Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 7.djvu/421

 1566.] THE DARNLEY MARRIAGE. 401 and at midnight Mary Stuart, accompanied by one serv- ant and her husband who had left the lords under pre- tence of going to bed ' crawled through the charnel- house, among the bones and skulls of the antient kings/ and 'came out of the earth* where the horses were shiver- ing in the March midnight air. The moon was clear and full. ( The Queen with in- credible animosity was mounted en croup behind Sir Arthur Erskine upon a beautiful English double geld- ing/ ' the King on a courser of Naples ; ' and then away away past Restalrig, past Sir Arthur's Seat, across the bridge and across the field of Musselburgh, past Seton, past Prestonpans, fast as their horses could speed ; ' six in all their Majesties, Erskine, Traquair, and a cham- berer of the Queen/ In two hours the heavy gates of D unbar had closed behind them, and Mary Stuart was safe. 1 Whatever credit is due to iron fortitude and intel- lectual address must be given without stint to this extra- ordinary woman. Her energy grew with exertion ; the terrible agitation of the three preceding days, the wild escape, and a midnight gallop of more than twenty miles within three months of her confinement, would have 1 The account of the escape is taken from a letter of Antony Standen, preserved among the Cecil MSS. at Hatfield; the remaining details of the murder and the cir- cumstances connected with it, are collected from RUT fi YEN'S narrative, Bedford and Randolph, printed by WRIGHT ; the two Italian accounts in the seventh volume of LABA- NOFF; C ALDER WOOD'S History; Mary Stuart's letter to the Arch- bishop of Glasgow, and a letter of Paul de Foix, printed by TEULET. printed in KEITH ; the letters of VOL. VII. 26