But, again, if the journey had been so terrible | wild districts." Melville, who was of the party, and Mary so lost to shame as they represented, she would scarcely have been at the trouble of riding back to Jedburgh before night set in. In the enfeebled state of her health the long ride did, however, prove somewhat serious, for, on the following day, the 17th of October, the queen was seized with a dangerous fever, which, in conjunction with uneasiness of mind, caused partly by her husband, and her apprehension of some fresh conspiracy, or of some murder like that of Rizzio, brought her almost to the point of death, and kept her during ten whole days in a very doubtful state. Intelligence of the queen's illness was sent immediately to Darnley, who was then no farther off than Glasgow, and who showed great indifference on the receipt of it. The French ambassador and the Bishop of Ross both wrote to Paris, relating the dangerous state of the queen, and complaining of her husband's neglect. Darnley at last took the road to Jedburgh, but he did not arrive there till the 28th of October. adds, "The king followed her about where she rode, getting no good countenance, and therefore he passed to Glasgow, where he fell sick for displeasure, as was alleged, not without some bruit of an ill drink by some of his servants." But, according to all other accounts, Darnley had gone straight to Glasgow after his short visit to the queen at Jedburgh. On the 19th of November Mary proceeded to Tantallon Castle, and thence, on the following day, to Craigmillar. Here, according to Le Croc, the French ambassador, she was sick and melancholy, and in the hands of the physician. About a week after her arrival at Craigmillar, Darnley, whose conduct The queen, now convalescent, received him but coolly, and the very next day he left her again. It should appear, however, that Darnley stood in dread of Moray and Maitland, who were almost constantly with his wife, and who CRAIGMILLAR CASTLE.-From a view by Hearne, had taken measures during her illness to exclude him and his father from all share in the government in case the disease should prove mortal. On the 9th of November Mary, having finished the business of the Ayres, left Jedburgh for Kelso, where she held a council on the following day. "She then returned by the Merse, and being desirous to see Berwick afar off, she ascended Halidon Hill, being well escorted by troops of Borderers on horseback. The English garrison of Berwick honoured her with many shots of artillery; and Sir John Forster, one of the wardens of the English border, came with other officers out of Berwick, and conferred with her majesty as to the keeping of good order in those Melville says, "that during the stay of the court at Jed burgh, there was another dark plot on foot, and that the Earls of Bothwell and Huntly enterprised the slaughter of the Earl f Moray, but the Lord Hume came there with forces and prevented that enterprise." Keith, on the other hand, makes it rather probable that there was a purpose entertained to murder Ethwell! can be reduced to no rational rule, came to visit her, and remained a week! The queen was attended by nearly her whole court. Moray was there, and so also were Argyle, Huntly, Bothwell, and Maitland. In the beginning of December Maitland and Moray, after conferring with Argyle, Huntly, and Bothwell, resolved that the queen should be divorced from her unsuitable husband. It appears that all these lords were perfectly agreed as to this plan, but that Moray kept in the back ground, leaving the principal management of the affair to the adroit and eloquent Maitland, who bore a personal and bitter hatred to Darnley. But when the plan was laid before the queen, she rejected it without hesitation, saying that such a measure could not be adopted without throwing discredit on her own character and doubts on the legitimacy of her child; nor could the eloquence of Maitland and the earnestness of Bothwell overcome this 2 Melville. men of consummate craft, who the fiercer villainies of others pose. In the afternoon of the Both well, in discharge of his of the marches, left Edinburg which were, as usual, in a di the 8th of the same month M purpose declared many wee Jedburgh to hold Justice A tend the proceedings of the mon practice, at the regula tish sovereigns. On the sa out for the Borders, Bothy Hermitage Castle by an o named Eliott of Park, whor make prisoner with his ow this affray reached Mary a was attended by most of It has been stated by an correct historian, that sh wings of love to Bothwell the most authentic docu quit her duties and eng until eight days had el changes the aspect of undertaken," says Walte interval, has not the a formed at the impulse of to have flowed from so the queen's readiness both previously to the at the Round-about R dauntlessly approachi her dominions withou ing upon the impulse an inordinate favour On the 16th of Octob from Jedburgh to the wounded Bothw the two places was a but she rode back to not stopping to slee her castle and not general are not goo sidered this journe markable than it r woman of four-an cellent horsewoma no motive short of make the queen i day! But Mary in a long autumn the present case motive in her de an