History Of Scotland Vol. 2 - Part 4

( Originally Published 1909 )

Character of Henry Darnley--He quarrels with Mary—Conceives Hatred against Rizzio, who is Murdered—The King forsakes and disowns the Conspirators, who fly to England—Murray returns from Exile, and is reconciled to the Queen—Question as to the Guilt or Innocence of Mary Her continued Quarrel with Darnley who threatens to go abroad, and gives his wife other Subjects of Complaint—Bothwell rises in the Queen's Favor—His History—He is restored upon his Enemy Murray's Exile, and reconciled to him on his Return—Elizabeth exasperated against Mary on her bearing a Son—Both well is made Keeper of Liddisdale—Is wounded—Mary visits him at the Hermitage Castle—Apparent Reconciliation between Mary and Darnley—Darnley is Murdered—Consequences of that Atrocity—Acquittal of Bothwell—The Marriage of the Queen—Insurrection —The Queen flies to Dunbar—Advances with an Army to Carberry Hill—Bothwell flies—The Queen surrenders—She is carried to Edinburgh—Insulted by the Populace--Sent Prisoner to Lochleven—She resigns her Crown—The Earl of Murray is declared Regent

THE feeble yet violent character of Darnley was the primary cause of Mary's misfortunes; for, until her marriage with that unhappy prince, her life had flowed in a free and even channel, and her government for the last two years had been on the whole happy and prosperous. From that unhappy era it was almost an uninterrupted succession of misfortunes.

Yet in a superficial view the match had much to recommend it. It absorbed in that of the queen another claim of succession to the English throne which might have been preferred to hers. Her husband was handsome, lively, and possessed of external accomplishments; while Mary, estimating his intellectual qualities with the fondness which is entertained toward a beloved object, gave him credit at least for common sense and common gratitude.

Unhappily the husband whom she had chosen was four years younger than herself, and, still more unluckily, he was an impatient and presumptuous fool, of violent passions and weak judgment, who could never have written himself man in the true sense of the word, had he lived to an antediluvian age. He was ungrateful to the queen, though she from attachment had shared her rank with him; and, with-out being thankful for the favors which her affection had heaped upon him, he was peevish and splenetic when any-thing was withheld. His father's authority he set at naught; so that the Earl of Lennox left the court in disgust, sick of beholding his son indulge himself not merely in youthful pleasures, but in youthful vices, with a disregard to decency which made Mary blush for her unhappy choice of a dissolute, disrespectful boy, of loose habits and ungovernable temper, to be her partner on such a throne as that of Scot-land. Insolent and imperious in his temper, Darnley endured no check, however kindly given, and sought the crown matrimonial (implying an equal share with the queen in the sovereignty) with so much eagerness and impatience as greatly disgusted Mary. In time, she became weary of the society of a man who could not govern, himself, and would not be ruled by his benefactress or any one else. How can this be wonderful! since, while Mary did everything to please him, Darnley could not be prevailed on to yield to her in the smallest point, either to show his affection as a husband or his duty as a subject.

Darnley, finding that he lost ground in the queen's affections, was disposed, as is usually the case with persons of his temper, rather to impute this growing dislike to the suggestions of some private enemy than to his own demerits. The person who chiefly incurred his suspicion was Rizzio. This foreigner had been his friend before his marriage, and favored his suit to the utmost of his power, but since that event had taken the freedom to offer some remonstrances which were unacceptable. This increased the king's resentment; and when he began to impute to the Italian secretary the delay in bestowing on him the crown matrimonial, he hesitated not to seek revenge for the supposed offence by the most deadly means.

With this purpose the young king applied to the Earl of Morton and the rest of the Douglases, who, being related to his mother on the side of her father Angus, had seen his preferment with much interest. They had looked with pride upon their kinsman's advancement to a share of sovereign power, and in a country where human life was held cheap they were sufficiently ready to gratify him by ridding him of a wretched musician, who had intruded himself upon the affairs of state, and ventured to propose himself as a patron or an opposer of nobles. They were the more willing to render the young king this service, because they considered Rizzio as chief instigator of the severe measures menaced against the Earl of Murray and the exiled lords, and a great encourager of the Catholic religion.

When it was settled that Rizzio should die, the manner of his murder was next debated, Morton, Ruthven, and others of their party, proposed. that the secretary should be seized as he crossed the court of the palace, or in his own lodgings, and then destined to the fate which Cochrane underwent, when the chief of the Douglas family acquired the title of Bell-the-Cat. But nothing would satisfy Darnley save that the victim should be seized in the presence of the queen herself, that she might share the alarm, and hear the taunts with which it was his purpose to upbraid her favorite. Considering that the queen was seven months advanced in her pregnancy when such a scene of violence and horror was to be acted in her presence, we recoil from the brutality alike of him who planned and of those who calmly undertook to execute an action so brutal and unmanly.

