could be trusted this time. Ruthven, Morton, Lindsay, and the other conspirators had quite another aim than the prince in agreeing to put Rizzio out of the way: they stipulated "that the lords banished for the Word of God might return to their country and estates," and that "they should have their religion freely established, conform to Christ's Book and to the articles subscribed by the King to the lords." Darnley bargained for the pleasure of having the Italian seized at the supper table, that the Queen and her alleged paramour might be taunted face to face with their guilt; the others were determined to strike him down as a "known minion of the Pope." The ruthless spirit of the plotters is shown by Ruthven's narrative, written shortly after the murder, and while the author was approaching death. It is a calm, cold-blooded story, without a single trace of penitence, without one sigh of gentle regret. It winds up with the pious wish for Mary: "The Eternal God, who hath the rule of all princes in His hand, send His Holy Spirit that she may rule and govern with clemency and mercy!

The words of the old historian of Edinburgh, written a hundred years ago, are still applicable to the condition of Holyrood palace:-"In the second floor are Queen Mary's apartments, in one of which her own bed still remains. It is of crimson damask, bordered with green silk tassels and fringes, and is now almost in tatters. Close to the floor of this room, a piece of wainscot, about a yard square, hangs upon hinges, and opens a passage to a trap-stair which connects with the apartment beneath." The boudoir or cabinet of the Queen, leading off from the bedchamber, was a very small place, being only some twelve feet square.

or forgave. At the same time, just before the closing of the gates, a body of one hundred and fifty men, comprising the Earl of Morton, Lord Lindsay, and Lord Ruthven, marched into the palace court and took the keys from the porter. Ruthven, a man of forty-six, with face looking pale and ghastly from "an inflammation of the liver and a consumption of the kidneys" that had kept him constantly in bed for three months, passed up from the King's chamber by the private staircase into the Queen's bedroom, and thence into the cabinet. There sat the boy-husband, chatting affectionately with the delicate Queen, and with his arm round her

waist.

The grim guise in which Ruthven entered was more suggestive of a raid against the Highland savages, or against such notorious

Border thieves as the Armstrongs and Elliots, than of an evening visit to a delicate and courtly Queen. Something like a feeling of uncanniness must have run through the merry party as they caught the first glimpse of that haggard visage and helmetcovered head; and the first words he uttered with sepulchral voice were in keeping with the terrifying aspect: "Let it please Your Majesty that yonder man David come forth of your privychamber, where he hath been over long! Rizzio saw his doom plainly written on the stern features of the Scottish baron. As in a nightmare, he heard his royal mistress launch out her cutting sarcasm in his defence, and order Ruthven to leave her presence on pain of treason; he listened tremulously to the accusation that he had taken bribes; that he had committed foul dishonour against Darnley; that he had sought to prevent the Queen from carrying out her promise of the crown-matrimonial; that he brought about the banishment of the chief nobles so that he might himself get rank among the nobility. Darnley stood quite stunned, while Ruthven thus addressed him -"Take the Queen your wife and sovereign to you," and at the same time made an attempt to seize Rizzio. Queen Mary was standing in the recess of a window, and the terror-struck Italian, who had mocked at the bravery of Scotsmen shortly before, now cowered behind his royal mistress, holding by the folds of her gown, and clutching his drawn dagger in unconscious desperation.

At seven o'clock on Saturday evening, the 9th of March, 1566, the Queen sat in this last-mentioned room on a low couch. The party around the little supper-table seems to have been a most informal one. There was the Countess of Argyll at the one end of the table, and at the other sat David Rizzio, with his cap on, and wearing a night-gown of damask, furred, a satin doublet, and hose of russet velvet. Arthur Erskine, Captain of the Queen's Guard, and others of the palace domestics were also present; Darnley, who had supped early, so as to have his hands clear for business, entered the group and placed himself amorously beside his beautiful spouse, giving her a "Judas-kiss" she never forgot

