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and extraordinary visit, will it be unjust to her to in- CHAP. fer that these formed topics, both of her conference. and of her correspondence with him? if they did not, how came they at that moment to be so occupying and perturbing her, as to be deliberately stated by her own secretary from her own declaration, that they were among the occasions, that seven days before caused the illness, under which she seemed to be sinking?

There is no evidence on what day after the 26th October, Bothwell left Jedburgh: but there is a record, that on the 31st of that month she had provisions and necessaries purchased, to be sent to the Hermitage, as if he had returned thither.

82

She continued at Jedburgh till the 8th November,83 when she left it for Kelso, and proceeded towards the sea to Berwick, to view that town. The English deputy, after conducting her to Halydon Hill, to see it to most advantage, attended her with great honor, almost to Eyemouth. She travelled along the coast to Dunbar, as if to be

231 (Oct.) By the queen's command, bocht ane boll of keepit meill, four stains of cheis, and 3 horse providit to truss the same to the Armitage, with other necessaries, 24 shillings.' Treas. Acc. 2 Chal. 442.

83 The same accounts shew the duration of the residence at Jedburgh: Nov. 30, for expenses maid upon the lordis compositours to Jedburgh, fra the 9th day of October to the 8th day of Nov. inst. as the diat buke beris, 728 l. 6s. 2d. Item, to the justice general, fra the 9 October to the 8 November, 31. a day, 901.' 2 Ch. 442. A corresponding payment is also entered for sir John Bellendene, the justice clerk, for the same time. ib.

84 Maitland, lett. of 19 Nov. in Keith, 353. She reached Berwick on 15 Nov. ib. Sir John Forster, the English warden of the marches, conferring with her there on horseback, his courser reared up, and striking the queen's thigh, hurt her very evil. Incontinent, the warden alighted off his horse, and sat down upon his knees, craving pardon of her grace. She made him rise, and said, she was not hurt, yet it compelled her to stay two days at the castle of Hume, until she was well again.' Melv. p. 173. She was at Dunbar on the 18

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BOOK reinvigorated by the breezes from the ocean, and from thence on the 20th arrived at Craigmillar, a castle about a league from Edinburgh; 85 where she staid above two weeks, and where the nefarious actions that ensued at Edinburgh two months afterwards seem to have taken their origin during this visit.

86

The king came to her at this castle about 27th November, and staid with her nearly a week there, but no increase of real cordiality ensued, and none was likely to take place, in the opinion of the French ambassador; he only gives two of his reasons for thinking so, but they sufficiently explain the mutual dissatisfaction of this royal pair: his aversion to the submission she required, and her extreme jealousy of his planning to acquire partisans and power.87 The baptism of the prince at Stirling was the next court incident that was contemplated; but the king gave Le Croc an intimation that he would not attend the ceremony."

88

Nov. and wrote from thence to the privy council in England the letter in Keith, 354

85 Le Croc's lett. of 2 Dec. Keith, pref. 7. Mary wrote on 4 Dec. from Craigmillar, to send Bedford the letter, in Keith, 356. Melville's remark at this time was, the king followed her about where she rode, getting no good countenance; and therefore he passed to Glasgow, where he fell sick for displeasure.' p. 173.

96 Le Croc's letter of 15 October, from Jedburgh. Keith, 347. 67 Le Croc, in his letter of 2 Dec. to the archbishop, at Paris, wrote, The king returned to see the queen about five or six days ago; and the day before yesterday he sent word to desire me to speak with him half a league from this, which I complied with, and found that things go still worse and worse. I think he intends to go away to-morrow. To speak my mind freely to you, (but I beg you not to disclose what I say, in any place that may turn to my prejudice,) I do not expect, upon several accounts, any good understanding between them. I shall name only two The first is, the king will never humble himself as he ought; the other is, the queen can't perceive any one nobleman speaking with the king, but presently she suspects some contrivance among them.' Keith, pref. 7.