On the 9th of March, 1566, this bloody and extraordinary scene was acted. The queen was seated at supper in a small cabinet adjoining to her bedroom, with the Countess of Argyle, Rizzio, and one or two other persons. Darnley suddenly entered the apartment, and, without addressing or saluting the company, gazed on Rizzio with a sullen and vindictive look. After him followed Lord Ruthven, pale and ghastly, having risen from a bed of long sickness to be chief actor in this savage deed : other armed men appeared behind. Ruthven called upon Rizzio to come forth from a place which he was unworthy to hold. The miserable Italian, perceiving he was the destined victim of this violent intrusion, started up, and seizing the queen by the skirts of her gown, implored her protection. Mary was speedily forced by the king from his hold. George Douglas, a bastard of the Angus family, snatched the king's own dagger from his side, and struck Rizzio a blow; he was then dragged into the outer apartment, and slain with fifty-six wounds. The queen exhausted herself in prayers and entreaties for the wretched man's life; but when she was at length informed that her servant was slain, she said, "I will then dry my tears, and study revenge." During the perpetration of this murder, Morton, the chancellor of the kingdom, whose duty it was to enforce the laws of the realm, kept the doors of the palace with one hundred and sixty armed men, to insure the perpetration of the murder.

Darnley, as soon as this abominable crime was committed, was seized with the irresolution and fear which, in minds like his, often follow acts of extravagant violence. He would now have been well pleased to have been free from the guilt which had originated with him; and to atone in part for the violence which the queen had suffered, he aided and accompanied her in her flight from Edinburgh to the castle of Dunbar, where she was instantly joined by Huntley, Bothwell, and others, her most faithful nobles. She was soon at the head of an army of eight thousand men, a force against which the murderers of Rizzio could not hope to make a stand. Indeed, all the plans which were to have followed this atrocious action were disconcerted by the defection of Darnley and his unexpected reconciliation with the queen.

In the meanwhile the exiled Earls of Murray and Argyle, having learned the success of the conspiracy against Rizzio, left England, hoping to find Morton and Ruthven at the head of affairs : instead of which, they met them reduced to extremity, and on the point of flying to that kingdom. Murray and his companions, however, reaped this advantage from the misfortune of their friends, that the queen, all resentment against their rebellion being lost in the sense of this later and deadlier insult, showed ,herself sufficiently willing to grant remission of their treasons provided they would detach themselves from Morton and his accomplices. To this Murray did not hesitate to agree; and thus was admitted to the queen's favor, while Morton and his associates went to occupy those quarters in Northumberland which had been lately tenanted by the lords concerned in the Roundabout Raid.

When Mary and Murray met together, the queen wept: she probably felt at the moment how much she had suffered by indulging a precipitate passion for Darnley contrary to her brother's advice. The earl was also moved; and could confidence have been restored between them even then, it is possible that neither might have filled a bloody grave. The fame of Mary was as yet untinged by scandal; for we may treat as .a fiction of later date the gross impeachment of a criminal intrigue with Rizzio, which, indeed, must be regarded as totally impossible, unless by those who conceive her, contrary to the report of all who approached her person, to have been a monster of unlimited depravity.' The Earl Dr. Robertson, no partial judge of Mary's conduct, makes this clear. Rizzio's advancement to the post of secretary, which first gave him access to the queen's person, took place only two months before the arrival of Darnley at the court of Scotland. Darnley was early distinguished by the queen with regard, which terminated in strong affection. Rizzio was the confidant of the lover, and forwarded a suit which would have been fatal to his own influence if he had been the queen's paramour. For several months the queen's passion for Darnley continued unabated, and she proved with child soon after the marriage. "From these circumstances," says the historian, "it seems almost impossible that the queen, unless we suppose her a woman utterly abandoned, could carry on any criminal intrigue with Rizzio."— of Murray had as yet formed no connections so indissoluble as must have necessarily engaged him in a war against his sister's person and authority. But a deep jealousy had taken possession of both, and neither, it is probable, felt disposed to trust the other.

We have now arrived at a point of our history where we must either add another volume to a controversy which has produced so many, or by compressing into a concise form the events of the mournful tale, and expressing our own general opinion as it arises out of them, refer the readers who may doubt our conclusions, and desire means by which to form their own, to the works in which the charge has been urged and the defence maintained. Indeed, no inquiry or research has ever been able to bring us either to that clear opinion upon the guilt of Mary which is expressed by many authors, or guide us to that triumphant conclusion in favor of her innocence of all accession, direct or tacit, to the death of her husband, which others have maintained with the same obstinacy. Arguing from probabilities, where there are but few ascertained facts to guide us, we have been led to adopt the opinion expressed by Scottish juries, in a verdict of Not Proven, when they are disposed to say that there is an insufficiency of proof to ascertain the guilt of an accused person, while there yet exist such shades of suspicion as do not warrant his discharge without some formal expression of the doubts which the inquest entertain of his guilt or innocence. These things premised, we proceed in our narrative.

