Excerpt from The Scottish Antiquary, Vol. 8: Or Northern Notes Queries, With Index

Elizabeth of England was unmarried. Her nearest heir was Mary Queen of Scotland, granddaughter of Margaret, daughter of Henry VII. Next came Arabella Stewart, Margaret's great-granddaughter by a second marriage, and after her Katherine Gray, granddaughter of Mary Tudor, Margaret's younger sister. Katherine was wife of John Seymour, Earl of Hertford, and the Seymours would have without doubt resisted the claims of Arabella Stewart, so in England also a war of succession was almost certain. The babe in the cradle was heir to the Crowns of Scotland and of England, and thus both countries had good reason to pray that his life might be spared. The tender thread was not broken, and amongst his descendants are to be found the monarchs, not only of Great Britain, but of all the European States. His descendants in the male line are extinct, but in the female line they abound. The cradle itself, as will be seen, is plain and simple. Had it not a history few save lovers of old furniture would give it a place of honour, but the history it possesses is unique in the history of nations, and its authenticity is assured by the fact that when removed from his mother's care the royal infant was brought up by the wife of the Earl of Mar, the hereditary captain of Stirling Castle. Annabella Murray, Countess of Mar, brought up her royal charge at Alloa House and at Stirling Castle, and the cradle has been preserved at Alloa by the Earls of Mar, her de scendants, together with a child's chair, seated in which we can picture to ourselves the infant Scottish Solomon receiving his first lessons from his pedagogue, George Buchanan, while Gilbert Primrose, from the neighbour ing royal burgh of Culross, looked after his health, and saw that he took his physic. The collateral descendant of the French Doctor, ' as he was called, is now a Minister of State to the Queen of Scotland and of England (great Britain), the descendant of the babe in the cradle at Alloa.

About the Publisher

Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com

This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.