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430 lowest and worst company, and threw himself into the hands of his enemies, who soon made him their tool. They persuaded him that Rizzio, who, in his quarrels with the queen, always took her part, and who, as the keeper of the privy purse, was obliged to resist his extravagant demands upon it, was not only the enemy of the nation, the spy and paid agent of foreign princes, but was the queen's paramour, and the author of the resolve to keep him out of all real power. The scheme took all the effect that was desired. Darnley became jealous and furious for revenge. His father, the Earl of Lennox, joined him in his suspicions, and it was resolved to put Rizzio out of the way.

Darnley, in his blind fury, sent for Lord Ruthven, imploring him to come to him on a matter of life and death. Ruthven was confined to his bed by a severe illness, yet he consented to engage in the conspiracy for the murder of Rizzio, on condition that Darnley should engage to prevent the meeting of Parliament, and to procure the return of Murray and the rebel chiefs. Darnley was in a mood ready to grant anything for the gratification of his resentment against Rizzio; he agreed to everything: a league was entered into, a new covenant sworn, the objects of which were the murder of Rizzio, the prevention of the assembling of Parliament, and the return of Murray and his adherents. Randolph, the English ambassador, now banished from Scotland for his traitorous collusion with the insurgents, yet had gone no further than Berwick, where he was made fully acquainted with the plot, and communicated it immediately to Leicester in a letter, dated February 13th, 1566, which yet remains. He assured him that the murder of Rizzio would be accomplished within ten days; that the crown would be torn from Mary's dishonoured head, and that matters of a still darker nature were meditated against her person which he dared not yet allude to.

Amongst the nobles who had fully participated in the rebellion against their queen, but who had had the cunning to keep their treason concealed, were Morton, Ruthven, Lindsay, and Maitland. These men now worked diligently to organise the conspiracy. They communicated the plot to Knox and Craig, as the head of the clergy, who came fully into the design, as did Bellenden, the justice-clerk, Makgill, the clerk-register, the Lairds of Brunston, Calder, and Ormiston. Morton assured them that the only means of establishing the Reformation was to prevent the meeting of Parliament, by the murder of Rizzio and the interposition of the king, the imprisonment of the queen, the investment of Darnley with the regal authority, and of Murray with the conduct of the Government; and the whole was readily accepted by both the ministers of State and the ministers of religion as a thing perfectly justifiable. To communicate with Murray and the other refugees in England, Lennox, the father of Darnley, set out thither; and the result was two bonds or covenants, into which the conspirators entered. The first—still preserved in the British Museum—ran in the name of the king. In it he solemnly swore to seize certain ungodly persons, who abused the queen's good nature, and especially an Italian stranger called David; and on any resistance "to cut them off immediately, and slay them, wherever it happened," and to defend and uphold his associates in this enterprise, even if carried into effect in the very presence of the queen. This was signed by Darnley, Morton, and Ruthven.

The second covenant, also still preserved, promised to support Darnley in this and all his just quarrels, to be friends of his friends, enemies of his enemies, to give him the crown matrimonial, to maintain the Protestant religion, on condition that the king pardoned Murray and his associates, and restored their lands and dignities. This was signed by Darnley, Murray, Argyll, Glenclairn, Rothes, Boyd, Ochiltree, and their "complices." All this was duly communicated to Elizabeth and her ministers, Cecil and Leicester, by letters still extant, from Randolph and the Earl of Bedford, the lieutenant of the north, to both Elizabeth and Cecil; and they add that they have engaged that the particulars shall be communicated to none but the queen, Cecil, and Leicester.

Thus we see that Elizabeth was made fully cognisant of all these diabolical designs, and the names of all the leading men engaged in them. In the letter of the 6th of March, 1566, from Berwick, signed by Hertford and Randolph, we learn that Randolph had taken copies of the secret bonds or covenants entered into by the conspirators, and forwarded them to the queen and her confidential ministers. She knew, therefore, that Rizzio was to be murdered before the meeting of Parliament, that the queen was to be seized, stripped of her crown, imprisoned, and that other designs too dark to mention were meditated against her person. Murray and the rebels, whom she had so indignantly reprimanded in public, were to be restored to power; and all this was menaced against a queen whom she was calling sister, for whom she was professing great regard, and with whom she was in profound peace and alliance.

What did she do at this startling crisis? We prefer using the words of a distinguished historian to our own. Mr. Tyler says, "She knew all that was about to occur: the life of Riccio, the liberty, perhaps, too, the life of Mary was in her power; Moray was at her court; the conspirators were at her devotion; they had given the fullest information to Randolph, that he might consult the queen. She might have imprisoned Moray, discomfited the plans of the conspirators, saved the life of the miserable victim who was marked for slaughter, and preserved Mary, to whom she professed a warm attachment, from captivity. All this might have been done, perhaps it is not too much to say, that even in those dark times, it would have been done by a monarch acutely alive to the common feelings of humanity. But Elizabeth adopted a very different course; she not only allowed Moray to leave her realm, she dismissed him with the marks of the highest confidence and distinction; and this man, when ready to sail for Scotland, to take his part in these dark transactions which soon followed, sent his secretary, Wood, to acquaint Cecil with the most secret intentions of the conspirators."

Mary was not without some warnings of what was being prepared, but she could not be made sensible of her danger, neither could Rizzio; for Damiot, an astrologer, whom he was in the habit of consulting, bade him beware of the bastard. The obscurity attending all such oracles led Rizzio to believe that Damiot alluded to Murray, and Rizzio laughed at any danger from him, a banished man; but we shall see that he received his first wound from