affect the mind, whenever it is freely admitted. that Mary could not have been ignorant that the peers of Scotland were leagued against her husband. If Mary was not the accomplice of Bothwell-it has been asked, for instance-why did she fail to prosecute and punish the murderers? It may be admitted that no resolute effort was made to secure their punishment; but the reason is obvious. The Privy Council was the Scottish executive; and every Lord of the Council was more or less compromised. Even had Mary been anxious to bring the assassins to justice, it would have been madness, as matters stood, to make the attempt. The trial of Bothwell was forced upon a reluctant Council by the importunities of Lennox, and the acquittal was a matter of form. Still, in all this, there is no evidence of that criminal complicity with a lover which is the sting of the accusation against the Queen. I return to Maitland. During the six months that followed the Craigmillar conference, Lethington's position may be defined without difficulty. He had come to the conclusion that Darnley must be removed, the "young fool and presumptuous tyrant " had made himself impossible, had united all parties against him, had alienated the Queen and disgusted the nobles. But we may feel perfectly certain that Maitland at least was The far from eager to put Bothwell in Darnley's place. Had he had any suspicions indeed that Bothwell aspired to the Crown, had he had any suspicions that Bothwell was favoured by Mary, he would probably have concluded that Darnley, as the lesser evil, might be allowed to remain. Peace had been patched up between the Secretary and Bothwell; but the truce was hollow. hostility of the fanatical reformers had not abated; Mary had hitherto parried with success the weapons that had been directed against her by Knox and Cecil, by Morton and Moray; but if she could be compromised, if, for instance, she could be forced into an unworthy and dishonouring marriage, the object for which they had so pertinaciously plotted might be attained. Knox, could he have had his way, would have put Mary to death without scruple; the laymen were less sanguinary; but-now that a prince was born-they might at least compel her to abdicate. James VI., like James IV., could be used as a "buckler" by the disaffected nobles and the fanatical "professors." They could play the son against the mother, as they had already played the husband against the wife. The young prince, indeed, was in one view a surer card than Darnley. There was no risk that an infant in arms would turn against them as Darnley had turned. Maitland, as we shall see, lent himself to neither faction. He detested Both well; he distrusted Knox; whereas he was devoted to Mary; and to Mary he steadily adhered. Whenever Maitland's peace, in the autumn of 1566, was made with Mary, the relations of the Queens again became cordial, or at least assumed a show of cordiality. On 4th October he wrote to Cecil, urging him to use all such good offices as he was wont to use for the joining of the realms in perfect amity; and this letter was followed next day by one from Mary herself, in which she assured Cecil that until the affair of Rokeby the spy she had always had a good opinion of him as a faithful Minister; and that, as he had now recovered his old place in her goodwill, she would be glad to baptism of the prince, her son.1 see him at the Maitland went with her to Jedburgh in October, from whence he wrote more than once to Cecil and Beaton, describing the symptoms of her dangerous illness. A curious letter, dated from Home Castle in the Merse, has been preserved, in which he tells the English Secretary that his own experience of backbiters makes him marvel less at the 1 Maitland to Cecil, 4th OcMary to Cecil, 5th Oc tober. tober. October. Maitland to Beaton, 24th October. It appears from the letter of 26th October that 2 Maitland to Cecil, 24th-26th Mary had had a relapse. misconstruction of Cecil's doings.1 From Home the Court moved to Whittinghame, and from there to Craigmillar,-where, as we have seen, the famous conference of the nobles took place. Mary, attended by Maitland, left Craigmillar for Holyrood on 5th December, remaining in the capital till the 10th; and then, "though not quite recovered," proceeded to Stirling for the baptism of the prince. Camden alleged that Darnley was not present at the baptism, as the English ambassador had received instructions from Elizabeth not to recognise him in any way -an assertion which Robertson and later writers have attempted to controvert. It is to be observed, however, that in Nau's recently published narrative the same reason for Darnley's absence is assigned: "The King was not present at the baptism, for he refused to associate with the English unless they would acknowledge his title of King, and to do this they had been forbidden by the Queen of England, their mistress." 3 The baptism was hardly over before Maitland's influence was exerted to obtain Morton's pardon 1 Maitland to Cecil, 11th the Cotton Library, that "DarnNovember. ley was constrained to keep his 2 Bedford to Cecil, 5th De- chamber for fear of offending cember. the Queen of England, whose malice still continued toward him." Ibid., p. cxlvii. 3 Nau, p. 33. Nau's narrative agrees with the statement in another contemporary MS. in (which Mary granted with her usual generous facility); and early in 1567 this powerful and dangerous noble was again in Scotland. It was at this time also that Maitland's persistent wooing was crowned with success; in January-in the Chapel-Royal at Stirling-he was married to Mary Fleming. The Queen had threatened to interrupt his honeymoon by sending him on a mission to England; but he excused himself on the plea that it was unreasonable to divorce him from the young wife to whom he had been so recently united.1 Some time during January, either before or after his marriage, he went with Bothwell to Whittinghame, where Morton was residing with his near relative, Archibald Douglas. Hitherto Bothwell and Morton had been the leaders of hostile factions, and it was probably thought desirable that Bothwell should be accompanied by one of Morton's friends. But Maitland does not appear to have been present during the interview at which, as Morton afterwards admitted in his confession, the murder of Darnley was discussed. Archibald Douglas was "in the yarde"; but no one else. "In the yarde of Whittinghame, after long communing, 1 Maitland to Cecil, 8th Feb-| ruary 1567. Mary wrote of the same date a letter which one is inclined to fancy she could hardly have written had she known that Darnley was to be murdered within the next thirty or forty hours. |