Domestic Annals of Scotland Author:Robert Chambers Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: red deer, besides roes and fallow-deer. The queen, the great men, and others, were in a glen when all the deer were brought before them. The sight delighted the ... more »queen very much. There were killed that day 360 deer, with five wolves and some roes.' The queen, in the course of her excursion, is believed to have taken an interest in the native music of the Highlands, in which, as in Ireland, the harp bore a distinguished part It is even reported that a kind of competition amongst the native harpers took place in her presence, at which she adjudged the victory to Beatrix Gardyn, of Banchory, Aberdeenshire. Certain it is, that the Robertsons of Lude possessed a harp of antique form, Queen Mary's Harp. which family tradition represented as having come to them through a descendant of Beatrix Gardyn, who had married a Robertson of Lude; and the same authority regarded this harp with veneration, as having been the prize conferred on the fair Beatrix by Queen Mary, for her superior excellence as a performer on the instrument. Queen Mary's harp, as it is called, is now in the possession of Mr Stewart of Dalguise. It is a small instrument compared with the modem harp, being fitted for twenty-eight strings, the longest extending twenty-four inches, the shortest two and a half. There had once beengems set in it, and also, it is supposed, a portrait of the queen. It was strung anew and played upon in 1806. This summer there was ' guid cheap of victuals in all parts. The year afore, the boll of meal gave five merk, and this summer it was iSs. There ye may see the grace of God.'— C.F. 1564-5- Jan.—The queen making a progress in Fife caused so much banqueting as to produce a scarcity of wild-fowl: ' partridges were sold for a crown a-piece.'—Knox. rS65- Apr. i.—The communion...« less