ST. MARGARET'S HOPE.

Otago Witness, Issue 2565, 13 May 1903, Page 65

ST. MARGARET'S HOPE.

Mr" Balfour's announcement of the Go~ vernment's decision to malu a naval station in the Firth of Forth has pleased many peo2?le, and Scotsmen generally arsimply delighted The ancient burgh oi Inverkeithing once owned a floiirishing shipbuilding trade, but this has long departed; and the huge Forth bridg ha, killed the traffic over the ferry ; so the little towns jn the Fife and Midlothian shores have drifted into very low watei indeed. But good times are to dawn again, for them ; and great jubilation prevails oi. Forth tide. It is edd how history repeats itself,.. King James IV built a fort on Inchgsrvtethe ' little island lying just below the mighty span of the iron bridge. On the ruins of the aid keep a modern battery now stands, and modern artillery blows its storm of fire and smoke across the water where the cumbrous artillery of the Stuarts used to roar. King Edward's ships are tt shelter in the bay where his ancestress, Margaret the Atheling, sought a haven 90C years ago. St. Siargarefs Hope, as the place is called, keeps -alive ths pious -memory d£ that Princess, for here she used to cross between Dunfermline- Tower and the Castle of Edinburgh after her- marriage to King Malcolm Canmore. She was sweet and fair and saintly ; he was rude and fierce and unlettered. But they were a devoted pair, for all that ; and when the King fell ' fighting on English ground, and they brought the news to Margaret, she turned her face to the wall and died of a broken heart. Her daughter married the English King Henry I, and from her came that strain of Royal Saxou blood on which the Norman and Plantagenet Sovereigns set' such store. Robert the Bruce loved St. Margaret's' Hope, and often abode for a time inßosyth Castle, which — a mere ruined shell now, — yet dominates the bay. Ruin as it is, one can till see the royal :oat- of arms above the gateway — the letters M.8., and the date 1561. This was the year when the luckless Mary Stuart came fron* Franc° to take possession cf her father's crown. Tradition tells that she came !hero to Rosyth, then owned by her distanfc cousins, the Stewarts of Durrisdeer, • and the shield and date were cut above tbe'gate in memory of her stay. It was to St. Margaret's Hope that ihe poor Queen of Scots came on the day she escaped from Lochleven, flying southwards across the ferry towards Hamilton and her friends. It was the last gleam of good fortune that ever crossed her path — that escape, and the dash across, ihe ferry for liberty and life. For shorfly after, the battle of Langside ruined her cause; and then came 18 years in English prisons, and the scaffold of Fotheringay Lord Rosebery's place, Dalm-eny Park,lies just to the eastward, over the Firth ;' and Honetoun, the Marquis of Linlithgow's splendid house, is lpposite to the Hope. Close by is Donibristle, a seat of the Ear] of Moray ; md Dundas Castle and Carriden. What the owners of these fine places will think of their lovely bay being turned into a naval port and their quiet neighbourhood being given ovei 1 to the many annoyances the change is sure to bring is* not hard to guess.