Mary's sufferings at this time to hold that she was a willing victim. When it is pointed out, however, that even on the day of her marriage she was weeping sorely and longing only for death, we are reminded that she was "overmastered by an imperious infatuation,"-a sweeping and somewhat singular apology.1

These were the scenes which were being enacted at Holyrood when Maitland stole away from the Court to join the nobles who were arming their vassals. The two parties-Conservative and Radical, Catholic and Calvinist— had by this time coalesced. The faction which had been persistently disloyal were first in the field; but they had latterly been joined by many of the nobles who were personally attached to the Queen. There can be little doubt that the irreconcilables had been sedulously preparing for the crisis which they had helped to accelerate (how far, by flattering his ambition, they had tempted Bothwell to aspire, how far, by forcing her into an anomalous and untenable position, they had tempted Mary to comply, cannot perhaps be precisely known; but that there had been a world of double-dealing is clearly proved); and that they hoped to turn it to their own advantage. But the ostensible object of the

Burton, iv. 416.

rising was to deliver the Queen from Bothwell; and unless this plea had been put forward, no alliance with the loyalists would have been practicable. When the pretence succeeded, and when men like Athol and Argyll and Maitland were found in their ranks, it became all the more necessary to disguise in the meantime their real design. I entertain no doubt that a Government, of which, either as King or Regent, Moray should be head, had been long in contemplation; and Moray was thought to have purposely left the country before the marriage, in order that his partisans might have a freer hand in dealing with his sister. But this was a dead secret as yet; Morton and Lindsay and Glencairn and Grange were in arms, not to subvert the Government, but to release the Queen; and it was on this understanding that they were joined by Maitland.

It is important (not for Maitland's consistency only) that on this point there should be no misunderstanding; and, as it happens, the evidence is conclusive. Robert Melville, writing to Cecil in the beginning of May-a week before the marriage-informed him that the Lords were ready to take the field. "Since the Earl Bothwell did carry the Queen's Majesty violently to Dunbar, where she is judged to be detained without her own liberty, and against her will, divers

noblemen-yea! the most part of the whole subjects of the realm-are very miscontent therewith, and apparently will not bear it. The truth is, when she was first carried to Dunbar by him, the Earl of Huntly and my Lord of Ledington were taken as prisoners, and my brother James, with divers other domestic servants; and her Majesty commanded some of her company to pass to Edinburgh and charge the town to be in armour for her rescue. Quhilk they incontinent obeyit, and past without their ports upon foot, but could not help; quhilk shame done by a subject to our Sovereign offends the whole realm." (Melville, it will be observed, confirms the statement in the Diurnal,' that the news of the ravishing of her Majesty having been brought to the Provost of Edinburgh, “incontinent the common bell rang, and the inhabitants thereof ran to armour and wappynnis, the portes was steekit, the artillery of the castle shot.") "And it appears both Papist and Protestant joins together with an earnest affection for the weill of their country. The said Lords are gone to their counties to assemble their friends together with sic expedition as they may." The Proclamation issued by the Privy Council on 6th June (on the pre

1 Diurnal of Occurrents, 24th April, p. 109.

2 Robert Melville to Cecil,

7th May 1567. National MSS. of England, Part III., No. lx.

amble that the Queen's Majesty's most noble person is and has been for a long space detained in captivity and thraldom), goes on to declare that the nobility have assembled to deliver her from bondage and captivity. Again, in the Proclamation of 12th June, it is stated that James, Earl Bothwell, having, on the 24th April, put violent hands on our Sovereign Lady's most noble person, and having since then detained her in captivity, the Lords have risen to deliver her from her prison. In the Minutes of June 16, June 21, June 26, July 7, July 9, and August 11, the same plea is repeated,-the Peers had pursued and were pursuing Bothwell for having laid violent hands upon the Queen.1 It will be observed that most of these minutes are of later date than Carberry; so that even after Mary had been sent to Lochleven, the nobles (in whose counsels by this time Morton had acquired a commanding influence) did not venture to imply that she was Bothwell's accomplice. The pretence on which she was sent to Lochleven (viz., that she had refused to abandon Bothwell) will be afterwards examined; what I am at present concerned to show is, that the nobles, when Maitland joined them, were in arms, not against Mary, but against Bothwell, her jailer.

1 Register of Privy Council, vol. i. pp. 519-545.

It is difficult indeed to read the proclamations of the Lords with patience. They were written by the men who had plotted against the Queen. They were written by the men who were the accomplices of Bothwell. The declaration that they had risen to release Mary was ridiculous pretence; the declaration that they had risen to revenge Darnley was odious hypocrisy. I speak, of course, of the faction which Morton led. There were men in the ranks of the Confederate Lords from an early period who were the true friends of Mary Stuart; later on these were joined by Maitland. But in so far as the Moray-Morton faction had a hand in its production, the defence of their policy which is contained in the public records is grotesquely insincere and transparently false.

Maitland at least was for the Queen. It was Bothwell who drove him from the Court; it was to rid the Queen of Bothwell that he joined the Lords. He had been with her throughout the whole dismal business; he had witnessed her humiliations; he had listened to her complaints; yet this acute and observant diplomatist, who had enjoyed the closest intimacy with his mistress, had obviously failed to discover any indications of that overpowering passion which, as was afterwards alleged, had driven her into Bothwell's

arms.

"Maitland, in proportion as he favoured