outrage com office, represent‹ in her eyes, ev abscond. Hence also he wrote a letter to the repugnance a striking proof that up to this time at least, she was chary of her reputation, and anxious to preserve it even at the cost of great suffering. A few days after this debate, the queen was at Stirling for the baptism of her child. There, as we have related, she pardoned the dark-souled Morton and his confederates; and then it was that Bothwell, Maitland, and Morton met at Whittingham, where it is supposed, and, in fact, almost proved, that they concerted the murder of Darnley, who, after the ceremonies at Stirling, in which he did not partake, had again retired, as we have seen, to Glasgow. This doomed man could know nothing of the secret meeting between Bothwell, Maitland, and Morton; but he well knew that the returned exiles were athirst for vengeance against him. He reached Glasgow; but a frightful disease—the small-pox-was there before him, and he caught the infection immediately. When informed of his malady, the queen sent him her own physician.' When her own life was in danger at Jedburgh Darnley had shown no solicitude. She did not go to Glasgow herself, but the historians who censure her on this account seem to forget that she had an infant to attend to, and that the disease was in the highest degree contagious. The queen set out from Stirling with the young prince for Edinburgh, where she arrived on the 14th of January, 1567. The capital rung with different rumours, some of which reached her ears, and gave her great uneasiness. It was said, for example, that Darnley intended to crown his infaut son, and to take the government on himself. But by another report, which seems to have been equally prevalent, Darnley was to be put in ward, as he could not bear some of the nobles who at tended the court, so that he or they must leave it. Other reports, however, had spread on the Continent, and Mary's ambassador at Paris informed her that the Spanish ambassador had desired him to warn her of some secret plot which was ready to be made at Edinburgh, and conjured her to double her guards. Yet, after writing to her ambassador in France, that she knew from good authority, that the king, his father and adherents, were talking and thinking of doing her some injury, only that their power was not equal to their will, Mary consented to a | Buchanan, Knox, and other writers of that side, assert that Darnley was poisoned by his wife's orders, and that she would not suffer a physician to come to him. This assertion is com pletely overset, and that, too, by the testimony of one who was always inclined to take the very worst view of Mary's conduct. The Earl of Bedford, who was almost on the spot, wrote to Cecil on the 9th of January:-"The king is now at Glasgow with his father, and there lieth full of the small-pokes, to whom the queen hath sent her physician."--Original Letter in State Paper Oices quoted by Keith and Chalmers. fresh reconciliation, which is said to have been brought about by her physician, who had attended Darnley, and seen him out of danger; and then set out for Glasgow, where she arrived on the 25th of January. Her interview with her | husband is described as having been friendly, if not affectionate, and, as he was convalescent, he agreed to accompany her back to Edinburgh in the course of a few days. On the 29th of January they left Glasgow together, Mary travelling, as usual, on horseback; Darnley, on account of his weakness, being carried in a kind of litter. They rested for nearly two days at Linlithgow -the pleasantest palace in Scotland--and they reached the capital on the last day of January. The king's infectious illness was assigned as an imperative reason for lodging him out of the close and crowded palace of Holyrood, where his wife and his child resided. A lonely house called the Kirk-a-Field, situated near where the College of Edinburgh now stands, but which was then in the suburbs of the town, had been chosen for him by the queen's physician, who is said to have preferred it on account of its open airy situation, and to have fitted it up for the king's reception. This house belonged to one Robert Balfour, the provost of the collegiate church of St. Mary. Here the queen visited him daily, and several times slept in a chamber under that of the king. "But many," says Melville, "suspected that the Earl of Bothwell had some enterprise against him (Darnley)." Upon the fatal day, Moray, who, be it observed, invariably managed to be out of the way when anything doubtful and dangerous was to be done, absented himself from the court under pretence that his wife had fallen sick in the country. This opportune absence is certain, and if we are to believe more questionable authority- the zealous advocates of the queen-Moray, upon his journey, speaking of Darnley's behaviour, told a person in whom he reposed his chief confidence, that the king would not live to see another day. This same evening the queen, with several of the nobles, spent with her husband, whom she only left at eleven o'clock at night, in order to be present at an entertainment in Holyroodhouse, which was given on occasion of the marriage of Sebastian Auvergnac, one of her servants. About three hours