn Macray in his Report months that he was absent from his on the MSS. in the University Library kingdom are nowhere completely re- at Copenhagen (Forty-fifth Report of lated in Scottish history, and are usually the Deputy-Keeper of the Public Rectouched upon in the most perfunctory ords, Appendix II., p. 62) written in fashion. 1883, mentioned a quarto of thirty-two With this fact I was confronted some leaves, entitled "Copy (made at the time ago in a striking manner. Having beginning of the eighteenth century) been engaged for years past collecting of a Danish narrative of the marriage materials for a history of the reign of of James VI. of Scotland with the PrinJames VI., I was brought to a stand- cess Anna, containing both the Negotiastill to account for the long period that tions and the Ceremonial." Here was elapsed between his leaving Leith in a source of information that had been October, 1589, and his return there in overlooked by our Scottish historians. the following April. It is doubtless But it was only a copy of comparatively true that Spottiswoode gives an imper- recent date. Where was the original fect itinerary of the king's tour in Nor- to be found? Surely there was some way and Denmark, derived possibly likelihood of its being preserved in a

Oslo, in Norway. The very date of the marriage is variously given by different authorities; and after thorough investigation the anxious inquirer must come to the conclusion that the Scottish records of this very important event are in a state of chaotic confusion.

ner. There is much in the history of these local battles that recalls the Border raids and forays in our own country; and the Norwegians even to this day regard the Swedes in the same suspicious way that the Scots of former oure auld inneThe natural re

66

public repository near where the cere- | of Ekeberg, and (as a Norwegian graphmony took place. The town of Oslo ically phrased it to me) "peppered the had been superseded by the city of poor folk of Oslo" in a merciless manChristiania, founded by Christiern IV., the brother of the Princess Anna, in 1625, and it was remotely possible that the document might have been placed for security there. At least it would be worth the labor to visit Christiania, and to find if no local tradition existed re-times looked upon garding an event of such moment as myies of England." the marriage of a foreign king with the sult of this persistent warfare was that sister of the reigning sovereign. My the town of Oslo was frequently deanticipations were more than realized. stroyed, the log-built houses not being The original contemporary account of calculated to resist either fire or artilthe bridal of James VI. of Scotland is lery. For centuries, however, Oslo now preserved in the library of the was privileged to rise, phoenix-like, University of Christiania, and it sets at from its ashes; and even now there is rest forever the dubiety as to the scene a timber dwelling of very ancient date, of the marriage and the style of the which has quite a romantic history atceremony. With the kind assistance tached to it. It was the chosen retreat of Professor Rygh and Professor Gus- of the bloodthirsty tyrant, Christiern tav Storm of Christiania University, II. (1513-1523), and here he resided and also with the friendly aid of Herr with his mistress, Columbule, during 0. A. Overland, author of the "Illus- the only happy period of his stormy treret Norges Historie," I have been reign. It is supposed that he sought able to make this valuable document of refuge in this weather-beaten old buildsome avail for future Scottish histori- ing after his deposition, until he could Before quoting from it, however, arrange his escape to Flanders. There may be interesting to relate some of is every probability that this is almost the other incidents in this search after the only remaining fragment of the historic truth. Oslo which James VI. saw, as the town was devastated by fire in 1624. It was in the succeeding year that Christiern IV. ordered the inhabitants to build their houses further away from Ekeberg and nearer to the fortress of Akershus, and thus the town was founded which was named Christiania after the king.

ans.

it

It was natural to suppose, as Tytler states, that the marriage of the king would take place in the church, so taking a conveyance from Christiania, I set out to discover the Kirke of Oslo. The old town of Oslo, founded in 1050, and now a mere suburb of Christiania, is situated at the base of the Ekeberg, a mountain-ridge that rises precipi- A single glance at Oslo Kirke was tously to a height of four hundred sufficient to show me that it could not feet, and overlooks the undulating vale be identified with Tytler's mythical where Christiania is built, commanding "Church of Upsal" where the mara magnificent view of Christiania Fjord riage of James VI. is said to have with its countless islets dotting the been celebrated. It is a plain, oblong, placid surface of the water. As the wooden structure, rough-cast on the boundary betwixt Norway and Sweden outside, with curious doors broken lies a few miles east of the summit of through the side-wall facing the street, Ekeberg, and as there was a perpetual at odd intervals, and giving access to feud between the two nations in the different parts of the area, and to a olden times, this mountain was the stair leading to the end loft or gallery. scene of many a bloody fray. The It is quite a typical example of the Swedes, marching westward, planted barn-like erections which our forefatheir cannon upon the vantage ground thers built in Scotland a hundred years.

ago, and dedicated to the most sacred | ters Giftermaal med Kong Jakob den uses. Inquiries of the verger, who, by the way, is called, in homely Scottish fashion, "the bedell," brought out the fact that this is the third kirk that has occupied the site, its predecessors having been burned or destroyed by the Swedes. It was built in 1796, more than two hundred years after the bridal of King James. There are still preserved within its walls some of the popish vestments that were worn by the Bishops of Oslo before the tyrant Christiern II. had decided to foster "the Lutheran Heresy," and these I had the privilege of examining; but they did not bring me nearer the end I had in view, though it is very probable that these voiceless garments were at the royal ceremony. In the quaint old cemetery situated on the opposite side of the Ekeberg Veien from Oslo Kirke there is a tombstone which marks the last resting-place of a renowned Englishman, whose name is still a household word throughout our land. Bradshaw not the regicide, who sleeps in an unhonored grave by the shores of the Lake of Geneva, but Bradshaw, the deviser of the Railway Guide which has been alike a treasure and a torment to myriads of tourists rests peacefully in this strange, back-of-the-world graveyard, having died suddenly at Oslo, of cholera, many years ago. Immediately adjoining the kirke there is a building that once was a famous nunnery, but was converted after the Reformation into a kind of secular institution of the same sort, and is still a refuge for indigent females. Interesting as were all these places in themselves, I could not but feel that I had been on a wild-goose chase, and I returned to Christiania somewhat crestfallen.

