and all the contemporary letters were full of prejudice and false reports, there is scarcely a circumstance in the whole that is not disputed and contradicted by other facts of the same degree of authenticity.

Darnley was recovering at Glasgow when his long estranged wife came to visit him, showed him much tenderness, and made him promise to come to her at Craigmillar as soon as he could move. He did not like it, but he was subdued by his illness and touched by her kindness, and he consented. So said one Thomas Crawford, of Jordanhill, a retainer of his father. However, his destination was altered, and he was taken to a place outside the walls of Edinburgh, called Kirk of Field, the ruinous remnant of an old Dominican friary. The danger of infection accounted for this choice, and it was also convenient for the baths which the invalid was to take. The house belonged to Robert Balfour, brother to one of the confederates, and was conveniently situated for their purpose. It was hung with tapestry, reft from the Gordons at Corrichie, and furnished with velvet-hung chairs and beds, but it was in a dreary state of disrepair. One of the doors was taken off the hinges to cover the bath, and most of the keys were in the possession of Balfour. The house was two storeys high, with a spiral staircase in a turret at the angle, communicating with a low door in the town wall. There were only two apartments of any size, one over the other, the kitchens being in vaults beneath, and the attendants being lodged in berths in the walls behind sliding panels. The Queen slept in the lower room, Darnley in the upper one, and, according to the reported evidence of one of his pages, Mary gave orders that a black figured velvet bed, taken at the sack of Corrichie, should be removed and an old purple velvet one set up instead. Some take this precaution as a token that the whole story was the fabrication of a vulgar mind which thought much of a fine bed, while others say that it is conclusive evidence against her.

Darnley was brought to this place in a horse-litter on the 30th of January, and was assiduously waited on by Mary. She was very loving to him, but before long, her half-brother Robert told Darnley secretly that, unless he could escape privately, he would never leave the house alive. The unfortunate victim told Mary. She bade Robert explain himself, and as he had no certain knowledge to go upon, and was terrified on his own account, he flatly denied having given any warning. Darnley gave him the lie, they laid their hands on their daggers, and the Queen screamed to Moray to part them.

This alarm did but serve to hasten Darnley's fate, and changed Bothwell's plan of open assassination to the use of gunpowder. He had introduced into the Queen's service a foreigner named Nicholas Hubert, but whom the Scots called French Paris; and the other agents in the matter were Border gentlemen of his own following, fierce

CAMEO II.

Recovery of
Darnley.

CAMEO II.

Preparation for the murder. 1567.

soldiers, ready to do his bidding to the utmost. Bothwell, who was the most daring ruffian and had the highest prize to win, was the actual agent of the plot. Moray, Lethington, and the rest, all were quite willing that the deed should be done, but did not want to know anything about the means. Morton said afterwards that having only just got over the affair of Rizzio, he did not want to be mixed up in another dangerous matter, but that it was of no use to tell any one, since the King himself was so foolish that he would only have told the Queen, and she was the prime mover in the plot.

On Sunday, the 9th of February, Moray took leave of the Queen to go and visit his wife. After this the Queen went to the wedding of two of her favourite servants, Sebastian Pages, commonly called Bastien, and Margaret Cawood, both of whom had been with her on her flight from Holyrood. She went to the wedding dinner, supped at Lady Argyle's, and then went back to the dance—a masked ball— sending French Paris to fetch a favourite fur coverlet which she had left at Kirk of Field. Bothwell was one of the guests, but presently went away, and meeting his Border followers, they obtained from French Paris the key of the Queen's chamber, and silently carried into it a quantity of powder stored in bags, moving the Queen's bed and piling them just under where that of the King stood in the room overhead. But there must have been a mine besides, as the very foundation stones were thrown up.

Mary was to sleep in Holyrood that night, but between the supper and the ball, she went home to bid good-night to the victim. He had spent this last day of his life in hearing mass, and then had talked with various gentlemen. When the Queen had parted with him, he bade his page, Taylor, read to him the Fifty-fifth Psalm, his favourite, and then went to bed.

