known"-had celebrated her virtues in choice Latin. The air, however, was thick with rumours of treachery, and once, or more than once, Mary had been warned that the Earl intended to carry her off. She treated the warnings with characteristic impatience, refusing to believe that a faithful servant of the Crown could so readily forget his duty to his mistress. There can be little doubt that even before the meeting of the Parliament in April, the great Border chief had been in communication with several of the leading nobility on the subject of the Queen's marriage. A few of the honester of their number appear to have been startled by the man's presumption; but the rest either openly approved or silently acquiesced. Such a plot was of course very welcome to the faction which traded on the dishonour of the Queen. The least clearheaded among them could not fail to perceive that were Mary forced into a union with Bothwell, her authority would be at an end.

Bothwell was tried for the murder on the 12th of April, and on the evening of the 19th the memorable supper at Ainslie's tavern took place. The supper appears to have been attended by all the influential members of the Parliament, which on that day closed its sittings. After supper, Bothwell laid before the assembled Peers a paper which he asked them to sign. The

Peers, with the exception of Lord Eglinton, who

slipped away," complied with the request; and men like Argyll, Huntly, Cassilis, Morton, Boyd, Seton, Semple, and Herries attached their names to a "band," by which they engaged to the utmost of their power to promote a marriage between Bothwell and the Queen. It is difficult to fathom the motives which could have induced so many powerful nobles to approve a marriage which in their hearts they detested; but Mr Froude is certainly not far wrong when he suggests that several at least appended their signatures in deliberate treachery to tempt the Queen to ruin.

Two days afterwards Mary went to Stirling. On her return she was seized by Bothwell, and carried off-with or without her consent-to Dunbar. When they reached the castle, the true object of the "ravishment" was disclosed. Her tears and reproaches-this is her own story, which may be held to be attested by Maitland— were thrown away upon her captor,-who, after she had treated his audacious proposition with indignation, produced the "band" which the nobility had signed. She was kept for a week a close prisoner. During all that time no hand was raised to set her free. At length, after actual violence had been used, she consented to become his wife.

It was on the 15th of May that the marriage was celebrated. "And that same day this pamphlet was attached upon the palace port,-Mense malas Maio nubere vulgus ait." The nobles who had lured Hepburn on were already mustering their vassals, and on the 7th June the Queen and her husband were forced to quit the palace and make for Borthwick. But they were surrounded before they had had time to rest, and it was with the utmost difficulty that, eluding the pursuers, they managed to reach Dunbar. On the 15th June the forces of the Queen and of the Confederate Lords faced each other all day at Carberry Hill. There was no fighting, however; an agreement having been concluded by which Bothwell was discreetly permitted to take himself away to Dunbar-(thence to Orkney, Shetland, and the Norwegian seas),-Mary returning to Edinburgh with the men who, as they professed, had risen to release her from her ravisher, but who treated her-now that she was in their hands-with studied rudeness and insults which

had been carefully rehearsed. They made it plain to her from the first that their anxiety for her welfare had been feigned; and two days later they sent her to the prison on the inch of Lochleven which had been prepared for her reception by Moray when the Darnley marriage was in prospect.

Divested of all extraneous matter these are the uncontradicted facts; how are these facts to be construed, in what sense are they to be read? Ever since the tragic story took place, there have been two factions who have found no difficulties in the way of a definitive judgment. On the one hand, it has been maintained (and is still maintained by the ecclesiastics who are about to canonise her at Rome) that Mary was innocent as a child, immaculate as a saint; on the other, that she had sinned as perhaps no other woman had sinned, and that the mistress of Bothwell was the murderer of Darnley.

It rather appears to me that no decisive conclusion is now possible, and that anything like dogmatism is to be avoided. My own impression is that either explanation is too simple and complete to be accepted as an entirely adequate solution of an extremely obscure and intricate problem. I would be inclined to say that there is a grain of truth in each: the whole truth in neither. While it must be freely acknowledged that Mary was rash and indiscreet to the verge of criminality, it may yet admit of reasonable doubt whether the graver charges preferred against her by the ruling party in Scotland have been, or are capable of being, substantiated.

The interpretation which consistently reconciles all, or most of, the facts known to us, is

that which rational criticism will prefer to accept. Such reconciliation will help to recommend to those who have no antipathies or predilections to gratify that interpretation of Mary's actions at this time which I have elsewhere ventured to propose.1 Those who agree with me will hold that Mary was not entirely unaware of the measures which were being taken by the nobility to secure in one way or other the removal of Darnley; that if she did not expressly sanction the enterprise, she failed, firmly and promptly, to forbid its execution; that though she hesitated to the last between pity and aversion, yet that what amounted to, or what may at least be characterised as, passive acquiescence, was sufficient to compromise her; that the equivocal position in which she found herself placed, either by accident or by design, sufficiently explains whatever in her subsequent conduct is wanting in firmness and dignity; that as the plot proceeded, Bothwell came to the front, and that to his daring and reckless hand the execution of the informal sentence of the peers was ultimately intrusted; that he induced the nobles who had been his accomplices to promote his suit to the Queen, and that for various reasons, good, bad, and indifferent, "the best part of the realm did ap

1 The Impeachment of Mary Stuart. 1870.