life was despaired of, Bothwell arrived in a horse litter at Jedburgh to receive her last instructions. But Mary did not die, and soon was back at work again, lodging for the sake of the country air at Craigmillar, a castle three miles to the south of Edinburgh. Her detestation of and irritability with Darnley grew. It had come to her knowledge that he was intriguing against her, and that he had sent letters to France, Spain and the Vatican complaining of her tepidity and indifference towards Catholicism. To the French Ambassador, Mary continually said I could wish to be dead,' and that if she could not rid herself of Darnley she would commit suicide. Darnley had a particular dread of Morton (whom he had betrayed over the Riccio murder), and obstinately refused to have him back to Court as had been allowed in the case of some of the other conspirators. The Lords made his refusal to pardon Morton the excuse for an open quarrel with him, and Darnley left the castle. In consequence of this a conference took place, known afterwards as the 'Pact of Craigmillar.' It seems to have arisen informally from conversations held between Maitland, Moray, and Argyll.

These three men were anxious to reinstate Morton and his companions in exile, and Maitland thought the best way to accomplish this would be by getting Darnley and Mary divorced. Argyll said he did not see how this could be done. Maitland said ' We shall find the means to make her rid of him.' These three men then took Huntly and Bothwell into their confidence. Then all went to the Queen. Maitland as spokesman said that if she would consent to pardon Morton means might be found to obtain a divorce between her and her husband. Mary entertained the idea so long as it did not affect the succession of her son. Then it was discussed what rank Darnley was to hold, and the Queen asked whether it would not be better for her to retire for a while to France; this suggestion was strenuously opposed by Maitland.

'Do not imagine, Madam, that we, the principal nobility of the realm, shall not find the means of ridding your Majesty of him without prejudice to your son; and albeit my Lord of Moray here present be little less scrupulous for a Protestant than your grace is for a Papist, be assured that he will look through his fingers and behold our doings saying nothing to the same.'

The Queen in reply said:

'I will that ye do nothing through which any spot may be laid on my honour or conscience; and therefore I pray you, rather let

the matter be in the state that it is, abiding till God of His goodness put remedy thereto.' *

She was against divorce, because as a Catholic she could only obtain an annulment on the ground of consanguinity and this would affect the legitimacy of her son. The upshot of the deliberations was that the conspirators agreed to re-establish Morton, Ruthven and the rest who had fled after Riccio's death, and arrest and impeach Darnley for high treason. In December 1566 a bond was drawn up by the corrupt and treacherous Balfour. Balfour, Maitland, Huntly and Argyll signed, binding themselves to remove Darnley by some expedient or other, but Moray did not sign. Morton, Ruthven and Lindsay from Newcastle had sworn as price of pardon to become party to the bond of Craigmillar. Morton on his return refused, however, to take action until he had the Queen's approval of the conspiracy in writing. † Meanwhile outwardly things were going on as usual, and preparations went forward for the baptism of James VI at Stirling. Darnley was not present at the festivities, although he was in the town. The bond-men once more sued their Queen for Morton's pardon, backed this time by the Earl of Bedford and his Royal mistress. What could Mary do but yield, and how could Darnley be anything but terrified at the reinstatement of his worst enemy? He received a warning through Lennox, his father, of a bond' concerning him and his future. On Christmas Eve Mary signed the amnesty for twenty-seven persons concerned in the assassination of Riccio. Stricken with fear Darnley rode away to his home near Glasgow without taking leave of the Queen. Falling very ill by the way, he suspected poison, though really he had caught the small-pox. From his father's house he wrote to explain his conduct, saying that Mary allowed him no authority, and that the lords isolated him.

From this time on the plot thickened; issues became more complicated. Two things had been arrived at by the bondmen: (1) the pardon of Morton and his companions; (2) the determination to get rid of Darnley. It now became evident that a third and unsuspected decision had been taken contingent on the execution of the second, and that was the marriage of the Queen with Bothwell.

Lady Blennerhassett lays little stress on a document to which Mary appended her seal on the 23rd of December, the day before Darnley's flight. This document re-established the Catholic Bishop of St. Andrews as primate and legate of

*

Philippson, vol. iii.

P.

267.

† Ibid. p. 286,

Scotland and included the power of matrimonial jurisdiction.* Is it not very strange that this jurisdiction was restored only to one Catholic bishop in whose diocese were situated Edinburgh and the demesnes of Bothwell? The Privy Council can hardly have been ignorant of this patent, which apparently proves that during the baptismal ceremonies at Stirling Mary was, as M. Philippson says, facing a double perspective, firstly of separation from her husband and secondly of the separation of Bothwell and his wife.† The Bishop of St. Andrews was later on one of the signatories to the Ainslie bond and he it was who annulled the marriage of Lady Bothwell. From this sinister Christmas plot it appeared as though Bothwell had been selected (on account of his Protestantism and of Mary's undoubted passion for him) to be the future instrument of government for the Calvinist confederacy. The situation however is curious and is susceptible of several interpretations. In January 1567 Bothwell and Maitland went to meet the exile Morton under the Whittinghame yew, and from this time onwards we are uncomfortably persuaded that Morton and Maitland were using Bothwell as a means to an end, i.e. the success of the Protestant party guided by themselves.