Bothwell, after seeing to the powder, joined the Queen at the ball, with four of his followers. The other two, Hepburn of Bolton and Hay of Talla, seem to have remained to keep watch. At two o'clock Bothwell, having taken off his black satin doublet and black velvet hose slashed with silver, joined them in a coarser dress, and the train was lighted; but it was so long before the explosion came that Bothwell was on the point of going to look at the train when the whole house was blown to pieces before their eyes with a tremendous crash.

On this Bothwell hurried to his rooms in Holyrood, that he might be found in bed when the alarm should be given. Very soon a servant hurried in to wake him, and he feigned astonishment and horror. Mary likewise was in bed, and when her ladies and councillors hurried in with tidings of the explosion, she ordered Bothwell and a guard to go and see what had really happened.

Two men and two boys were taken out, crushed to death among the ruins, but Henry Stewart's own body was found at five o'clock on that winter's morning under an apple-tree about eighty yards off.

That of his page, Taylor, was lying by him, but neither of them was burned or scorched. They had nothing on but their night-shirts, but the King's furred dressing-gown and slippers were beside him, and there was no token how either came by his death. It is supposed, however, that they might have taken alarm and attempted to escape, but were captured by Hay and Hepburn, or some of the other nineteen who assisted in the catastrophe, smothered, and placed there, in the hope that their death might be attributed to the explosion, as at first it actually was; though the Ambassador from Savoy wrote that women had heard them pleading for their lives. Between eight and nine o'clock Bothwell returned, and made the appointed statement that there had been an accident, the powder in the King's lodging had taken fire, and the King had been killed.

Mary shut herself up, and issued proclamations against the murderers as a matter of form, offering 2,000l. for any one who would denounce them. No one durst claim this openly, but writings were set upon the doors of the Tolbooth accusing Bothwell, Balfour, and several more as the guilty persons.

Two days later the unhappy Henry, who was only two months over twenty, was buried beside James V. in the vaults of Holyrood chapel, the last of his race who was to lie there; and then Mary went to Seton House, and the English Ambassador, Drury, wrote to Queen Elizabeth that she there amused herself by shooting at the butts against Seton and Huntly, and giving them a dinner afterwards at Tranent. Some, however, vote this story as simply incredible gossip:

The old Earl of Lennox meantime began to cry out for justice on the murderers of his son. He naturally wrote insisting on "a perfect trial of the cruel slaughter;" and as the Queen put the matter off more and more he became more urgent. Scotland was used enough to murders, and probably nobody except the father and mother regretted the foolish lad. Most of the Council were more or less implicated, and it was tacitly agreed to let the matter drop, as indeed it would have done, but that the conspirators began to be convinced that Darnley had only been slain to make way for a much more dangerous person, namely, Bothwell.

True, he was married, but that might easily be got over, and nobody could doubt that the Queen was in love with him. Moray, like the prudent man he was, went off to France, to be out of the way, and Bothwell tried to brave it out. He rode through the streets of Edinburgh with a band of fifty Borderers in full armour, swearing vengeance against the authors of the accusations; but the world grew more and more indignant that all the inquiry should be against the authors of these placards, while none was made after the author of the murder, and the Cardinal of Lorraine and the French royalty let Mary know that they believed her guilty.

CAMEO II.

Murder of Darnley. 1567.

Mary found that there must be a trial of some sort. Her Ambassador in France, Bishop Beatoun, wrote to her that all that kingdom suspected her, and that she must clear herself. To Elizabeth's state messenger of condolence, Sir Henry Killigrew, she likewise promised that Bothwell should be brought to trial; but before any inquiry took place she actually gave this man, the reputed murderer of her husband, as she certainly knew, the governorship of Edinburgh Castle; Morton at the same time received back again Tantallon Castle, the Douglas stronghold, which had been forfeited by his rebellion, and the gift seemed intended to bind him to the cause of Bothwell.

