was present when purposes were held in his audience tending to any unlawful or dishonourable end, he spoke wickedly and untruly.'1

But Mary herself-how did she receive the dark suggestion? This part of the story rests on the evidence of her own friends, and was drawn up in her excuse and defence. According to Argyle and Huntly she said she 'would do nothing to touch her honour and conscience;' 'they had better leave it alone;' 'meaning to do her good it might turn to her hurt and displeasure.'

22

She may be credited with having refused her consent to the proposals then made to her; and yet that such a conversation should have passed in her presence (of the truth of the main features of it there is no room for doubt) was serious and significant. The secret was ill kept it reached the ears of the Spanish ambassador, who, though he could not believe it true, wrote an account of it to Philip.3 The Queen was perhaps serious in her reluctance; perhaps she desired not to know what was intended till the deed was done.

'This they should have done,

And not have spoken of it. In her 'twas villany;

In them it had been good service.'

Those among the lords, at all events, who were most

1 Reply of Murray to the declarations of the Earls of Huntly and Argyle: KEITH, 2 Declarations of Huntly and buena parte, parecióme cosa que no Argyle: KEITH.

| Reyna de hacer algo contra su marido, y que ella no habia venido en ello. Aunque tuve este aviso de

se debia creer que se hubiese tratado con la Reyna semejante platica.'— De Silva to Philip, January 18: MS. Simancas.

in Mary Stuart's confidence concluded that if they went their own way they had nothing to fear from her resentment. Four of the party present-Argyle, Huntly, Maitland, and Bothwell, with a cousin of Bothwell, Sir James Balfour-signed a bond immediately afterwards, while the Court was still at Craigmillar, to the following purpose:

"That for sae meikle as it was thought expedient and profitable for the commonweal, by the nobility and lords underwritten, that sic an young fool and proud tyran (as the King) should not bear rule of them-for divers causes therefore they all had concluded that he should be put forth by one way or other—and whosoever should take the deed in hand or do it, they should defend and fortify it, for it should be by every one of them reckoned and holden done by themselves.'1

The curtain which was thus for a moment drawn aside again closes. The Queen went in the first week of December to Stirling, where Darnley was allowed to join her; and the English Catholics, who had been alarmed at the rumours which had gone abroad, flattered themselves into a hope that all would again go well. The King would make amends for the past by affection and submission; Mary Stuart would in time obliterate the painful feelings which her neglect of him had aroused.2

1 Ormeston's confession: PIT- | gusto del Rey por las cosas pasadas, CAIRN's Criminal Trials of Scotland.

2 'El Rey de Escocia ha ya viente dias que esta con la Reyna, y comen juntos; y aunque parece que no perderá tan presto del todo el des

todavia piensa que el tiempo, y estar juntos, y el Rey determinado de complacerle, hará mucho en la buena reconciliacion.'-De Silva to Philip, December 18: MS. Simancas.

A few days after, the Earl of Bedford arrived from England; the Parliament was then approaching its conclusion; the storm had subsided, and Elizabeth, free to act for herself, had commissioned Bedford to tell the Queen of Scots that her claims should be investigated as soon as possible, and 'should receive as much favour as she could desire to her contentation.'1 The ambassador had brought with him a magnificent font of gold weighing 330 ozs., as a splendid present to the heir of the English throne. The Prince, who was to have been dipped in it at his baptism, had grown too large by the delay of the ceremony; but Elizabeth suggested that it might be used for 'the next child."

The time had been when these things would have satisfied Mary Stuart's utmost hopes, and have filled her with exultation. Her thoughts, interests, and anxieties were now otherwise occupied. On the 15th, at five in the evening, the Prince was baptized by torch-light in Stirling Chapel; the service was that of the Catholic Church; the Archbishop of St Andrew's, the most abandoned of all Episcopal scoundrels, officiated, supported by three of his brethren. The French ambassador carried the child into the aisle; the Countess of Argyle, the same who had been present at Rizzio's murder, held him at the font as Elizabeth's representative; and three of the Scottish noblemen-Eglinton, Athol, and Ross-were present at the ceremony. The rest, with the English ambassador, stood outside the

1 Instructions to the Earl of Bedford going to Scotland: KEITH.

VOL. VII.

2 Ibid.

32

door. It boded ill for the supposed reconciliation that the Prince's father, though in the castle at the time, remained in his own room, either still brooding over his wrongs and afraid that some insult should be passed upon him, or else forbidden by the Queen to appear.

As soon as the baptism was over the suit for the restoration of Morton was continued: Bedford added his intercession to that of Murray; Bothwell, Athol, and all the other noblemen joined in the entreaty; and on the 24th the Queen with some affectation of reluctance gave way. George Douglas, who had been the first to strike Rizzio, and Faldonside, who had held a pistol to her breast, were alone excepted from a general and final pardon.1

Under any circumstances it could only have been with terror that Darnley could have encountered Morton and young Ruthven; but the conversation at Craigmillar, which had stolen into England, had been carried equally to his own ear. He knew that the pardon of Rizzio's murderers had been connected with his own destruction; and a whisper had reached him also of the bond which, though unsigned by the Queen, had been 'drawn by her own device.'" So long as Morton remained in exile he could hope that the conspiracy against him was incomplete. The proclamation of the pardon was his death-knell, and the same night, swiftly, 'without word spoken or leave taken, he stole away from Stirling and fled to his father.'

1 Bedford to Cecil, December 30: Scotch MSS. Rolls House.
2 Deposition of Thomas Crawford: MS. Ibid.

That at such a crisis he should have been attacked by a sudden and dangerous illness was, to say the least of it, a singular coincidence. A few miles from the castle blue spots broke out over his body, and he was carried into Glasgow languid and drooping, with a disease which the Court and the friends of the Court were pleased to call small-pox.

There for a time he lay, his father absent, himself hanging between life and death, attended only by a few faithful servants, while the Queen with recovered health and spirits spent her Christmas with Bothwell at Drummond Castle and Tullibardine, waiting the issue of the disease.

Unfortunately for all parties concerned, 1567. the King after a few days was reported to be January. slowly recovering. Either the natural disorder was too weak to kill him, or the poison had failed of its work. The Queen returned to Stirling: the favourite rode south to receive the exiles on their way back from England. In the yard of the hostelry of Whittingham,' Bothwell and Morton met; and Morton, long after—on the eve of his own execution, when to speak the truth might do him service where he was going, and could do him no hurt in this world-thus described what passed between them :

The Earl of Bothwell,' said Morton, 'proposed to me the purpose of the King's murder, seeing that it was the Queen's mind that he should be taken away, because she blamed the King of Davie's slaughter more than me.'