Henry Darnley was induced by the queen to publish a declaration, in which he boldly denied all accession to the act of violence which had been committed under his express instigation. But this mean step only brought upon him hatred and contempt. The queen prosecuted seven of the murderers of Rizzio ; and it is certainly to the praise of her clemency that only two mean men were executed for a conspiracy of an odious character, in which so many persons of influence had been implicated. If Mary acted thus moderately in order to prevent the scandal which would have been caused by any of the superior conspirators alleging in defence the command of the king, she was ill requited by her husband for having sacrificed her own resentment to cover his honor. He resumed his vicious and offensive habits, indulged without restraint his propensity to low company and vulgar debauchery, and by his starts of arrogance and disrespect often, even in public, forced tears from the queen's eyes.

The birth of a son, afterward James VI., of whom Mary was delivered, June 19, 1566, created no reconciliation between his parents. Darnley's selfish and wayward temper was not capable of such restraint as to forbear repeated occasions of offence ; and Mary, a queen and a woman, was receiving new insults, ere yet she had forgotten that the man whom she had raised up from comparative obscurity had so lately ushered a band of armed murderers into her bedroom to assassinate in her presence a favorite domestic. The consequence was a breach between them, which was every day more apparent.

Discountenanced by the queen, Darnley was equally disregarded by the nobility, and not only by such of them as were guided by her influence, but by others, who, allied to Morton and his associates, banished on account of Rizzio's murder, now resented Darnley's desertion of their cause. In one of those fits of impatience which he felt at the general neglect and insignificance to which he saw him-self reduced, this silly and - petulant boy thought of leaving the kingdom. His father, the Earl of Lennox, made the queen acquainted with this resolution, and in vain endeavored to bring him to renounce it. The queen had recourse to argument and even entreaty, to induce her wayward husband to explain the motive of his intended journey, which must be prejudicial to the honor of both. He was sullen, and finding that he had means of giving her pain, was proof even against her caresses, and no less against the arguments of the privy council.

During all this interval, the cause of the domestic quarrel, at least the scandal of its being made public, seems to rest on Darnley's side exclusively. He repined that he was not promoted to higher power or authority, although he was incapable of managing, and had most grossly abused, the portion which he already enjoyed. He complained he had not waiting and attendance suitable to his rank. Mary refuted the objection, by replying that her own servants were always ordered to attend on her husband, and that she could not compel the nobility to wait upon him, since it was only his own courtesy and urbanity which could bind them to his person. Historians have added to Darnley's complaints of ill usage one which he himself did not make, namely, that he was left unfurnished with money and necessaries. The books of the treasury state, in contradiction of this, that payments in money and furnishings had been made on Darnley's account, within three weeks, to a greater extent than the queen had drawn for six months. Le Crocq, the French ambassador, informs us, that at this period, when the queen has been certainly grossly misrepresented by those who labor to make her appear as culpable as possible, he never saw her majesty so much beloved, esteemed, and honored, nor had so great harmony ever prevailed at court; an effect to be entirely ascribed to Mary's own prudent conduct. This was also to be speedily changed by an unhappy alteration in those measures which produced it.

A favorite was now arising at court, to whose malign influence are to be imputed the principal errors of Mary's life and the greatest misfortunes of her reign. James, earl of Bothwell, was born of a powerful family, and was Lord High Admiral of Scotland. He professed the old religion; and was the only nobleman, except the Lord Seton, who had adhered to Mary of Guise during the war of 1559-60. In subsequent state commotions he had uniformly taken the part which was most in accordance with the queen's wishes. In other respects a bold ambitious man, of an impetuous temper, he was repeatedly engaged, in feuds which he was often unable to support. The latest quarrel of this kind was with the powerful Earl of Murray, who accused him of an attempt to assassinate him. Bothwell, unable to de-fend himself, fled to France. He returned in 1564—5; but Murray still insisted on his being brought to trial; and as the accuser proposed to attend the justice-court with an army of five thousand men, the accused party, unable to face an opponent so powerful, withdrew a second time from the country. When Murray fell into disgrace for opposing the queen's marriage with Darnley, his enemies naturally regained Mary's favor. Thus Lord Gordon, whose father had fallen in battle with Murray at Corrichie, was restored to his honors and estates, and Bothwell was recalled from France. Their feud with Murray, then in his turn a banished man, was a recommendation to the queen; and Both-well obtained the important charge of warden and lieutenant-general of all the marches. At the time of Rizzio's murder Bothwell attempted to resist the conspirators; and al-though he failed in that effort he afterward materially aided Mary's escape from Edinburgh to Dunbar; and furnished - a part of the army with which she marched back to Edinburgh and drove Morton into exile. He was rewarded with the office of keeper of Dunbar Castle. As this strong fortress is situated in East Lothian, where the possessions of his clan lay, the office was of considerable importance to him. Lastly, when the queen was reconciled to Murray and Argyle, she made it a condition that these lords should become friends with Bothwell and Huntley.