after her departure, at two o'clock in the morning of the 10th February, the ancient palace and the city were shaken by a violent explosion; and when people went forth to see, they found the house of Kirk-a-Field utterly destroyed, and the bodies of Darnley and his valet lying in the garden without any marks of violence on their persons. The body of Darnley was carried to a house close at hand, was laid within a chamber, and kept by one Sandy (or Alexander) Drurem ; - Bishon Lesley's Defence of the Queen of Scots. but, adds Melville, "I could not get the sight of him." When Melville went to the palace he found her majesty kept her chamber. He says, "I came to the chamber-door the next morning A popular accusation of Bothwell, as being the chief murderer, Secretary Maitland, Morton, Huntly, Argyle, in fact all her ministers, and nearly every person that approached her, not excepting even ANCIENT HOUSES, near the Kirk-a-Field.-From a map dated 1575. after the murder. The Earl Bothwell said that her majesty was sorrowful and quiet; for he came forth and told me he saw the strangest accident that ever chanced-to wit, the thunder came out of the luft (sky) and had burnt the king's house, and himself found lying dead a little distance from the house under a tree, and willed me to go up and see him, how that there was not a hurt nor a mark in all his body."1 Never was an atrocious murder more clumsily executed. The elements had been quiet that night, and even an ignorant eye could detect the effects of a mine of gunpowder. Suspicion immediately fell upon Bothwell, but not so immediately either upon the queen or upon Morton and Maitland, and the others who were afterwards proved to have been accessories and in part active participants in the deed with Bothwell. Some light will be thrown on the horrid mystery by our narration of succeeding events, and the reader will weigh the preceding facts, which we have endeavoured to state clearly and without bias. In truth, our own mind is not made up as to the long and hotly debated question of the queen's innocence or guilt in regard to her husband's murder. Notwithstanding the In this story of horror nearly every point is still a mystery. It has never been ascertained how Darnley was killed. According to one account, he was blown up in the house; but this seems to be disproved by the fact witnessed by hundreds) that the body bore no marks of violence or outward hurt. According to another account, he was strangled in his bed, and the house was then blown up to conceal the deed; but if so, why was the body removed to some distance, and placed under a tree in a perfectly sound state? And then the previous strangling would be a useless process with a sick man in his bed, and a train of her brother Moray, continued their close friendship with that desperate man, and joined together in maintaining his innocence. But several of them could not admit his guilt without proclaiming their own. There is, at least, a doubt in favour of the queen -perhaps even in favour of Moraybut there is none as to the rest having taken part, more or less actively, in the murder. These very men, however, acting as the queen's ministers, issued a proclamation on the 12th of February, offering a reward of 2000 pounds for the discovery of the murderers. On the 16th of the same month placards were set up in the public places of Edinburgh, designating the Earl of Bothwell and three of his servants as the murderers. At this moment Mary was plunged in grief and dismay; and the same ministers-the allies of Bothwell— offered a fresh reward for the discovery of the author of the placards. No person, either of high or low degree, had courage to come forward in the face of the government. But, in the dead of night, fierce voices were heard in the streets of Edinburgh, charging Bothwell as a principal, and the queen as an accomplice. Other persons, however, were named in the like manner; and no one pressed any specific charge, till Darnley's father, the Earl of Lennox, at the beginning of the month of March, sent from Glasgow, where he was collecting his friends, to request the queen that such persons as were named in the placards should be arrested. He was answered, that if he, or any, would stand to the accusation of any of the persons so named, it should be done; but not by virtue of the placards or at his request. This information we derive from Henry Killigrew, whom Elizabeth had sent down ostensibly to condole with Mary, and who, on the very day of his writing (the 8th of March), had dined with Moray, Huntly (then chancellor), the Earl of Argyle, Lord Bothwell, and Secretary Maitland-the whole party being still bosom friends. On the 17th of March the gunpowder under him. Bothwell, it appears, wished people to believe that the house had been struck by lightning; but, unless he was absolutely crazed, he could never fancy that the people would believe that the lightning had first carried Darnley out of a window, and deposited him, without a bone broken, under the tree, and had then reduced the house to a heap of ruins, in which everything was buried except Darnley and his attendant! 2 Letter from Killigrew to Cecil, as given by Chalmers. The original is in the State Paper Office. |