6te af Scotland og hendes paafolgende Kroning had to say about the locality of this ceremony. From that most interesting document I learned that the marriage did not take place in the church at all, but in the Gamle Bispegaard, or old Bishop's Palace of the time. Here I was shunted on to a new line of research, and perennial hope sprang up in my breast once more. With the aid of the ever-courteous Mr. Bennett, the tourist's friend, who has long been resident in Christiania, I discovered that this house was still in existence, and had been transformed some forty years ago into a splendid mansion-house, now known as the Ladegaard. Accompanied by a Scottish friend from the British Consulate, I set out in search of the Bishop's Palace, and soon discovered the mansion. It is situated at the corner of Bispe Gade (Bishop Street) and Oslo Gade, nearly equi-distant from Oslo Kirke and Oslo Havn. From the first glimpse of the exterior one might readily conclude that it would be the last place where a historian would expect to find traces of a royal marriage having been celebrated within its walls three hundred years ago. The eastern wing of the mansion has been modernized, large square windows have been inserted, a graceful, modern, exterior staircase gives access to the main entrance, and the front elevation has been decorated in a manner that to the antiquary looks painfully new. But there are traces still remaining in the western wing that show very completely the style of the building at the time the nuptial ceremony was performed. The building is in three flats. The ground floor was reserved for kitchen and offices; the first floor contained the Every critical reader will tell me that great hall and withdrawing-room, and my next move should have been my the upper flat was utilized for suites of first step in this search; and whilst I bedrooms. It was thus constructed sorrowfully admit the charge, let me exactly on the same plan as the Scotplead, in extenuation, that I was mis-tish castles of the fifteenth and sixled by Tytler, for whom I have always teenth centuries. The wall of the had a very profound reverence. It ground floor is set back about four feet seemed now the wisest plan for me to from the line of the wall of the flats learn what the Samtidig Beretning den above, and a colonnade of strong timber Prindsesse Anna, Christian den 4des Sys-pillars has been placed along the whole

rontage by which the projecting por- | own.

One portion of the mansion is tion of the upper part of the building of unknown antiquity. Immediately was supported. There was thus a cov- under the great hall there is a curious ered piazza running around the whole crypt chapel built of hewn stone, which mansion on the ground level, precisely was probably erected about the same similar to those found in old Scottish urban mansions, such as Gibson's Land in Glasgow, and Our Lady Wark in Dundee. By the alterations made about a century ago on the eastern wing, this colonnade has been obliterated, and the space of the piazza has been absorbed into the building by simply carrying the line of the wall from the projecting upper floors to the ground. There is a sufficient portion of the old plan left, however, to show the original method of construction.

time as the town of Oslo was founded, circa 1050. It has been identified as the Kirke of St. Halvard, which was in existence in 1138, when the battle of Oslo was fought between Eric IV. of Denmark and Magnus of Norway, which resulted in the overthrow of the latter, and his mutilation and life-long imprisonment by his captor. This crypt is about forty feet by thirty-eight feet within the walls. It is curiously divided into four compartments by strongly built stone walls traversing the On entering the main doorway the interior at right angles, and meeting in visitor finds himself in a square vesti- a square central pillar measuring sevbule, with doors to right and left, lead- enty centimetres. These walls have ing respectively to the east and west been pierced with archways, and by wings, and a narrow timber staircase covering these openings with curtains giving access to the upper flat. The it would be possible to transform the vestibule is decorated with four large chapel into four separate oratorics. oil-paintings, in low-relief rococo frames The roofs of these four compartments devised in the style of sixteenth-cen- are barrel-vaulted, and the walls rise tury art, the subjects being quasi- nine feet to the spring of the arch, the classical. One of these represents an height from floor to apex being eighobese and fatuous Venus attended by teen feet. The place was lighted by a most villainous-looking satyr; an- two windows in the eastern wall, each other shows a procession of sportive measuring two metres sixty centimeand well-fed cupids; the third is a tres, and by an arrow-slit window near very original design for a fountain, the south-western corner; while a reconceived with an artistic disregard for cess at the north-west corner was probthe first principles of hydrostatics; and ably an ambry for holding the sacred the fourth is a group of nymphs and elements and the priestly robes, or may satyrs belonging to the pre-Sartorial have been used on occasion as an open period. Herr Konow, the present pro- fireplace. A curious circular opening prietor of the Ladegaard, who is an about one inch in diameter pierces the enthusiastic student of history, says vaulting and opens into the great hall, that the consistent tradition regarding and may have been a kind of meatus these pictures, is that they were brought auditorius by which the bishop might from Copenhagen to decorate the hear if his subordinates misconducted Bishop's Palace while it was the resi- themselves in his absence. The floor dence of the Princess Anna, and there of the chapel is below the ground-level, seems no good reason for doubting this and a short flight of steps led down to statement. The marriage ceremony it. Around this structure the residence of the bishop gradually grew until the Kirke of St. Halvard became merely a When the Kirke of private chapel. Oslo was built at the base of the Eke

took place in the great hall in the eastern wing, as will be found from the contemporary description quoted be

low.

Apart from its interest as the scene of the wedding of a Scottish king, the Ladegaard has a curious history of its