All these instances of distinction conferred on Bothwell were thus far very natural, as the queen might be disposed to favor a subject of his high rank, who had remained uniformly steady to her cause, when others had been engaged in actions of outrage and violence against her authority. But, previous to the queen's confinement in June, 1566, Both-well had not acquired any remarkable ascendency in the queen's counsels. For at that interesting period, when he and Huntley desired to be permitted to lodge in the castle, of Edinburgh, they were denied admittance by Murray, without the queen's expressing any displeasure at the refusal of their request. There can be no doubt, however, that Bothwell soon after this date rose into eminent personal favor with his sovereign. As he was of an insolent and profligate character, he is said to have been generally hated. It seems probable that the reconciliation between Murray and this new favorite was deceitful on both sides, and that the former only gave way to the queen's pleasure, in hopes that the presumption of Bothwell would speedily engage him in some new trouble, and afford ground for a fresh charge against him. From July 19, 1566, when the queen's month of confinement ended, till the beginning of October in the same year, is the space allowed to be filled up by the accusers of Mary with the queen's growing passion for Both-well, and its termination, as they allege, in a guilty intrigue. The time seems very short for the purpose, although, considering the situation of Mary and her husband, and the terms on which they stood, the space might be sufficient for Bothwell to climb to such a degree of favor as should encourage the daring ambition of a presumptuous man, and stir him to the boldest measures in order to its gratification. Meanwhile other and different actors were becoming daily more interested in hastening the fate of the unfortunate Mary.

Elizabeth, her powerful neighbor, had never looked on the queen of Scotland save with an evil eye; but the birth of the infant prince gave her rival such a decisive superiority, that on hearing of the event the queen of England could not conceal her mortification'. She was in great mirth and engaged in dancing when the news reached her. But on hearing it the scene was changed. Elizabeth left the dance, and sat down, reclining her head upon her hand, and bursting out to her ladies with the melancholy exclamation, that the queen of Scots was mother of a fair son, while she herself remained but a barren stock. On the next morning she indeed recovered that command of herself which was habitual to her, and pretending the greatest joy at the news of her good sister's delivery, said that the pleasure she received from the intelligence had chased away a sickness which had before oppressed her. She accepted with apparent willingness the honor of being god-mother to the infant, and locking her discontent within her breast, strove to appear the kind kinswoman and friendly ally.

Elizabeth's private mortification at this event did not arise exclusively from female envy. The birth of an heir to the Scottish queen's pretensions gave them a popularity in England which they did not before possess; and Mary's ambassadors by their communication with persons of consequence in England, both Catholics and Protestants, success-fully endeavored to form a faction in favor of their mistress who might combine to obtain from Elizabeth, what she was equally loth and fearful to grant, a recognition of her Scottish kinswoman as successor to her throne. A party began to appear even in the English parliament, who proposed to appease the general anxiety about the uncertainty of the succession after the demise of the reigning queen by such a declaration. And in these pressing circumstances Queen Elizabeth found additional reasons for disliking Mary, and for being heartily desirous to embroil her kinswoman's affairs at home, so as effectually to prevent her urging claims of succession in England. Fate and Mary's misfortunes or misconduct were not long in affording the English queen a more ample opportunity for this purpose than her most sanguine hopes could have augured.

Among other preferments which had been showered on the new favorite, Bothwell had received the important charge of keeper of the castle of Hermitage, and of the valley of Liddisdale. In the beginning of October, 1566, he set out for Liddisdale, to execute his charge as keeper of that disorderly country. On the 7th of the same month he was wounded by an outlawed borderer whom he attempted to make prisoner with his own hand. These tidings and the outlaw's head were instantly sent to Queen Mary, who was then at no great distance from the disorderly district where the accident happened, having arrived at Jedburgh about the 8th of the month, with the purpose, according to a previous arrangement of the privy council, of residing there for eight days, to superintend the proceedings of the circuit courts held for the despatch of justice. On the 16th she went from Jedburgh to Hermitage Castle, to visit Bothwell, a distance of twenty statute miles, and returned, a circumstance to be specially noted, the same day. Her accusers represent this as the visit of an anxious and fond woman to a wounded lover; while those who favor Mary's cause attribute the step to a sense of consideration for a supposed well-deserving subject, and to a desire personally to investigate the cause of an outrage which was a high insult to her royal authority. It is certainly a favorable circumstance, over-looked or misrepresented by the enemies of Mary's reputation, that her visit was not nearly so precipitate as has been represented, but that eight days, at least, must have intervened between her hearing of Bothwell's wound and her visit to the castle of Hermitage. A journey undertaken after such an interval has not the appearance of being per-formed at the impulse of passion, but seems rather to have flowed from some political motive; and the queen's readiness to take arms in person both previously to the battle of Corrichie and at the Roundabout Raid may account for her dauntlessly approaching a disturbed district in her dominions, without supposing her to be acting upon the impulse of a guilty passion, or even an inordinate favor for her wounded officer. That the queen had much regard for Bothwell cannot be doubted. The question is, whether she carried it to a guilty extent; and in candor we cannot say that this brief visit at Hermitage, undertaken eight days at the least after she had heard that Bothwell was wounded in the hand (for it is material to remark that the hurt was not dangerous), carries to us the conviction which others have derived from it. After her fatiguing journey, for she rode to Hermitage and returned on the same day, a circumstance also material, Mary was seized with an illness which brought her to the point- of death, and detained her fer a month in the little town of Jedburgh, ere she was strong enough to prosecute her journey.

