Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 2.djvu/454

440 it would cost him his life. Darnley told this to the queen, who questioned the earl, and he then denied having said so. This was precisely what Morton stated would take place, when on his death-bed, confessing a knowledge of the plot, he was asked why he had not revealed it. He replied, that there was nobody to tell it to; that it was no use telling it to the queen, for he was assured that she was in the plot; and that if he had told Darnley, he was such a fool that he would immediately tell it to the queen. The circumstance, however, startled the conspirators, and determined them to expedite the terrible business. The desired opportunity arrived. The queen agreed to be present on the evening of the 9th of February at the marriage of Sebastiani and Margaret Garwood, two of her servants, which was to be celebrated with a masque. The queen remained with the king the greater part of the day, which was passed in the most apparent cordiality, and Mary declared her intention of remaining all night at Kirk-of-Field.

It is said that whilst she was talking there with the king, Hay of Tallo, John Hepburn of Bolton, Pourie, Dalgleish, and others in the pay of Bothwell, entered the room below the king's and deposited bags of gunpowder. These men, who were afterwards examined under torture, and confessed to strangling the king, could not in this instance, as we shall see, have told the truth. However, Mary, still sitting with her husband, suddenly recollected her promise to attend the marriage, and taking leave of Darnley, kissed him, and taking a ring from her finger placed it on his own. Darnley, according to the evidence of these ruffians, retired to his bedchamber on the departure of the queen. He seemed much changed since his illness, had become thoughtful and repentant of his past conduct, and this state of mind will account for the change in the queen's manner towards him. But still he was melancholy; complained that he had no friends, and was impressed with the conviction that he should be murdered. From those feelings he sought refuge in religion, and before retiring to rest he repeated the fifty-fifth psalm, which he often sung. After he fell asleep Taylor, his page, continued still to sit by his side.

It was now that the hired assassins executed their appointed task. How Darnley and his page were murdered is yet a disputed point. The house was blown up with gunpowder, but the bodies of the king and his page were found in the orchard adjoining the garden wall, the king only in his night-dress, his pelisse lying by his side, and no marks of fire upon the body. There is a story of the murderers going to commence their operations, and the king hearing their false keys in the lock of his apartment, and rushing down in his shirt and pelisse, endeavouring to escape; of his being seized and strangled, and his cries being heard by some women in the nearest house. On the other hand, the ruffians who did it, swore that only gunpowder was employed, and that the king's bed-clothes must have defended him from the action of the fire, and the crushing effect of the fall. Why, indeed, should they have taken the trouble to strangle Darnley, when the gunpowder was sufficient to destroy him? It was also stated that two of his servants had perished in the ruins, and two others had escaped with very little hurt. How does the presence of so many attendants agree with the strangling story? However doubtful may be other matters, there is no question of the presence of Bothwell at the tragedy. He attended the queen from Kirk-of-Field to Holyrood, but about midnight quitted the palace, changed his rich dress, and in disguise joined the murderers, who were waiting for him. About two o'clock two of them entered the house and lit a slow burning match, the other end of which was placed amongst the powder. They remained some time expecting the catastrophe, till Bothwell grew so impatient, that he was with difficulty withheld from entering the house to ascertain whether the match still burnt. This was done by one of the fellows, who looked through a window and perceived the match a-light. The explosion soon after took place, and with a concussion which seemed to shake the whole city. Bothwell hurried away and got to bed before a servant rushed in with the news. He then started up with well-acted astonishment, and rushed forth shouting, "Treason! treason!" Huntley and some others of the conspirators then proceeded to the queen's chamber, and informed her of what had taken place. She seemed petrified with horror, gave herself up to the most violent expression of grief, and shutting herself up in her chamber, continued as if paralysed by so horrible and diabolical a tragedy.

But how far had Mary been cognisant of this conspiracy? Was she wholly or only partially innocent of participation in it? These are questions which have been, and continue to be, agitated by different historians with much zeal. We are disposed to believe the queen entirely innocent of any direct guilt in the matter. Her character was that of open, warm, and forgiving sincerity. Much as she had been tortured and humiliated by Darnley's conduct, she had refused to be divorced from him when it was proposed to banish him from the kingdom. She had hastened to forgive the past, and to renew her kindly intercourse with him, and to the last moment maintained a conduct towards him in keeping with her own warm-hearted character.

But we are not so clear that even now she was not strongly, though perhaps unconsciously, influenced by Bothwell. It was at his suggestion that she had taken him to Kirk-of-Field instead of to some more stately mansion, where the concerted explosion would not be so easily affected; and her conduct from this period bore more and more the marks of one of those paralysing and infatuated passions, which have converted into tragedy the story of so many lives.

Multitudes in the morning rushed to Kirk-of-Field to examine the ruins, but Bothwell hastening thither with a guard drove them back, and carried the king's body into a neighbouring house, where it was in the custody of one Alexander Drurem, who refused Melville a sight of him. Melville then went to the palace to inquire after the queen. Bothwell came out to him, and said that her Majesty was sorrowful but quiet, and he told him a clumsy story of the strangest accident that ever chanced—that the thunder came out of the sky and burnt the king's house, and killed the king, but so wonderfully that there was not the least mark upon him, desiring him to go and look at him.

The public were impatient to have the affair thoroughly investigated, and were amazed at the apparent apathy of the queen and Court. Two days, however, passed