M. Philippson thinks that the Queen went to Glasgow two days after the yew-tree conference in order to fetch Darnley away from the plottings of the Lennox family and to reconcile herself at least outwardly with him, fearing his open enmity too much to leave him at Glasgow. He does not credit her with any evil intention, but it is difficult to see any reason for conveying a man ill with the small-pox from his own home to a disused monastery, and the balance of probability lies in the direction of the journey to Glasgow being in execution of some arrangement of which we are not cognisant. Mary was received outside that town with every demonstration of loyalty. In the interview she had with Darnley before supper that night she told him he must be conveyed in the horselitter she had brought with her to Craigmillar.§ He made affectionate vows, spoke of new intentions and forgiveness for past follies, and the Queen, his wife, gave him her hand in token of reconciliation. On the second evening too they had a long talk, though the air of the room was so 'infecte' that Mary could not endure it more than two hours. She questioned

* Philippson, vol. iii. p. 276. † Ibid. p. 304. Ibid. p. 284.

§ According to the depositions of Crawford and Nelson he refused to go to Craigmillar and asked to go to Kirk-o'-Field, vol. iii. p. 289,

him as to what rumours had reached him of plots hatched at Craigmillar she asked him what Lords he hated; he answered that he hated none. Weak with illness and incapable of resisting his transportation to Craigmillar, he said, throwing himself on her mercy, that he knew his own flesh could do 'him no hurt.' This was the moment at which the two important Casket Letters are supposed to have been writtenthese are the conversations they purport to report. It is Mary's part of kidnapper that they reveal.

We do not propose to say much about these letters, as they are referred to elsewhere in this number (pp. 248-9), but the casket itself was a silver-gilt box, a present made to Mary by her first husband. In June 1567 it was in the keeping of Balfour, friend of Bothwell and commandant of Edinburgh. After Carberry Hill it became public property. Morton and others who scrutinised the contents declared that it contained eight letters in French without date, signature, or address, some poems and two marriage contracts. Only one of the documents is of real importance-Letter II from Glasgow, for it directly implicates the Queen in the murder of Darnley. It is however so like Crawford's report of the proceedings at Glasgow as to be possibly based upon it. Mr. Lang does not believe in integral falsification, but admits the possibility that Lethington and Balfour may have made valuable interpolations. Mr. Henderson opines that Lethington had no time to accomplish so difficult a forgery and that Balfour had no key to the casket. He finds no evidence against, no suspicion of Lethington in contemporary documents. Lord Acton and the German critics believe in the integral authenticity of the letters, but whether we believe in their authenticity or not, Mary, as Lady Blennerhassett says, is condemned by her actions. It was owing to her persuasion that the sick lad was moved to Edinburgh, and whether she was the consenting and conscious co-operator with the conspirators, as we are obliged after the divorce arrangements to consider probable, or not, she, a woman who had repeatedly expressed her delight in assassination and her gratitude to those who executed or attempted it, drew Darnley to his doom.*

Mary and her husband left Glasgow on the 27th of January and arrived at Edinburgh on the 1st of February. Darnley was conveyed to the western wing of a disused convent of Dominican friars, which stood near the roofless church of Our Lady-in-the-Field close to the walls of Edinburgh. Darnley's

* Lectures on Modern History, vol. i, Lord Acton, pp. 151-2.

bedroom on the first floor was hung with tapestry; a great bed of brown velvet, ornamented with gold and silver lace, was there for him to lie on, and the floor was covered with a Turkey carpet. A turnpike stair led down to the Queen's room, where a bed of red and yellow damask with a coverlet of marten's fur had been installed. Considering how hastily the house had been put in order it was very comfortable. The Queen slept in her red and yellow bed on Wednesday the 5th and on Friday the 7th February. On this Friday Lord Robert Stuart, one of Mary's half-brothers, who had a pity and a liking for Darnley, warned him there was a plot against his life. Darnley told his wife, who immediately taxed Lord Robert as to his story, thus reassuring her husband.

On the Saturday, Moray, who never obviously inculpated himself, went to his wife at Fife. On the Sunday Mary supped at Sir James Balfour's house with Huntly, Bothwell, Cassilis and the Bishop of the Isles, and after supper went along the dark wynds accompanied by torchbearers to visit Darnley. At about ten o'clock she reached her husband's room and sat beside his bed. Huntly, Argyll, Bothwell and Cassilis played dice, while the Queen talked to the sick youth lying in his taffeta mask on that dark velvet bed. About midnight the Queen rose, and placing a ring upon Darnley's finger kissed him good-night: at the door she turned and said It is eleven months to-day since Riccio was slain.' To Darnley, ill and lonely, the words sounded ominous, and he said to his servant Nelson: She was very kind: but why did she speak of Davie's slaughter?' Opening his book of psalms he read aloud Psalm lv.: 'My heart is disquieted within "me, and the fear of death is fallen upon me.' Mary meanwhile went back to Holyrood to dance at a masque.

Men and women said afterwards that Darnley's cries for mercy had come to them upon the still night air. His body was found in the field hard by, together with that of a page, Taylor. It seemed that they had tried to escape from the explosion, but that they had been strangled by a person or persons unknown.

When the upholsterers came next morning to hang the widow's rooms with black it was Bothwell who stood in the candlelight conversing with the Queen, who lay abed. Later in the same morning she presided over the Privy Council. During the official inquiry into the crime neither sentinels nor gatekeeper were called to give evidence as to who had come and gone to Kirk-o'-Field that night. Two days later an offer of reward was made; two thousand pounds and a free pardon were