The return of Mary, Queen of Scots, to Scotland saw the beginning of one of the most momentous and colourful episodes in Scottish political history. Her arrival is recalled here by John Knox, writing after the murder of David Riccio, with more than a little venom and hindsight.
On the nineteenth of August, 1561, between seven and eight in the morning, Mary Queen of Scotland arrived, a widow, with two galleys, from France … At her arrival the sky itself plainly told what comfort she brought for this country, namely sorrow, pain, darkness, and all impiety. For, in living memory, the skies were never darker than at her arrival, which for two days thereafter continued like that; for, besides the excessive wet, and the foulness of the air, the mist was so thick and so dark that no man could see another much beyond the length of two pairs of boots. The sun was not seen to shine two days before, nor two days after. God gave us that warning; but, alas, most were blind.
[modified version, see Appendix VI, p. 441]