[5] Among the mysteries which surround Mary, we should not reckon the colour of her hair! Just after her flight into England, her gaoler, at Carlisle, told Cecil that in Mary Seton the Queen had ‘the finest busker of a woman’s hair to be seen in any country. Yesterday and this day she did set such a curled hair upon the Queen, that was said to be a perewyke, that showed very delicately, and every other day she hath a new device of head dressing that setteth forth a woman gaily well.’ Henceforth Mary varied the colour of her ‘perewykes.’ She had worn them earlier, but she wore them, at least at her first coming into England, for the good reason that, in her flight from Langside, she had her head shaved, probably for purposes of disguise. So we learn from Nau, her secretary. Mary was flying, in fact, as we elsewhere learn, from the fear of the fiery death at the stake, the punishment of husband-murder. Then, and then only, her nerve broke down, like that of James VIII. at Montrose; of Prince Charles after Culloden; of James VII. when he should have ridden with Dundee to the North and headed the clans.
[6] The papers used by Lennox in getting up his indictment against Mary are new materials, which we often have occasion to cite.
[7] Mr. Henderson doubts if Darnley knew French.
[8] M. Jusserand has recently seen the corpse of Bothwell. Appendix A.
[9] Actio, probably by Dr. Wilson, appended to Buchanan’s Detection.
[10] Teulet, ii. p. 176. Edinburgh, June 17, 1567.
[11] See a facsimile in Teulet, ii. 256.
[12] Appendix B. ‘Burning of the Lyon King at Arms.’
[13] The private report is in the Lennox MSS.
[14] See the sketch, coloured, in Bannatyne Miscellany, vol. i. p. 184.