During all the period of the queen's illness Darnley came not near his wife; and it is little wonder that when he did appear at Jedburgh, on the 28th of October, he was so coldly received that, finding himself lightly regarded, he returned the next day. Everything argued a continuance of discord in the royal family; and the nobles around the queen were now engaged in intrigues which turned upon the dissolving of the ill-assorted marriage by some mode or other. Maitland of Lethington, Huntley, Argyle, Bothwell, and others, were accessory to these dark consultations, and we cannot suppose Murray wholly ignorant of them. It was resolved among them that a divorce between Darnley and the queen should be effected, and that the price paid by Mary for her emancipation from that yoke should be a free pardon to Morton and the exiles guilty of the conspiracy against Rizzio.

This, as the advice of a great part of her counsellors, was suggested to Mary, then resident at the castle of Craigmillar. She peremptorily refused her consent to the proposal of divorce, as a measure Which could not be adopted without throwing discredit on her own reputation, and some doubt on the legitimacy of her child. But during the festivities of the christening of James; at Stirling, Mary lent an ear to the various intercessions urged in behalf of Morton and his accomplices, and granted them a free pardon excepting only George Douglas, the portulate, as he was termed, of Aberbrothock, who struck the first blow at Rizzio; and she purposed, according to Melville's account, to return to the mild and gracious kind of government which had distinguished her first arrival. "But, alas!" said that faithful servant, "she had too many evil counsellors about her." It was determined among them, that, instead of the proposed divorce,. Darnley should be assassinated. With Morton, Bothwell united himself in apparent friendship ; and we have the testimony of the former earl to prove that he was privy to the desperate deed which Bothwell meditated, although he alleges he yielded no consent to it.

Darnley attended the splendid christening of his son, but without meeting either notice or distinction. After lingering for about a week amid festivities of which he was no par-taker, he went to join his father at Glasgow, where he took the smallpox. The queen despatched her physician to attend him, but went not to him herself; for which the health of her son was alleged as a reason. At length, about the 24th of January, Mary went from Edinburgh to Glasgow, and had a friendly interview with Darnley, with whom she after-ward lived upon apparently good terms. If this was a constraint put on the queen, she had not long to endure it.

Mary and Darnley left Glasgow in company, and reached Edinburgh on the 31st of January. The king's illness was assigned as a reason for quartering him apart from the palace where his wife and child resided. A solitary house, called the Kirk of Field, in the suburbs of the city, where the college is now situated, was appointed for his reception. Mary regularly visited him, and sometimes slept in the same house. On the Monday before his murder, she passed the evening with him until it was time to attend a masque which was to be given in the palace, on the occasion of a wedding in the royal household. About two in the morning of Tuesday, Bothwell, with a selected party of desperate men, opened the under apartments of the Kirk of Field by means of false keys, and laid a lighted match to a quantity of powder which had been previously placed beneath the king's apartment. After a few anxious moments had passed, Bothwell became impatient, and despatched one of the ruffians who was present to see whether the match was still burning. The accomplice did not hesitate to obey the commission, and returned with information that the light was still burning and the fire would presently reach the powder. After this the party waited calmly till the house blew up, when Bothwell retired, satisfied that, as the price of this enormous crime, he had purchased a title to the hand of a queen. There is reason to believe that several of the principal nobles and statesmen were previously acquainted with the bloody purpose. The Earl of Morton confessed at his death that he knew of such an intention; and his cousin, the notorious Archibald Douglas, parson titular of Glasgow, was present at the execution. Whether Mary herself was conscious of this great crime is a question which has long been a controversial passage of Scottish history, to which we shall hereafter turn the reader's attention.