Some of the domestics tried to seize Ruthven, but he shook them off and kept them at bay with his naked dagger. Some of the

conspirators, who had followed Ruthven into the bedchamber by the private staircase, rushed upon the scene, tilting over the table in the unseemly scuffle, and making sad havoc among the royal viands. One of the candles that threw a dim flicker of light over the boudoir was luckily captured by the Countess of Argyll. The King loosed Rizzio's hand from the Queen's dress, and the conspirators laid hold on him, while the fanatic earl gallantly seized the Queen and placed her in her husband's arms, assuring her of her own safety, as they were only acting under her husband's orders, and would sooner spend their own heart's blood than that she should suffer harm. Rizzio was dragged out of the cabinet, appealing to the Queen with piercing shrieks and cries for mercy: Giustizia, Giustizia! Sauve ma vie; Madame, sauve ma vie !" Ruthven gave orders to his followers to take him down the private passage into the King's chamber, and then returned to the boudoir, possibly to keep guard on Darnley, lest he should babble to Delilah. It seems to have been intended by the determined leaders to try Rizzio that night in the palace, and hang him on the morrow: cords, indeed, had been brought as if for that purpose. But when the Italian

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was hurled out into the larger company of Morton, which had ascended to the antechamber, he was met by an explosion of fury. The" shameless butcher," George Douglas, a bastard son of the Earl of Angus, struck him in the side with the King's dagger, and the savage work of assassination was completed with over fifty blows from swords and hangers. A large, dark ineffaceable stain at the outer door of the ante-chamber is still believed in popular conviction to mark the spot where the furious assassins threw themselves upon their victim. A portrait of Darnley, removed from Hampton Court in 1864, now looks down upon the scene of the tragedy: it is the feeble face of an overgrown and overweening boy, who seems more suited for the cane of a severe grammar-master than for a crown-matrimonial or association with a band of Scottish ghouls. When the body had lain weltering in blood for some time, Darnley, after parting from his wife for the night, ordered it to be thrust out of the palace; and the mangled corpse was tossed down-stairs into the porter's lodge. There the assistant porter laid it out on a box, and proceeded to strip off the hacked and stained raiment, remarking, "Upon this chest was his bed when he entered into this place, and now here he lieth again,-a very ingrate and misknowing knave!" It is worth mentioning that Darnley's own dagger had been left sticking in the body of Rizzio after the murder was completed, as if to fix the main responsibility for the deed upon the young King, and

prevent his cowardly nature from retreat and betrayal of his associates.

AFTER THE MURDER.

There is no space to introduce discussion as to particular acts of cruelty, and so forth, but we must make a brief remark on the allegation by the Queen that "some held pistols to Her Majesty, some stroke whiniards so near her that she felt the coldness of the steel." Ruthven declares before God that this "was never meant nor done." Mary's charge, however, is corroborated by one of Darnley's attendants, Anthony Standen, who seems afterwards to have held a pension of five shillings a day from Queen Mary up to the time of her execution. This person, who in old age was imprisoned in the Tower as a plotting Papist, was one of the spectators of the murder, and declares in a petition he addressed to King James that in the "bloody tumult and press," one of Ruthven's followers offered to fix his poniard in the Queen's left side, but that he (Standen) turned aside the dagger and wrested it from the traitor; thus, he alleges, saving two lives together,—a service which their Majesties esteemed accordingly.

Another interesting question is the guilt of John Knox. The greatest Scottish teacher of his age justified political assassination, and he has left on record his approval of the deed. The murder of "that great abuser of this commonwealth, that poltroon and vile knave Davie," is lauded in the most unequivocal terms as a "just act, and most worthy of all praise."

During the enacting of the tragedy in the ante-chamber, Ruthven and Darnley were back in the Queen's cabinet, and a pretty little dialogue went on, full of mutual recrimination. Darnley's charges need not be quoted, as they will readily suggest themselves. Ruthven, sadly tired, called for a cup of wine. Mary railed at him fiercely after he had refreshed himself, and threatened him, should anything happen to her or her unborn infant, with the vengeance of the King of Spain, the Emperor, the King of France, her uncles, and the Pope. The earl replied with grim humour that these great folks would not trouble themselves to "meddle with such a poor man as he was." During this lively altercation some servants reported a disturbance below with Morton. Ruthven went down, supported under the arm; and after a convivial glass in Bothwell's lodgings, paid a visit to those of Athole, who was also resident in the palace at that time. He then returned to the Queen's cabinet with the news that they were all merry, and no harm done, and told her that Rizzio was in her husband's chamber. The provost of the city and a crowd appeared before the palace, but the Queen was prevented from speaking to them

from her window, and Ruthven declared that all was well. Bothwell and Huntly, in spite of the convivial meeting with Ruthven, thought it prudent to escape that night by a low window of the palace.

