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 not decided to go to the ball. After completing these arrangements Bothwell followed the queen into Darnley's chamber. They left Darnley about eleven o'clock. The queen passed the door of her own apartment without again entering it, and the royal party, lighted by torch-bearers, wended along Blackfriars Wynd to Holyrood. Bothwell put in an appearance at the ball, but retired towards midnight, and after changing his court dress for a simple doublet and a horseman's cloak, sufficient in the darkness to conceal his identity, returned, accompanied by four of his followers, towards Kirk-o'-Field. On stating that they were ‘friends of Lord Bothwell’ they were permitted to pass the keeper at Canongate Port and arrived safely at Kirk-o'-Field. Leaving three of the attendants at the garden wall, Bothwell and his French servant, Hubert, leaped it and proceeded to the house. Two other agents of Bothwell had been left in charge of the powder, and as soon as Bothwell had inspected the arrangements and given instructions for lighting the train, the whole of them returned to the place of tryst at the garden wall to await the result. The match burned slowly, and Bothwell, with characteristic impatience, was preparing again to leap the wall in order to return to the house when the explosion took place. The conspirators hurried back with the utmost speed to Holyrood. Failing to scale the city wall at a low part near Leith Wynd, and dreading delay, they were compelled to pass again the keeper at Canongate Port. On reaching his apartments Bothwell called for drink before going to bed. In about half an hour a messenger arrived at the palace with the news that the king's house was blown up, and the king himself, it was supposed, slain. Feigning to have been aroused from sleep, Bothwell exclaimed, ‘Fie! Treason!’ and hurriedly dressed himself in order (he pretended) to make inquiries personally. The lodging was found to have been, as Mary said, ‘dung in dross to the very groundstone.’ The body of Darnley lay at some distance from the site of the building (see sketch in, Life of Mary Queen of Scots). Bothwell stated that there was not ‘a mark or a hurt on all his body.’ The impression prevailed that previous to the explosion he had been strangled in bed, but the subordinate agents affirmed that no personal violence was used. Their testimony is not, however, of much weight, nor is it appreciably strengthened by the fact that the surgeons expressed themselves to a similar effect. After viewing the body, Bothwell returned to break the news to the queen. As he was leaving her apartment he met Sir James Melville, to whom he stated that her majesty was ‘sorrowful and quiet.’ He also attributed the calamity to ‘the strangest accident that ever chancit, to wit, the fouder [lightning] come out of the luft [sky] and had burnt the king's house’ (Memoirs, p. 173). After the murder Bothwell gave valuable presents to all who had assisted him, and charged them to ‘hold their tongues, for they should never want so long as he had anything.’

Bothwell may have counted on suspicion falling on Morton, or other well-known enemies of Darnley; in any case he seems to have supposed that he had rendered no inconsiderable service to the protestant nobles. There was a passive indifference in the attitude of the protestant lords, which at the least showed that their indignation, if it existed, was well restrained by prudence. It was against Bothwell, however, that the universal suspicion of the multitude from the beginning pointed. According to Buchanan his guilt was proclaimed ‘baith be buikes and be pictures and be cryis in the dark night.’ Placards were secretly posted up naming as the murderers him and several others of minor rank, who were subsequently executed as the perpetrators of the crime. The accusations seemed to produce not the slightest effect on Bothwell's iron nerves, although it was observed that when he talked with any one of whose goodwill towards him he was doubtful, he ‘was accustomed to keep his hand on his dagger.’ His position at court was in no degree weakened. With the queen his influence, whatever its nature, was plainly greater than ever; nor was there any indication that the cordiality, on one side or the other, was feigned. On 14 Feb., the day of Darnley's funeral, he received the reversion of the superiority over the town of Leith. Two days afterwards the queen went to Seton, Haddingtonshire, leaving, according to the ‘Diurnal of Occurrents’ (p. 106), Huntly and Bothwell in Holyrood in charge of the young prince. On the 28th Drury reported to Cecil that Argyll, Huntly, Bothwell, and Livingstone were with the queen at Seton; that on the previous Wednesday she came to Lord Wharton's house at Tranent, and that she and the Earl of Bothwell having won at the butts against Lord Seton and Huntly, the losers entertained them at dinner at Tranent. This report is not necessarily inconsistent with the fact that Huntly and Bothwell were left in charge of the prince at Holyrood. They did not require either separately or together to be day and night in attendance on the prince; they had merely to see that he was properly guarded, and Tranent was within easy riding distance of Holyrood.