The energetic character of the queen, the activity with which she had hitherto suppressed all opposition to her will as soon as such was manifested, and the impulse which she had given to the machine of her government, prevented for a time the effect of the terrible shock communicated by this abominable murder, which made, nevertheless, a deep impression on the public mind. Compassion for the young king's fate gave Darnley, who enjoyed little love or respect while he lived, a degree of posthumous popularity; and the desire of seeing his murder revenged was soon a general sentiment. Placards appeared in the most public places in the city, and voices were heard in streets at dead of night, charging the murder on Bothwell, toward whom universal suspicion was directed, and insinuating that the queen had been privy to the conspiracy against her husband's life. The terms of discord on which she had lived with Darnley, and the high favor to which Bothwell had risen, combined to create such a rumor.

Lennox, the father of the deceased Darnley, had naturally shared his son's disgrace, though not his demerits. He now pressed the queen for vengeance, and declared his own suspicion of Bothwell. In answer to his importunity, a meeting of the privy council, held on the 28th day of March, named the 13th of April as the day of trying Bothwell for the murder of the king. Lennox the accuser complained of the precipitancy with which the trial was forced forward. He required that the person accused of such a crime should be secured in prison, and, for decency's sake at least, excluded from the presence of the widowed queen.

The trial was nevertheless brought on at the appointed period with most indecorous precipitation. Bothwell appeared at the bar surrounded by armed friends and backed by mercenary soldiers. The Earl of Morton on the one hand, and Lethington on the other, supported the prisoner, as he entered the court of justiciary. Lennox, unable to face such a confederacy, protested by one of his retainers against any further procedure in the trial, as carried on against law. It was determined, however, that the trial should proceed without respect to the remonstrance of Lennox; and as no prosecutor appeared, and no evidence was adduced in support of the charge, Bothwell was of course acquitted. Lennox fled precipitately to England doubting of his personal safety when a man of a character so violent and profligate as Bothwell was possessed of the power of triumphing over the laws.

The queen continued to treat Bothwell as if he had been acquitted in the most ample and honorable manner. In a parliament which was held two days after the trial, he carried the sceptre before the queen's person, and received a full confirmation from that assembly of all the gifts and honors which Mary had lavished on him, not forgetting the keeping of Edinburgh Castle, the most important fortress in the kingdom. At the same time ratifications were made of various grants to other nobles, so many in number that they seem to be the division of the kingdom between her favorite Bothwell and the great men who had thus far lent their arms to aid him in his ascent, while, in fact, they watched for the moment when his fall should be precipitate in pro-portion to the height to which he had risen.

Under the influence of this aspiring statesman the queen was induced to take a step which she had hitherto delayed and evaded, and which was totally inconsistent with her accession to the Treaty of Bayonne, made for the express support of the Catholic faith. An act of parliament was passed and received the royal assent confirming and ratifying in the most express terms the Protestant doctrines and church government. This important concession, which no representation of the Protestants had been able even in the most critical circumstances to extract from the queen, the influence of her ambitious lover had induced Mary at once to consent to. Bothwell, no doubt, expected that the legal security thus unexpectedly given to the reformed faith would silence the clamors of the churchmen, and give him, as the author of that security so long sought and vainly petitioned for, popularity with their hearers. Having paved the way, as he supposed, for his final advancement being received with general good will, this ambitious man ventured a more direct stride toward accomplishing his object.

For this purpose, immediately after the rising of parliament, Bothwell invited the principal members of that body to an entertainment in a tavern. There he plainly intimated to them his purpose of marrying the queen, and her consent to honor him with her hand; and proposed to all present to subscribe a bond, which he drew out of his pocket ready drawn up, in which, after Bothwell himself was recognized as totally free of the foul charge of having been accessory to the late king's murder, he, the same Bothwell, was warmly recommended to her majesty as a suitable match, in case she should humble herself so far as to think of sharing her bed with a subject, and the subscribers agreed to advance the said marriage at the risk of life and goods. It is probable that the principal persons present expected these proposals, and were prepared for them. Those of minor importance were compelled to follow their example, since neither the time nor place allowed much exercise of free choice. At a house usually called Ainslie's Supper, from the name of the publican by whom it was held, the bond was subscribed by eight bishops, nine earls, and seven lords : Morton and Maitland of Lethington are among the number. And thus fortified, as he imagined, by so strong a party, Bothwell proceeded to take the last step in his extraordinary advance to greatness.

Assembling about one thousand horse, under pretext of border service, Bothwell at the head of this company lay in wait for the queen as she came from Stirling, at a place called Fountain Bridge, near Edinburgh, and taking her horse by the bridle, appeared to render himself director of her motions and master of her person. His followers spared not to say, that this seeming violence was offered by the queen's own consent, and would be received as good service. The subjects appeared to suppose the same, for, ready upon former occasions to rise to protect their queen's person when in danger, they beheld her on the present occasion led prisoner through the richest and most populous part of her dominions, while they looked on in silent astonishment. In this manner Bothwell conducted Mary to the castle of Dunbar, unopposed and unpursued, and made it his boast that gainsay who would, and even against her own consent, he would marry the queen.