PREPARATIONS FOR FLIGHT OF MARY AND DARNLEY; A SUPPER OF ROPE.* After Darnley and Ruthven had left the Queen, tired and indignant, to pace her chamber during the weary night hours, the former showed a disposition to back from the precipice. The cool and resolute Protestants told him it was too late; his part was in the forefront; and if he were so chicken-hearted as to refuse to carry out their project to its end, they would support each other to the utmost and spare no man. Alone in the group of murderers, the frightened lad sent for his father, who joined the conclave. It was decided that on the following day (Sunday) Darnley should issue a proclamation dissolving the parliament that was to meet on Monday. It was also proposedwas it?-that the Queen should be removed to the castle of Stirling, where, Lord Lindsay remarked, she would have no lack of amusement in rocking her baby and singing it asleep, shooting in the garden with her bow, and doing whatever she liked with herself. But some, it was hinted, might take to arms in opposition. His remedy was a simple one : "We will cut her into gobbets and throw her to them from the top of the terrace." Lord Lindsay of the Byres, who is charged in Nau's story with these unamiable suggestions, was perhaps capable of uttering them and even carrying them out; his character and appearance will be familiar to most readers from the description of him in Sir Walter Scott's admirable novel, "The Abbot." The blunt but honest peer is there depicted as being strong-limbed, with bushy, grizzled eyebrows, dark fiery eyes, scar-seamed face, and harsh, haughty tone. Men like the spectral Ruthven and the herculean Lindsay were not likely to flinch from any measure they took on hand, and there is no wonder that the hare-brained and hare-hearted son of Lennox shook in the presence of these dreadful Scotsmen. To this day the Lindsays have maintained the Titanic bodily vastness of the old stock; and the father of the present chief, who successfully claimed the old peerage five years ago,

To a large extent this portion of the story is based on a French document in the British Museum, hitherto unpublished, to which attention was first properly called in the Month for 1879. This abstract we have used along with the original. This narrative by Mary's secretary, Nau, is fresh at least, although in parts incredible; it was possibly derived from Mary's own lips. It sets forth ad nauseam the brutalities of Darnley towards his wife which led to his detestation by the whole body of the nobles, and finally to his murder.

Major-General Sir Henry Lindsay, has been described to us as one of those nobles of nature, whom many will remember as being almost of gigantic size."

Darnley, now forced into the position of figure-head of a revolution, was frightened by the strange side-whisperings of the nobles, and was warned with open threats against talking with the Queen except in the presence of the lords. When he retired, a guard was placed outside of his chamber instead of his wn attendants. The boy felt terribly alone during the night watches. In his feverish imbecility he crept up the private stair, like a child afraid of ghosts, and finding the door of his wife's bedchamber locked, he called on her to open it as he had something important for their mutual safety to communicate to her. His prayer was refused, and the Queen spent the whole night in lamentation with her domestics. "Ah, my Mary!" said Darnley on Sunday morning when he was admitted to a secret interview, and threw himself on his knees, "I must now confess, though too late, the wrong I have done you, for which I can make no amends but seek your forgiveness and plead my youth and lack of judgment." He beseeched the Queen to have pity on him, on their unborn child, and on herself. The silly traitor, now that his own immediate passion for vengeance was satisfied, actually handed to her the secret articles agreed on between him and the conspirators, remarking that he was a dead man if it were ever discovered that he had done so. "Since you have set us on this precipice," she said, "strive to get us off it." He assured her that he would be wise in future, and would never rest till he had avenged her on these malheureux traistres-these wretched traitors -when once they had escaped from their hands. Flight was agreed on; but on her "conscience"-she could never tell a lie, she said--she objected to his offer of a compromise between her and the conspirators.

These men, however, kept a strict watch. On that Sunday she partook of no food till four in the afternoon, and even this was closely examined by the stubborn Lord Lindsay before it reached her.

