to accuse Maitland; and his persistency had forced Mary to make some inquiry into the truth. of the accusations. "The King cannot obtain such things as he seeks; to wit, such persons as the Secretary, the Justice-Clerk, and ClerkRegister, to be put out of their office,-alleging that they were guilty of this last odious fact, whereof the Queen's Majesty hath taken trial and finds them not guilty therein." 1 Buchanan's testimony is to the same effect. Though "chiefest enemy to David after the King's grace," yet not being "advertisit by the Lords" of their enterprise, Maitland took no part in the murder. But he was "suspected of the Queen," and he "fled with the others." Melville adds that he was in

danger of his life. "That same night the Earl of Athol, the Laird of Tullibardine, and Secretary Lethington were permitted to retire themselves out of the palace, and were in great fear of their lives." 2

It has been constantly assumed that Lethington was an actor in the Rizzio tragedy; but the facts to which I have called attention, and which have been hitherto overlooked, are hardly consistent with the popular impression. We know, besides, that he was busy making love to the

1 Robert Melville to Arch- Scots College, Paris), ii. 461. bishop Bethune, 22d October 2 Buchanan's Chameleon. 1566. Keith (a copy from the | Melville's Memoirs, p. 67.

Queen's favourite Mary at the very time when he is accused of plotting against her mistress; and on the whole, after examination of the conflicting testimony, I incline to hold that his complicity has not been established. He had not, in short, been "advertisit by the Lords."

The conspirators, foiled by Mary's brilliant promptitude, did not reap the harvest on which they had reckoned. Moray, Rothes, Ochiltree, Kirkaldy of Grange, indeed, rode into Edinburgh next day to find the Queen a virtual prisoner in Holyrood. But during the night that followed Mary convinced her foolish husband that he had chosen dangerous allies, as indeed was true enough, and persuaded him to fly with her to Dunbar. For romantic hardihood, there is nothing in her eventful life to compare with that midnight ride across the Lothians. Groping her way through the charnel-house of the Abbey, she reached the gate in the palace wall where Arthur Erskine was waiting. A single sentinel might have stopped her, but they passed unchallenged by friend or foe. Once clear of the palace park and gardens, the open country lay before her, and, mounted behind Erskine, in whose honour she had boundless confidence-" I would trust him with a thousand lives!"-she hurried on to the coast. Bothwell and Huntly, "by leaping over a window toward the little garden

VOL. II.

M

where the lyons were lodged,"1 had escaped from the palace immediately after the murder, and were already in the field. In eight-andforty hours Mary found herself at the head of an army which the Confederates did not dare to face. Retiring from Edinburgh, they dispersed in all directions, the majority seeking the hospitality of Elizabeth, to whose Ministers, as we have seen, the details of the plot had been confidentially communicated some time before its execution. "Upon the xvii day of March, quhilk was Sunday, the hail Lords, committers of the slaughter and crimes above written, with all their complices and men of war, with dolorous hearts departit from Edinburgh toward Linlithgow, at seven hours in the morning. And upon the same day John Knox, minister of Edinburgh, in likewise departit from the said burgh at twa hours afternoon, with ane great murning of the godly of religion.'

"2

The Queen was again completely successful; and, bitterly resenting the ingratitude of her husband and the perfidy of her nobles, she might have been expected to punish the violence of which she had been the victim with extreme severity. There can be no doubt that with Athol and Bothwell and Huntly and the whole of the Border clans at her back, she could, had

1 Melville, p. 64.

2 Diurnal of Occurrents, p. 94.

she chosen, have sent the insurgent Lords to prison or to the scaffold. But she did not choose. A policy of conciliation was steadily pursued. The treachery of Moray had been a bitter mortification; but Moray was forgiven. So were Rothes, and Ochiltree, and Kirkaldy. She reconciled old enemies; she pacified ancestral feuds. She scattered pardons right and left. She was eager to forget and forgive. Her politic generosity was attended with immediate and gratifying success. Her moderate policy was universally approved. James VI. was born. on the 19th of June, and all over Scotland the fires of joy" were lighted. lighted. Elizabeth wept for envy,-she was a barren stock, while the Queen of Scots was the mother of a fair son.

66

'I never," Le Croc declared, "saw her Majesty so much beloved, honoured, or esteemed, nor so great a harmony among all her subjects as at present is by her wise conduct; for I cannot perceive the smallest difference or division." 1

Yet the prospect was not unclouded. Mary's enemies had been baffled for the moment; but the religious and political forces which Knox and Cecil represented remained persistently hostile. Melville (who acted as Secretary in Maitland's absence) had been forced to warn his mistress that "having so many factious enemies lying in

1 Le Croc to Beaton, 15th October 1566. Keith, ii. 451.

wait to make their advantage of the least appearance that can be made," she would require to be more than ordinarily circumspect. The slightest indiscretion would be cruelly punished. Was it probable (her friends could not but ask) that a woman like Mary, constitutionally frank, impulsive, and unconventional, would pass through the ordeal unscathed?

The general situation was sufficiently embarrassing; but there were specific difficulties-the alienation of Maitland, the folly of Darnley, the ascendancy of Bothwell, as well as her own impaired health, which at the close of the year 1566 must have made the most sanguine loyalist regard the future with grave apprehension.

Of these embarrassments indeed one had been removed in the course of the autumn. The differences with Maitland had been composed, and the Queen and her Minister were again in friendly accord.

I have been unable to discover any entirely satisfactory explanation of the motives which induced Maitland to quit the Court. After Rizzio's death, he went with Athol, as we have seen, to the Perthshire Highlands; but though Athol must have returned to Holyrood directly on the collapse of the conspiracy, Maitland did

1 Melville's Memoirs, p. 72.