Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 8.djvu/343

Rh hood of Edinburgh, where his recovery would be more speedy, and Darnley, allured by her kind words and relenting endearments, assented to all her wishes. He had received, indeed, some obscure intimations of a conspiracy formed against his life, and been warned that the queen had spoken harshly of him previous to her journey ; but while she sat beside his bed, and addressed him so tenderly, all his first love returned, so that he treated these reports as idle tales. As for Mary, on retiring from his company she wrote a full account of the whole interview to Both well ; and so completely was the after-tragedy settled between them, that she alluded to his contemplated divorce from Lady Jane Gordon and marriage with herself, and besought him neither to be moved from his purpose by his wife's tears nor her brother's threats. Soon after Darnley, not yet recovered, was removed in a litter from Glasgow to Edinburgh, not, however, to be accommodated in the princely castle of Craigmillar, but an obscure habitation called Kirk of Field, belonging to one of Bothwell's creatures; a place sufficiently within reach of Edinburgh, but lonely enough for the perpetration of a deed of murder.

So fully was the plan already matured, that Bothwell had false keys made of the house, and sent to Dunbar for a barrel of gunpowder, that was to be placed under Darnley 's apartment. Matters now began to look so mysterious, that some of the king's servants, under that vague inexplicable terror which often precedes some terrible tragic deed, withdrew their attendance. Not so, however, the queen, who continued to lavish upon him every assurance of endearment, and spent two nights in an apartment adjoining his own. On Sunday night Darnley was to be no more; and while she was spending the evening with him in his room upstairs, the preparations were silently going on in the apartment below; and at ten o'clock the gunpowder was strewed in heaps upon the floor, and all put in readiness for the explosion, after which Bothwell's servant, Paris, a chief actor in the deed, entered the room above, where the pair were conversing. Mary, only the night before, had caused a bed of new velvet to be removed from the room, and also a rich coverlet of fur; and it was now full time that she should remove herself also. She then called to mind that she had promised to be at a masquerade in Holyroodhouse, that was to be given in honour of the marriage of her servant Bastian, with Margaret Carwood, a favourite female attendant, and passed onward to Holyrood with torch-light. When she was gone, an hour intervened before Darnley retired to bed, during which he entertained his servants, in the full overflow of his gladness, with an account of the queen's gracious speeches before they parted, and the hopes of his return to favour and influence. But one part of the interview still strangely haunted him, and marred his triumph. Why had the queen reminded him that, just at the same time a twelvemonth back, David Rizzio had been assassinated that deed of which his conscience told him he had been the chief promoter? Ill at ease with the past, and having a gloomy anticipation about the future, he turned to the Bible for consolation, and read the 55th Psalm, after which he went to bed, and was soon overtaken by his last sleep.

In the meantime, the return of Mary to Holyrood was a signal to Bothwell that all was in readiness. After lingering in the hall until about midnight, when the most wakeful in Edinburgh were usually asleep, he exchanged his rich gala dress for a common suit, in which he could not easily be recognized, stole out of the back of the palace through the garden, and accompanied by four