Passing over the dissolution of parliament, and the appearance of Moray and the other banished lords at the Tolbooth on Monday to answer before the parliament which had been dissolved by the proclamation of the previous day, a strange freak of diplomacy, we shall allude to a curious story, scarcely credible on the face of it, but told with The complete gravity in Nau's narrative. old lady of the story-who does not even appear as a character in Swinburne's drama of Bothwell-was the Dowager-Countess of Huntly, wife of the "fat lurdane" who had been slain by the Queen's forces, and in her

presence, on the field of Corrichie-a piece of wild and lonely moorland in Aberdeenshire we have visited years ago--and was also mother of Edom of Gordon, of that young candidate for Mary's hand who had been ex cuted before the Queen's own eyes at the cross of Aberdeen, and of Bothwell's own wife, whose nuptials had been celebrated with great pomp only a few days before. Bothwell and Huntly, as we have seen, had made their escape on the night of the murder, and the mother of the latter of these two nobles, being permitted to wait upon the Queen, brought in a ropeladder between two plates-a peculiar kind of supper, reminding us of the cask of butter sent into Edinburgh Castle eighty years later, by which James Grant (the bandit known as An Tuim) descended the precipitous wall and rock of that grim fortress.

The old dame delivered a message from her son the Earl, Moray's mortal enemy, and the other nobles who had taken flight, stating that they would be ready to receive her if she could find means of descending by a window. This "confab"-for so we must term it was carried on while the Queen sat on a chaise percée. Mary succeeded also in replying by letter that the plan of Bothwell and Huntly was impracticable owing to the close guard kept overhead and in front of the window, but requesting them to meet her the next night in a village near Seton, the palace of one of her most faithful adherents, on the route to the famous rock-perched castle of Dunbar, which was in future days to be even more closely and romantically associated with her name. Lindsay became suspicious of the colloquy, and entered the room, ordered Lady Huntly out, searched her, and sent her off for good. The old countess, however, had succeeded in concealing the Queen's letter next her body.

On the same day (Monday), the lords of the Lennox faction presented themselves in the ante-chamber, all on bended knees, the Earl of Morton, who was spokesman of the party, kneeling on the very spot that was still red with the blood of Davie. This interview was intended to win the Queen completely over into the hands of the Protestant lords. "True," said Morton, "they had violated their duty as subjects; but the like had happened pretty often before, and the loss of a single foreigner was not to be set against the ruin of many lords and gentlemen, her subjects, who might one day render good, great, and signal service." The Earl of Moray also begged his sister's pardon for returning without her leave from exile, swearing by his God that he knew nothing of the murder till after his return, and begged her clemency for those who were guilty. Mary had always an unlimited amount of the bitterest sarcasm at her tongue's end, and she did not spare her

petitioners on this occasion. The nobles and others had given her frequent opportunities for practising the virtue of mercy. "I owe justice," she said, "to every one, and I cannot deny it to those who shall ask ́it in the name of the man who has been murdered. Whatever his rank may have been, the honour to which he had attained as my servant should have protected him from any outrage, especially in my own presence." The assurance given by Mary of a full and ready pardon was not satisfactory; and as the nobles continued to press the necessity of her signing a bond of indemnity, she cried out as if smit with sudden pain. The delicate barricade behind which the Queen thus suddenly and adroitly sheltered herself was suspected by the lords. They quizzed the nurse (la sage femme), whom they had themselves appointed; but she assured them that the Queen was really in the perilous condition to which she had confessed. They were therefore forced to defer their conference with her till the morrow and by that time the royal bird had flown, in company with her timorous and treacherous husband.

THE MIDNIGHT FLIGHT FROM HOLYROOD; RIZZIO'S GHOST; BRUTALITY OF DARNLEY.

The plan having been arranged by Mary, she and Darnley descended the wall of Holyrood, beside his bedroom, shortly after midnight on Tuesday, the 12th of March, and thence made their way to the office of the butlers and cupbearers, all or most of whom were French, and might be trusted. A low, narrow door, fortunately with a broken lock and open to any one, led from this into the chapel burying-ground. Near this door were stationed Sir John Stewart of Traquair, Captain of the Queen's Guard, William his brother, Arthur Erskine, the esquire of the Queen stables, along with Anthony Standen; Erskine stood ready with a strong, tall gelding, with a pillion for the Queen to ride behind him, and there were two or three other horses for the King and his attendants. On their way through the cemetery, Mary and Darnley passed close by the fresh-made grave of Rizzio, the exact locality of which Darnley knew, although the Queen did not. He sighed audibly, as if he had seen the ghost of the murdered Italian, and the Queen inquired the cause of his lamentation. Madam," said her timid husband, “we have just passed the grave of poor David. I have lost in him a good and faithful servant, and I shall never look upon his like again. There will not be a day in my life when I shall not regret him." This indulgence in lamentation, however pleasing it might be to Mary's feelings, was rather inopportune,

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