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234 SCOTTISH ANNALS
merchant or peasant, had speech with him, he so talked with
each concerning his affairs and duties, appropriately and
humbly, that each one thought him careful of his affairs alone ;
and so he dismissed all joyous and uplifted.
Touched with the infirmity by which he was to be freed
from the flesh, on the fourth day of the week, that is on the
thirteenth a before the Kalends of June, when he understood
that the dissolution of his body was approaching, he called
his friends and showed them without delay what he thought
about himself. But they consoled the sick man in human
fashion, promising life and perfect health.
But when the disease grew worse on the sixth day of the
week, and the violence of his disease took from him the
power of standing as well as of walking, he summoned the
priests and men of religion, and requested that the sacrament
of the Lord's body be given to him.
They prepared to bring what he had commanded, but
he forbade them, saying that he would receive the sacred
mysteries before the sacred altar. He was carried therefore
into the oratory by the hands of priests and knights, and after
the celebration of mass he asked for the venerable cross which
they call the Black [Rood] to be brought to him for adoration.
Now this cross has the length of a palm and is made of
purest gold, of wonderful workmanship ; and it shuts and
opens in fashion of a case. In it is seen a certain portion of
the Lord's cross, (as it has often been proved to be by the
argument of many miracles ;) having the image of our Saviour
carved in hardest ivory, and wondrously decorated with
golden adornments.
This cross the religious queen Margaret, who was mother
of this king, and who had sprung from the royal blood of
English and of Hungarians, had brought to Scotland as an
heirloom, and had passed on to her sons. 2
When therefore the king had most devoutly adored this
cross, not less feared than loved by all the Scottish nation,
with many tears he made confession of his sins, and prepared
for his departure by receiving' the divine mysteries.
Then he was carried back to his chamber and when the
;
priests came to perform the sacraments of holy unction he
rose as well as he could, and casting himself from his bed to
the ground he received that beneficial office with so great
devotion that with hand as well as voice he restrained the
1 20th May.
2 Cf. Turgot, Vita Margaret*, in Pinkerton, 334.