Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 7.djvu/535

 '567-J THE MURDER OF DARNLEY. 515 notion was to tempt Darnley out into the country some sunny day for exercise and then to kill him. But ' this purpose was changed because it would be known ; ' l and was perhaps abandoned with the alteration of the place from Craigmillar. The Queen meanwhile spent her days at her hus- band's side, watching over his convalescence with seem- ingly anxious affection, and returning only to sleep at Holy rood. In the starry evenings, though it was mid- winter, she would go out into the garden with Lady Reres, and ' there sing and use pastime/ 2 After a few days her apartment at Kirk-a-Field was made habitable ; a bed was set up there in which she could sleep, and particular directions were given as to the part of the room where it was to stand. Paris through some mis- take misplaced it. ' Fool that you are/ the Queen said to him when she saw it, * the bed is not to stand there ; move it yonder to the other side.' 3 She perhaps meant nothing, but the words afterwards seemed omin- ously significant. A powder barrel was to be lighted in that room to blow the house and every one in it into the air. They had placed the bed on the spot where the powder was to stand, immediately below the bed of the King. Whatever she meant, she contrived when it was moved to pass two nights there. The object was to 1 Hepburn's confession : AN- DERSON. 2 Depositions of Thomas Nel- son : PITCAIRN. 3 ' Sot que tu es, je ne veulx pas que mon lit soyt en cest endroyt la, et dn fait le feist oster.'-- Examina- tion of Paris : PITCAIRN,