Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 8.djvu/345

Rh was then only that judicial activity, which had hitherto slumbered, was roused to detect the libellers; and such of the citizens as could write a fair hand, or limn a sketch, were submitted to a sharp examination, while an edict was published denouncing the punishment of death, not only to the writers, but the readers of these libels. Bothwell, also, alarmed at these indications of public feeling, rode into Edinburgh with fifty armed men at his back, warning publicly that he would wash his hands in the blood of these traducers, and clutching the hilt of his dagger in guilty suspicion when he spoke to any one of whose good will he was not certain. At length a movement was made to convict him, and from the proper quarter, by the Earl of Lennox, father of the murdered king. On the 20th of February he wrote to the queen, entreating that a public assize should immediately be held on the subject of his son's assassination; but to this most reasonable request, Mary sent for answer that the Parliament had already been invoked, and that its first business on meeting should be an inquiry into the deed. Now, be it observed, that this meeting of Parliament was not to take place till Easter; and during the interval that elapsed, most of the persons implicated in the charge were quietly allowed to depart, some to France, and others to the English border. And all this Mary did, notwithstanding the suspicions of her subjects, who had no scruple to charge her as an accomplice in her husband's murder; notwithstanding the astonishment of foreign courts, that could not comprehend her wonderful remissness; and notwithstanding the urgent solicitations of Queen Elizabeth, who adjured her to act on this occasion "like a noble princess and a loyal wife." In the meantime, she seemed to have no thought but for Bothwell, and, notwithstanding the general odium, she conferred upon him the command of the Castle of Edinburgh, and soon after that of the castles of Blackness and the Inch, and the superiority of Leith, as if eager to arm him against every accuser, and make him too powerful to be punished.

As the cry still waxed louder for a public trial, it was thought that this might now be safely granted; and so late as the 12th of April, the Earl of Lennox was ordered to compear in Edinburgh, and adduce his charges against Bothwell. But the accomplices in the crime had been suffered to escape; the other evidences had been destroyed; even the smith who had made the false keys by which the murderers obtained access to the king's lodging, and who had anonymously offered to come forward and reveal the name of his employer, if his safety should be guaranteed for so doing, had obtained no such promise, and therefore could not make his appearance. Under such circumstances, and after so long a delay, the invitation to the Earl of Lennox was the most cruel of mockeries. The trial was arranged by Bothwell himself; the tribunal was occupied by one of his friends, and fenced with 200 of his hacbutters; 4000 armed men, devoted to Bothwell, occupied the streets of Edinburgh, and the castle was under his command. Thus prepared, the accusing party was wholly at his mercy, for Lennox was required to enter the city with not more than six in his company. To come under such circumstances would have been to enter into the shambles, where all was in readiness for the slaughter, and Lennox refused to appear. But Bothwell himself rode to trial, mounted on the late king's horse, and surrounded by a guard, and fearlessly advanced before a tribunal where he had taken order that none should accuse him. The trial that followed was a farce, in which the criminal had nothing to do but to plead "not guilty," and the judges to absolve him, which was done unanimously. To wind up the whole