[Footnote 12: It is still open, and of great breadth in various parts of the line, and retains the name of the King's Cadgers' Road, because the fish carriers from Crail travelled along it with fish from that royal burgh to supply the king's table when resident at Falkland Palace].
The mode in which the ceremony of Queen Matilda's coronation was performed is strikingly illustrative of the manners of the age. The Bishops of St Andrews and Dunkeld, with the Abbot of Scone, attended to officiate. The Bishop of St Andrews explained to her majesty the respective oaths, which were to be taken first in Latin, and afterwards in Norman French. They then conducted her to the regal chair or sacred stone of Scone, which stood before the cross in the eastern division of the chapel. Upon this she sat; the crown was placed on her head; she was invested with the royal mantle, and the nobility kneeling in homage threw their robes beneath her feet. A Highland bard or sennachy, clothed in a scarlet mantle, with hair venerably white, then advanced from the crowd, and bending before the throne, repeated in his native tongue the genealogy of the youthful queen.
Many years pass. Maude is dead; and our fancy, under a spell, leads us to Crail Church. The usual service has not yet commenced, and consequently neither the king, his family, nor attendants, have entered the church; but it is whispered that they may be looked for every moment, as his majesty was scrupulously punctual at prayers.
There was soon a large congregation assembled, certainly not less than a thousand persons, drawn hither by loyalty and curiosity, and in compliment to the royal birth-day. A soft and solemn strain of music now rose from the organ, and time is given, during the voluntary, to collect the distracted thoughts, and to compose them into calmness and order suitable to the occasion. There now ran a muffled whisper of "The King! the King!" and a vista being opened in front, his majesty is seen quite distinctly. He is a venerable old man, hoary and furrowed--no grandeur, no majesty, no assumption of princely dignity. Shading his dim eyes with one hand, he reverently knelt down, and inwardly breathed his composing aspiration to the Throne of Grace. The other hand rested on the shoulder of the fair-haired child who stood by his side, his little grand-daughter, whom he had led in his hand to the place of worship.