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294 proceeding in the fashion of the age, Bothwell then offered the trial of combat to any one of his degree who should charge him with the late king's murder, but the challenge was nothing more than the idle blast of a trumpet, for he was not likely to find an opponent where he had met with no accuser.

After this mock trial, new honours were heaped upon Bothwell by the queen; the lordship and Castle of Dunbar were conferred upon him, his powers as high admiral were extended, and on the assembling of Parliament, two days after the assize, he carried "the honours," that is, the crown and sceptre before her in procession at the opening of the House. He was now the most powerful nobleman in Scotland, and only one step more remained to which all this aggrandizement had been but a preparative. He must be king-consort in the room of Darnley, whom he had murdered. True, he had been but lately married to Lady Jane Gordon, and her brother, the Earl of Huntly, was not a man to be lightly offended; but even these difficulties had been already calculated, and the plan of their removal devised. The marriage tie was to be loosed by a divorce, and the brother appeased by the restitution of the Huntly estates, which had been forfeited to the crown. But to win the consent of the nobility at large, whose united opposition could have checked him at any moment, or crushed him even when the eminence was attained, was the principal difficulty; and this Bothwell resolved to surmount by the same unscrupulous daring that had hitherto borne him onward. Accordingly, on the 19th of April, the day on which the sittings of Parliament terminated, he invited the chief nobles to supper in a tavern; they assembled accordingly, and when their hearts were warmed with wine, Bothwell presented to them a bond for signature, in which they recommended him as a suitable husband for the queen, and engaged to maintain his pretensions to her hand against all who should oppose them. Confusion and remonstrance followed, but the house was surrounded by 200 hacbutters, so that escape was hopeless, and remonstrance unavailing. The revellers therefore complied with the demand, and the signatures of eight earls, three lords, and seven bishops were adhibited to the bond.

And now nothing but the master-stroke remained. The marriage must be accomplished without delay, before a recoil of public feeling occurred. But Mary had been little more than two months a widow; and if she should thus hastily throw aside her weeds, and enter into a new union, the whole world would cry "shame" upon such indecency! Even this difficulty had been already provided for, and that, too, seven days before Both well's trial occurred. Certain beforehand of his acquittal, lie had devised, and Mary consented, that he should carry her off by force, and thus save her the odium of a free deliberate choice. Even the time and place of abduction were also contrived between them. Accordingly, on the 21st of April the queen repaired to Stirling Castle to visit her infant son, then under the guardianship of the Earl of Mar; but the earl, who seems to have had strange misgivings, would only admit her with two of her ladies, while the armed train were obliged to remain without. Three days afterwards she returned, and had reached Almond Bridge, near Edinburgh, when she and her escort were suddenly beset by Bothwell and 600 armed horsemen, who conducted her to the Castle of Dunbar. And now events went on with accelerated speed. The earl's divorce from his wife was hurried through the courts with scandalous haste, the lady being obliged to accuse him of adultery and incest for the purpose. And on the same day Bothwell and the queen returned to Edinburgh at the head of a numerous cavalcade, the earl leading her horse by