In the meantime Mary was showing much grief and anxiety. She was very unwell, and when she appeared at a solemn dirge for Darnley, every one was struck with her pallid, dejected looks. There was indeed much to terrify her. A man wandered about the streets of Edinburgh saying, "Vengeance on those who caused me to shed innocent blood!" and caricatures, or, as they were called, “treasonable painted tickets," were handed about—one in especial, called "The Mermaid," where Mary's likeness appeared, terminated by a fish's tail. It may be remembered that it was a mermaid whose singing, according to Puck in Midsummer Night's Dream, made "certain stars shoot madly from their spheres," and certainly Mary was one of the most charming and fatal sirens whom history records.

The Parliament was summoned and opened, and the trial was suddenly appointed for the month of April. The Earl of Lennox declared that the time was too short for getting his evidence together. He was summoned to be present at the trial as the accuser, but forbidden to bring any one with him but his immediate household. This would have been a fair and wise precaution if the same command had been given to Bothwell to dismiss his ruffians, but the Earl knew that it was merely intended to hinder him from obtaining justice, and he appealed to Queen Elizabeth. She wrote to Mary, representing that to hurry on the trial in this manner gave rise to grave suspicions against herself, and begging her for her own honour to postpone it, and give Lennox a fair hearing.

The messenger arrived on the morning of the trial, and was told the Queen was asleep. He waited about, and was threatened by one of the clan Hepburn, who said "his guide ought to be hanged for bringing such English villains as sought to stay the assize.' Lethington at last came out and took the letter, but seems never to have given it to the Queen. All who had dipped in the plot which Bothwell had carried out, wished to hush up the inquiry, for fear of what he might disclose if pushed to extremity, and the father of the victim knew that the trial was a mere farce, so that he would not appear. Bothwell rode Darnley's own horse to the Tolbooth, where he was to be tried.

Abduction

of Mary,

The Earl of Argyle presided, fifteen peers were chosen as jurymen, CAMEO II. and the accusation of James, Earl of Bothwell, at the suit of Matthew, Earl of Lennox, was read. Lennox was called on, but only a gentleman of his household stood up and declared that he could not safely appear, and protested against the proceedings. No witnesses were examined, but Bothwell was acquitted on the spot.

This was on the 9th of April.

On the 21st of April Mary rode to Stirling to see her child, who was there nursed under the charge of the Earl of Mar. She stayed there two days, and was on her way back when, at Fountainbridge, not far from Edinburgh, Bothwell, with a strong body of men, met her, and taking her horse by the bridle, led her off, his men leading away Huntly, Lethington, and Sir James Melville to Dunbar Castle.

Melville was let out the next morning, but probably on an oath of secrecy; for though he has told so much of other things, he says no more, only that he was told that all was done with the Queen's

consent.

Again the partisans of Mary declare that she was the innocent victim of the foulest treachery. According to them the Lords of the Congregation, being resolved on the destruction of the Roman Catholic Queen, had first set on Darnley to murder Rizzio, then Bothwell to murder Darnley, and now were driving the Queen into a marriage with him in order to involve them both in ruin, all without the least fault on her part.

There is, indeed, no question of their guilt as to the two murders, nor that Bothwell, at a supper at one Ainslie's house, had obtained from Argyle, Morton, and many more, including Seton, and, stranger still, Huntly, the brother of his wife, a bond promising to assist him in effecting his marriage with the Queen. It is also certain that Bothwell's plan for her abduction had become known to Drury before it took place, for he wrote it to Cecil on the very day it was to be effected. But it will always be matter of controversy whether these men were such horrible plotters against an innocent woman, or whether they simply took advantage of Mary's bitter resentment against her foolish husband and her blind passion for Bothwell; whether, in fact, she was their willing instrument and that of her own passions to work her ruin.

Whichever way we take it, it is a frightful tissue of wickedness and treachery, but we fear that only by forcing stubborn facts and denying much contemporary evidence can Mary be supposed a guiltless victim.

What is strange is that Huntly and Seton agreed to this abduction and marriage. Huntly's sister, Lady Bothwell, sued for a divorce on the ground of her husband's unfaithfulness, and the sentence was pronounced on the 3rd of May.

1567.