To add another disgusting feature to this enormous con-duct, the reader must be informed that Bothwell was at this very moment the husband of Lady Jane Gordon, sister to the Earl of Huntley, and was pursuer of a process of divorce, on account of consanguinity, before the consistorial court. The countess, on her part, with every appearance of connivance and collusion, prosecuted a separate action of divorce, on the score of adultery, against her husband; and sentence of divorce was pronounced in both suits within a few days of each other.

In silence and amazement the nation waited the end of this extraordinary course of events; and if Mary had been in reality a queen subjected by an audacious subject to the utmost limits of personal insult and violence, she was singularly unhappy in finding none among her subjects who were induced to believe that the compulsion which she seemed to sustain was a restraint imposed on her against her own will. Her friends looked on with deep affliction : those who judged most favorably concluding she was led astray by such passionate dotage as sometimes characterizes female affection while the powerful and numerous party who suspected Mary's morals because they doubted her religion carefully gathered up every levity of which she had been guilty since her return to Scotland, and cited them as instances of depravity, on which they alleged they were warranted, by the queen's present conduct, to put the worst interpretation.

At the end of twelve days Mary was liberated from Dun-bar, conveyed to Edinburgh Castle, and apparently placed at liberty by the Earl of Bothwell; and the first use she made of her freedom was to utter a declaration that, though she had been displeased with the restraint lately put upon her by the Earl of Bothwell, yet, considering his former services, and what might be expected from him in future, she was not only disposed freely to forgive him, but also to exalt him to higher honors. And she kept her word: for after proclamation of bans, and after the earl had been elevated to the rank of Duke of Orkney, she conferred upon him her hand in marriage on the 15th of May, 1567:—a match which might be concluded every way ominous and unfortunate, without having recourse to the popular superstition derived by the Scots from the classic authors who attach bad luck to marriages in the month of May.

The only apology which the defenders of the unfortunate queen have made for this fatal and irretrievable error is, that her reputation having suffered from being for several days in the hands of a man so audacious and uncontrollable as Bothwell, she was placed in a position which rendered her marrying him an act of necessity rather than choice. On the other hand, those who assert the queen's guilt rest upon this unhappy, unseemly, and ill-chosen union as the most convincing proof of her being privy to the death of her husband, and all the consequences of the murder.

The acute David Hume being told of a new work which appeared, in which the author had made a well-argued defence of Queen Mary, "Has he shown," said the historian, "that the queen did not marry Both-well?" he was answered of course in the negatives "then," replied Mr. Hume, "in admitting that fact, he resigns the whole question."

On the other hand, strong suspicions arose, out of their own conduct on the occasion, that Morton, Lethington, and others of Mary's counsellors, were treacherously and ungratefully concerned in the plot, which was at once to destroy their sovereign's fame and power. When pardoned by the queen for their share in the Rizzio conspiracy, which had been the fruitful parent of so many crimes, several of them had become privy to Bothwell's designs on the queen's hand, and formed a bond to favor his views as well in annul-ling the marriage with Darnley as in marrying the queen. These objects they had advanced by every argument in their power; and when death was substituted for the original intention of divorce, it does not seem to have alarmed these sturdy associates. They supported the murderer after the fact, and lent him their countenance upon his trial. They subscribed the bond at Ainslie's Supper. Not one of them joined in a spirited remonstrance which the gallant Lord Herries offered to the queen against her marriage with Bothwell. Not a spear was lifted, not a sword drawn, to rescue Mary from the power of that atrocious ruffian. She was suffered, without either warning or opposition, to unite herself with this worthless man; and it was not until her honor became inseparable from his that the same advisers changed their note, sounded an alarm to the nation, and called on all true subjects to rescue the queen from the control of Bothwell.

We cannot but suspect that these ambitious men, observing how readily the queen had been supported by the nation on former occasions, had determined not to interrupt her infatuated career till she had linked her fate to Bothwell so inseparably that she must needs share his ruin. Morton was aware that he should, by getting rid of Queen Mary, gratify his patroness Queen Elizabeth in the most sensible manner, and raise his own party, and eventually perhaps himself, to the prime management of Scottish affairs.

These considerations show why Morton and Lethington did not make the least effort to save the queen by preventing or at least remonstrating against her marriage. In the meantime Bothwell plainly showed both his grasping ambition and his gross ingratitude to the queen. His behavior in the palace, where he had so unworthily risen to so high a place, was like that of a debauched soldier unbounded in his dissolute discourse either by topics or terms, and totally neglectful of his duty and respect for the queen. He schemed and plotted to get into his hands the person of the young prince, with a view probably on his life or liberty; and because the queen, amid the dotage of her passion, opposed him in his purpose, he treated her with such reproachful language that she was heard in the height of her grief and indignation threatening to . stab or drown herself.

