6

6

word privately that all was well;' and at eight in the evening Stewart of Traquair, Captain of the Royal Guard, Arthur Erskine, whom she would trust with a thousand lives,' and Standen, a young and gallant gentleman, assembled in the Queen's room to arrange a plan for the escape from Holyrood. The first question was where she was to go. Though the gates were no longer occupied the palace would doubtless be watched; and to attempt flight and to fail would be certain ruin. In the Castle of Edinburgh she would be safe with Lord Erskine, but she could reach the Castle only through the streets which would be beset with enemies; and unfit as she was for the exertion, she determined to make for Dunbar.

She stirred the blood of the three youths with the most touching appeal which could be made to the generosity of man. Pointing to the child that was in her womb, she adjured them by their loyalty to save the unborn hope of Scotland. So addressed they would have flung themselves naked on the pikes of Morton's troopers. They swore they would do her bidding be it what it would; and then after her sweet manner and wise directions, she dismissed them till midnight to put all in order as she herself excellently directed.'

'The rendezvous appointed with the horses was near the broken tombs and demolished sepultures in the ruined Abbey of Holyrood." A secret passage led underground from the palace to the vaults of the abbey ;

1 Then standing at the south-eastern angle of the Royal Chapel.

and at midnight Mary Stuart, accompanied by one servant and her husband-who had left the lords under pretence of going to bed-crawled through the charnelhouse, among the bones and skulls of the antient kings,' and 'came out of the earth' where the horses were shivering in the March midnight air.

The moon was clear and full. The Queen with incredible animosity was mounted en croup behind Sir Arthur Erskine upon a beautiful English double gelding,' 'the King on a courser of Naples; ' and then away -away-past Restalrig, past Sir Arthur's Seat, across the bridge and across the field of Musselburgh, past Seton, past Prestonpans, fast as their horses could speed; 'six in all-their Majesties, Erskine, Traquair, and a chamberer of the Queen.' In two hours the heavy gates of Dunbar had closed behind them, and Mary Stuart was safe.1

Whatever credit is due to iron fortitude and intellectual address must be given without stint to this extraordinary woman. Her energy grew with exertion; the terrible agitation of the three preceding days, the wild escape, and a midnight gallop of more than twenty miles within three months of her confinement, would have

1 The account of the escape is | Bedford and Randolph, printed by taken from a letter of Antony WRIGHT; the two Italian accounts Standen, preserved among the Cecil in the seventh volume of LABAMSS. at Hatfield; the remaining | NOFF; details of the murder and the circumstances connected with it, are collected from RUTHVEN's narrative, printed in KEITH; the letters of

VOL. VII.

CALDERWOOD's History; Mary Stuart's letter to the Archbishop of Glasgow, and a letter of Paul de Foix, printed by TEULET.

26

shaken the strength of the least fragile of human frames, but Mary Stuart seemed not to know the meaning of the word exhaustion; she had scarce alighted from her horse than couriers were flying east, west, north, and south, to call the Catholic nobles to her side; she wrote her own story to her minister at Paris, bidding the Archbishop in a postscript anticipate the false rumours which would be spread against her honour, and tell the truth -her version of the truth-to the Queen-mother and the Spanish ambassador.

To Elizabeth she wrote with her own hand, fierce, dauntless, and haughty, as in her highest prosperity.' 'Ill at ease with her escape from Holyrood, and suffering from the sickness of pregnancy, she demanded to know whether the Queen of England intended to support the traitors who had slain her most faithful servant in her presence. If she listened to their calumnies and upheld them in their accursed deeds, she was not sc unprovided of friends as her sister might dream; there were princes enough to take up her quarrel in such a

cause.'

The loyalty of Scotland answered well its sovereign's summons. The faithful Bothwell, ever foremost in good or evil in Mary Stuart's service, brought in the nightriders of Liddesdale, the fiercest of the Border marauders; Huntly came, forgetting his father and brother's death and his own long imprisonment; the Archbishop of St

1 This letter may be seen in the | strong, firm, and without sign of Rolls House; the strokes thick and tremulousness. slightly uneven from excitement, but

Andrew's an evil omen to Darnley-was followed by a thousand Hamiltons; Erskine from the Castle sent word of his fidelity; and the Earl Marshal, Athol, Caithness, and a hundred more hurried to Dunbar with every trooper that they could raise. In four days the Queen found herself at the head of a small army of eight thousand men.

On the other hand the conspirators' plans were disconcerted hopelessly by the flight of the King. Perplexed, divided, uncertain what to do when the slightest hesitation was ruin-they lost confidence in one another and in their cause. Had they held together they could still have collected force enough to fight. The Western Highlands were at the devotion of Argyle, and he at any time could command his own terms; but Elizabeth's behaviour in the preceding autumn had for ever shaken Argyle's policy. The Queen 'not venturing,' as she said herself, 'to have so many at once on her hands,' sent to say she would pardon the rebellion of the summer and would receive into favour all who had not been present at or been concerned in the murder of Rizzio. "They seeing now their liberty and restitution offered them, were content to leave those who were the occasion of their return, and took several appointments as they could.'1 Glencairn joined Mary at Dunbar; Rothes followed ; and then Argyle, the central pillar of the Protestant party. Three only of those who had been in England refused to desert their friends-the stainless noble

1 Randolph to Cecil, March 21.

Murray, Kirkaldy of Grange, and the Laird of Patarrow. 'These standing so much upon their honour and promise would not leave the other without likelihood to do them good.'1

2

Thus within a week from her flight Mary Stuart was able to return in triumph to Edinburgh. She had succeeded so entirely that she was already able to throw off the mask towards Darnley. Sir James Melville met her on the road: she 'lamented to him the King's folly and ingratitude; and it was to no purpose that the old farsighted diplomatist warned her against indulging this new resentment; the grudge never left her heart,' and she had made the object of it already feel the value of the promises with which she had wrought upon his weakness. 'The King spoke to me of the lords,' said Melville, ‘and it appeared that he was troubled that he had deserted them, finding the Queen's favour but cold.'"

The conspirators, or 'the Lords of the new attemptate' as they were called, made no effort to resist. Erskine threatened to fire on them from the Castle, and before the Queen reached Holyrood, Ruthven, Morton, Maitland, Lindsay, Faldonside, even Knox, were gone their several ways, most of them making for the Border to take shelter with Bedford at Berwick. Murray too left Edinburgh with them, and intended to share their fortunes; but Ruthven and Morton, generous as himself, wrote to beg him as the rest had fallen off, not to endanger himself on their account, but to make his peace

'Randolph to Cecil, March 21

2 MELVILLE's Memoirs

3 Ibid.