one that depends on me; yet you may command me in all things. About Lady Reres, he said, I pray God she may serve you to your honour. He suspects the thing you know, and of his life; but as to the last, when I speak two or three kind words he is happy and out of doubt. Burn this letter, for it is dangerous and nothing well said in it.'

Then following the ebb and flow of her emotions to that strange point where the criminal passion of a woman becomes almost virtue in its utter self-abandonment, she appealed to Bothwell not to despise her for the treachery to which for his sake she was condescending.

'Have no evil opinion of me for this,' she concluded; you yourself are the cause of it; for my own private revenge I would not do it to him. Seeing, then, that to obey you, my dear love, I spare neither honour, conscience, hazard, nor greatness, take it I pray you in good part. Look not at that woman whose false tears should not be so much regarded as the true and faithful labour which I am bearing to deserve her place; to obtain which against my nature-I betray those that may hinder me. God forgive me, and God give you, my only love, the happiness and prosperity which your humble and faithful friend desires for you. She hopes soon to be another thing to you. It is late. I could write to you for ever; yet now I will kiss your hand

and end."1

1 Mary Stuart to Bothwell: ANDERSON's Collection.

With these thoughts in her mind Mary Stuart, Queen of Scotland, lay down upon her bed-to sleep, doubtless-sleep with the soft tranquillity of an innocent child. Remorse may disturb the slumbers of the man who is dabbling with his first experiences of wrong. When the pleasure has been tasted and is gone, and nothing is left of the crime but the ruin which it has wrought, then too the Furies take their seats upon the midnight pillow. But the meridian of evil is for the most part left unvexed; and when human creatures have chosen their road they are let alone to follow it to the end. The next morning the Queen added a few closing words:

'If in the mean time I hear nothing to the contrary, according to my commission I will bring the man to Craigmillar on Monday-where he will be all Wednesday—and I will go to Edinburgh to draw blood of me. Provide for all things and discourse upon it first with yourself.'

This letter and another to Maitland she gave in charge to Paris to take to Edinburgh. In delivering them she bade him tell Bothwell that she had prevented the King from kissing her, as Lady Reres could witness; and she told him to ask Maitland whether Craigmillar was to be the place, or whether they had changed their plan. They would give him answers with which he would come back to her immediately. She would herself wait at Glasgow with the King till his return.

Paris, after being a day upon the road, reached Edinburgh with his despatches on the night of Saturday the

25th. On going to Bothwell's room the next morning he found the Earl absent, and a servant directed him to a house belonging to Sir Robert Balfour, brother of James Balfour who signed the Craigmillar bond.

St Mary's-in-the-Fields, called commonly Kirk-aField, was a roofless and ruined church, standing just inside the old town walls of Edinburgh, at the northwestern corner of the present College. Adjoining it there stood a quadrangular building which had at one time belonged to the Dominican monks. The north front was built along the edge of the slope which descends to the Cowgate; the south side contained a low range of unoccupied rooms which had been 'priests' chambers;' the east consisted of offices and servants' rooms; the principal apartments in the dwelling into which the place had been converted were in the western wing, which completed the square. Under the windows there was a narrow strip of grass-plat dividing the house from the town wall; and outside the wall were gardens into which there was an opening through the cellars by an underground passage. The principal gateway faced north and led direct into the quadrangle.

Here it was that Paris found Bothwell with Sir James Balfour. He delivered his letter and gave his message. The Earl wrote a few words in reply. 'Commend me to the Queen,' he said as he gave the note, 'and tell her that all will go well. Say that Balfour and I have not slept all night, that everything is arranged, and that the King's lodgings are ready for him. I have sent her a diamond. You may say I would send my

heart too were it in my power-but she has it already.'

A few more words passed, and from Bothwell Paris went to Maitland, who also wrote a brief answer. To the verbal question he answered, 'Tell her Majesty to take the King to Kirk-a-Field;' and with these replies the messenger rode back through the night to his mistress.

She was not up when he arrived; her impatience could not rest till she was dressed, and she received him in bed. He gave his letters and his message. She asked if there was anything further. He answered that Bothwell bade him say 'he would have no rest till he had accomplished their enterprise, and that for love of her he would train a pike all his life.' The Queen laughed. 'Please God,' she said, 'it shall not come to that.'

1

A few hours later she was on the road with her victim. He could be moved but slowly. She was obliged to rest with him two days at Linlithgow; and it was not till the 30th that she was able to bring him to Edinburgh. As yet he knew nothing of the change of his destination, and supposed that he was going on to Craigmillar. Bothwell however met the cavalcade outside the gates and took charge of it. No attention was paid either to the exclamation or remonstrance; Darnley was informed that the Kirk-a-Field house was most convenient for him, and to Kirk-a-Field he was conducted.

'The lodgings' prepared for him were in the west wing, which was divided from the rest of the house by a

1 Examination of Paris: PITCAIRN's Criminal Trials, vol. i.

VOL. VII.

33

large door at the foot of the staircase. A passage ran along the ground floor from which a room opened which had been fitted up for the Queen. At the head of the stairs a similar passage led first to the King's roomwhich was immediately over that of the Queen—and further on to closets and rooms for the servants.

Here it was that Darnley was established during the last hours which he was to know on earth. The keys of the doors were given ostentatiously to his groom of the chamber, Thomas Nelson; the Earl of Bothwell being already in possession of duplicates. The door from the cellar into the garden had no lock, but the servants were told that it could be secured with bolts from within. The rooms themselves had been comfortably furnished, and a handsome bed had been set up for the King with new hangings of black velvet. The Queen however seemed to think that they would be injured by the splashing from Darnley's bath, and desired that they might be taken down and changed. Being a person of ready expedients too she suggested that the door at the bottom of the staircase was not required for protection. She had it taken down and turned into a cover for the bath-vat; 'so that there was nothing left to stop the passage into the said chamber but only the portal door."1

After this little attention she left her husband in possession; she intended herself to sleep from time to time there, but her own room was not yet ready.

The further plan was still unsettled. Bothwell's first

1 Examination of Thomas Nelson: PITCAIRN.