" Lett. ib. We cannot wonder at the king's dissatisfaction, when we

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The queen was not yet re-established in her CHAP. health. Her physician still attended her; but this shews that her illness made no diminution of her adverse feelings towards Darnley. Another passage of it so expressively coincides with the intimations already given from Maitland, of the mental agitation which contributed to her malady, that we cannot avoid connecting them with the same subject, She is in the hands of the physicians, and I do assure you is not at all well, and do believe the principal part of her disease to consist in a deep grief and sorrow. Nor does it seem possible to make her forget the same. Still she repeats these words, I could wish to be dead.' You know very well that the injury she has received is exceeding great, and her majesty will never forget it.'" There can be no doubt that the injury here alluded to, was the king's co-operation in the murder of Rizzio : and on comparing this letter with that of Maitland's written only eight days before, we can as little hesitate to infer that the vexation of Darnley's being her husband, and the thoughts how to be free from him, which her secretary intimated, were those which were producing the deep grief and sorrow, which the French envoy so emphatically associates with the great injury she had received. Her remarkable exclamation, so often repeated;

still she

find from sir J. Forster's dispatch of 11 Dec. that what he only ought to have done was assigned to another. The earl of Bothwell is appointed to receive the ambassador, and all things for the christening are at his appointment. The same is scarcely well liked by the nobility, as is said. The king and queen are at present at Craigmillar, but in little greater familiarity than he was all the while past.' Rob. app. 230. Mary's letter to Bedford, of the 4th, named the 15th as the intended day of the ceremony. Keith, 355. Elizabeth had sent this nobleman instructions to attend it on 7 Nov. ib. 356-9.

89 Lett. in Keith's pref. 7.

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repeats these words, I could wish to be dead!' imply an agitation and conflict of mind, which so strikingly resembles what could not but arise, when propositions were made to her of an outgait,' a way to get rid of her husband, that our most guarded judgment can hardly avoid referring the expressions to the schemes and conferences which her friends, Huntley and Argyle, have acknowledged, were forming against the king at this very moment at Craigmillar.

These earls state that she was there in December, accompanied by Bothwell, Murray, Maitland, and themselves." That Murray and Maitland came one morning to Argyle as he was in bed, and lamented the continued banishment of Morton and the others, for that death of Rizzio, which had been effected to prevent the parliamentary proscription of Murray and his friends;" and stated that it was incumbent on the latter to procure a termination of their exile." Argyle suggested the obstacle to be in the queen's opposition." Their reply was,

90 Their protestation was printed by Anderson, from the copy in the Cotton library, Cal. C. 1, in his collection, v. 4. p. 188-94, and from him by Keith, app. 136. It was written either in Dec. 1568, or Jan. 1569.

91We being in bed, who, lamenting the banishment of the earl of Morton, lords Lyndsey and Ruthven, with the rest of their faction, said, that the occasion of the murder of David, slain by them in the presence of the queen's majesty, was for to trouble and impeache the parliament, wherein the earl of Murray and others should have been forfeited, and declared rebels.' Protest. ib.

92 And seeing that the same was chiefly for the welfare of the earl of Murray, it should be esteemed ingratitude if he and his friends, in reciproque manner, did not enterprise all that were [in their] puissance for relief the said banished; wherefore they thought that one of our part should have been as desirous thereto as they were.' Protest. ib.

93 The earls add, And we agreeing to the same, to do all that was in us for their relief, providing that the queen's majesty should not be offended thereat.' ib.

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that the nearest and best way to obtain her consent CHAP. would be to liberate her from her husband, with whom she was on many accounts so much offended.94 Argyle declared he knew not how this could be accomplished;95 and Maitland's ready answer was, that they would find the means well enough to make her quit of him, if Argyle and Huntley would not counteract them.96 This conversation certainly did not directly implicate the queen; but it is the evidence of both Maitland and Murray, at the time when they were peculiarly interested not to be deceived in their judgment on this point, that if they could but effect a divorcement for her from her husband, they might obtain even the pardon of those who had murdered her favorite minister. Her hatred to them was therefore less than her aversion at that time to the king, in the estimation of those who were always about her, and among the highest in her confidence. This fact coincides with the intimation of both Maitland's and Le Croc's official and private correspondence.

The same subject was then proposed by Murray and Maitland to the earl of Huntley, with a promise, if he and Argyle would concur in the intended measures, that their lands and offices should be restored

On this, Lethington [Maitland] proponit and said, That the nearest and best way to obtain the said earl of Morton's pardon, was to promise to the queen's majesty to find a mean to make divorcement between her grace and the king her husband, who has offended her highness so highly in many ways.' ib. 95 Ib.

Lethington said, the earl of Murray being ever present, 'My lords! care not you thereof, we shall find the means well enough to make her quit of him, so that you and my lord of Huntley will only behold the matter, and not be offended thereat.' ib. This remark implies that Maitland and some one else had planned to do it, without Argyle and Huntley taking any active part in the execution.