The Earl of Mar, who had lodged the young prince in Edinburgh Castle, took care to keep both James's person and that important place out of the hands of Bothwell, though he had been constituted governor. Meantime the public indignation began to show itself more boldly. It was easy to find specious pretexts for raising in arms so warlike a nation as the Scots the liberation of the queen from the control of Bothwell, and freeing the young prince from the restraint and danger attending his continuing under the guardianship of his father's murderer, were sufficient cause for calling the people to arms. Morton and most of the Protestant lords soon assembled a force and marched to Edinburgh. Bothwell and the queen were wellnigh surprised as they were banqueting at Borthwick Castle, in the vicinity of the metropolis, and escaped with difficulty to the strong fortress of Dunbar, where Mary summoned her subjects around her as on former occasions: they came, but it was with a total disinclination to the service.

The confederated lords marched eastward against Dun-bar, but the queen, with her usual alacrity, assembled forces equal to theirs in number, and met them on Carberry Hill. When the two armies came in sight of each other, the French ambassador, called Le Crocq, endeavored to mediate between the parties, and succeeded in preventing hostilities. In the conferences which followed, Bothwell made a bravadoing offer to vindicate her innocence by single combat; but chicaned and retracted when several among the confederates offered to accept the challenge. In the meantime the queen's spirits failed her when she beheld the reluctance with which her own troops prepared for the combat, and heard Kirkcaldy of Grainge, on the part of the confederates, profess their willingness to respect and obey her as their sovereign, providing she would remove Bothwell from her presence and counsels. She dimissed Bothwell accordingly, who retreated to the Orkneys, and, driven from thence, committed some outrages on the trade of Denmark. He was finally taken, and immured in the castle of Malmoe, in Norway, where he died, after ten years' confinement.

Meantime the queen, who had surrendered herself upon terms to her insurgent subjects, was far from experiencing the reception of homage and respect on their part which Kirkcaldy had promised. The armed ranks closed around her with menacing gestures and expressions, which even the authority of their leaders could not restrain. When she reached Edinburgh the multitude became still more unruly; and the streets of her capital resounded with abusive exclamations against her. Some, to show their disrespectful feelings, did not hesitate to display before her eyes a banner, on which was represented the murdered Darnley with the person of the young prince kneeling beside it, and praying to Heaven for vengeance. While Mary sustained this degrading treatment from the commonalty, the confederated lords formed themselves into a committee of government, and ordered the queen to be conveyed under strong guard to the castle of Lochleven, situated on an islet, in the large lake so named, and placed under the custody of Sir William Douglas, a kinsman of Morton, lord of the castle, and his wife, the mother of the Earl of Murray, who pretended to have been lawfully wedded to James V., though, in fact, only his concubine, and was, therefore, hostile to the descendent of his actual marriage with Mary of Guise. This usage of the queen was contrary to the conditions which the associated lords had granted to her when she surrendered herself to Kirkcaldy of Grainge at Carberry Hill ; and that gallant knight upbraided them severely with having broken their word to Mary, and made him the means of deceiving her. But to this they answered that the favorable terms alluded to had been granted to Mary on condition that she would break off all intercourse with Bothwell; notwithstanding which, they affirmed, she had afterward written to him in affectionate terms, agreeing to adhere to his fortunes, and had thereby forfeited the favorable terms which they had been willing to grant on condition of her positively renouncing him.

This state of things could not long endure. The Hamiltons, and many other nobles of great power, without challenging the propriety of the proceedings of the insurgents as far as the expulsion of Bothwell was concerned, were of opinion that, he being banished from the kingdom, Queen Mary should be restored to her sovereign authority. But the lords of the confederation, who had every reason to think that her talents, and the interest which she inspired in her kingdom, might soon enable her, if set at liberty, to revenge herself on those by whom she had been confined, determined that she should be dethroned on account of maladministration, and compelled to resign her crown to her son, while the government during his minority should be conducted by a regent.

This important office was reserved for James, earl of Murray. The reason of our late silence respecting this influential nobleman is his absence from the scene of action. Murray had remained in Scotland until he saw the termination of the conjugal disputes between Darnley and Mary, by the murder of the former. He then asked and obtained license to go to England, and from thence to France, where he remained during the insurrection, of which, however, he received the principal reward, being, as we have said, destined by the confederate lords to hold the place of supreme governor in the name of the infant prince. He was less objectionable to the queen than any other who could have been proposed, since his absence from the kingdom had separated him from the Carberry lords, at the time when their insurrection was most offensive to the queen. She might also hope something from affection, and much from gratitude for benefits received by her brother.