Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 7.djvu/208

344 mighty for bestowing a prince upon them, and for the mercy which had been extended to their queen. This impressive ceremony was followed by three entire days of continued revelry and triumph.

After her recovery, the queen proceeded on an excursion through various parts of the country; and again returned to Edinburgh on the llth or 12th of September, having previously placed the infant prince in charge of the earl and lady Mar.

From this period, the page of Mary's history rapidly darkens; and it is now that her enemies assail her character, and that her friends find themselves called upon to defend it. Each have written volumes, in their turn, to establish her guilt or her innocence, but hitherto without approaching to anything like complete success on either side.

% At the suggestion of the earl of Both well, now one of the most active of Mary's officers of state, the privy council submitted to Mary, then (December, 1566) residing at Craigmillar castle, the proposal that she should divorce her husband Darnley, to whom she had now been married about a year and a half. There were sufficient reasons, both of a public and personal nature, to make such a proposal neither singular nor unwarrantable. Darnley's intellectual incipacity rendered him wholly unfit for his situation; and his wayward temper had wiecked the happiness of his wife. But the proposal originated in neither of these considerations. It was the first step of the new ambition of Bothwell, which aimed at the hand of his sovereign. Mary refused to accede to the pro- posal, alleging, amongst other considerations, that such a proceeding might prejudice the interests of her son. This resolution, however, in place of diverting Bothwell from his daring project, had the effect only of driving him to a more desperate expedient to accomplish it. He now resolved that Darnley should die. Attended by a band of accomplices, he proceeded, at midnight, on Sunday, the 9th of February, 1567, to the Kirk of Field house, situated near to where the college of Edinburgh now stands, and where Darnley, who was at the time unwell, had taken up a temporary residence. The mode of his death had been matter of some discussion previously, but it had been finally determined that it should be accomplished by the agency of gunpowder. A large quantity of that material had been, therefore, secretly introduced into the chamber beneath that in which Darnley slept. This, on the night spoken of, was fired by a match applied by the assassins, but which burnt slowly enough to allow of themselves escaping to a safe distance; and in a few minutes, the house, with all its inmates, including Darnley, was totally destroyed.

For some time after the murder, vague and contradictory surmises regarding the. assassins, filled the kingdom. Suspicion, however, at length became so strong against the true perpetrator, that, at the instigation of Darnley's father, the eari of Lennox, he was brought to a public trial. Bothwell, however, was too powerful a man, and had too many friends amongst the nobility, to fear for the result. He had provided for such an occurrence. On the day of trial, no one appeared to prosecute him, and he was acquitted. Thus far the dark and daring projects of Bothwell had been successful, and he now hurried on to the consummation of his guilty career.

On the 20th of April, little more than two months after the assassination of Darnley, Bothwell procured the signatures of a number of the nobility to a document setting forth, first, his innocence of that crime; secondly, the necessity of the queen's immediately entering again into the married state; and, lastly, recommending James, earl of Bothwell, as a fit person to become her husband. In two or three days after this, Mary left Edinburgh for Stirling, on a visit to her infant son; and as she was returning from thence, she