Murray was about to proceed from Stirling to Edinburgh, and had arranged to pass through Linlithgow. The Archbishop of St. Andrews, the uncle of Bothwellhaugh, had an old palace in the High Street of that town, through which Murray must pass. Bothwellhaugh took possession of this, and made all his preparations for the murder with the coolest exactness. He barricaded the front door, so that no one could, without considerable delay, force their way in to seize him. In the back yard he placed a powerful and swift horse, ready bridled and saddled for flight; and even removed the head of the doorway, so as to admit him to spring upon his steed, and ride through it without the moment's delay of leading the horse there. He then cut a hole for the barrel of his gun through a panel below a window, in a sort of wooden gallery, from which he could survey the procession. To prevent his booted steps from being heard, he laid a feather bed on the floor, and to prevent the possible casting of a shadow, hung up behind him a black cloth. These preparations being made, he stood ready, with his piece loaded with four bullets.
THE REGENT MURRAY.
(From the Portrait in the Collection at Holyrood Palace.)
The Regent had been duly warned of his danger by a faithful servant named John Herne, who seems to have had full knowledge of Bothwellhaugh's plan and place of ambush, and offered to take the Regent where he could seize the assassin on the spot. With that fatal neglect which so often attends such victims, Murray agreed to avoid the public street, but took no means to secure the murderer. The crowd on entering the town became so great that he allowed himself to be densely surrounded—as it were, borne irresistibly along the fatal street. The throng, moreover, compelled him to move slowly, giving his enemy ample time to take aim. As he passed the archbishop's house, Bothwellhaugh fired so accurately that he shot him through the body, and killed the horse of the person riding next to him (January 23, 1570). The confusion which followed allowed the assassin to escape before his barricade could be forced, and he was just seen galloping away towards Hamilton. There the archbishop, the Lord Arbroath, and the whole clan of the Hamiltons, received him in triumph, as the liberator of his country from an unnatural tyrant who was plotting the murder of his sister and sovereign. They immediately flew to arms, and resolved to march to Edinburgh, liberate the Duke of Chatelherault, and assume the government.
The assassination of Murray greatly disconcerted the policy of Elizabeth. The wily diplomatist who had such strong reasons for securing her co-operation in detaining the Queen of Scots from the throne, being gone, there was a serious danger of the two parties combining, and, by the aid of France, placing Mary, if not on the throne, at least at their head during the minority of her son. The Hamiltons, Maitland, Herries, Huntly, and Argyll, were all on the side of the Queen of Scots, and Morton and his associates were in no condition of themselves to resist them. They were on the march to secure the castles of Dumbarton and Edinburgh; the French were already on the Clyde; the Kers and Scots, friends of Mary, had burst across the Border, accompanied by the refugee Earl of Westmoreland; and an emissary from the Duke of Alva had arrived, bringing money, and promise of substantial help from Philip. It was necessary to sow instant dissension in Scotland, and for this purpose Elizabeth dispatched that subtle intriguer, Sir Thomas Randolph, to that country only three days after Murray's death, and resolved to recommend Lennox, whom the Hamiltons hated, as Regent. The young king, indeed, was his grandson, and therefore he had a natural claim to that position, if his abilities had been adequate to its responsibilities.
HIGH STREET, LINLITHGOW.
Fortune seemed to favour Elizabeth. At the very moment that Cecil was recommending these measures, Lord Hunsdon, the Governor of Berwick, wrote to inform her that Morton was anxious to secure her support, and that nobleman lost no time in waiting on Sir Henry Gates and Sir William Drury, who had arrived on a mission to Murray, just before he was killed. He represented that his party trusted to the Queen of England not to liberate the Queen of Scotland, or the foreigners would soon possess the chief power in Scotland, but to send them Lennox as Regent, and assist them as she had assisted Murray, and they would pledge themselves to pursue the same policy. Randolph, on his arrival, promised them the queen's aid, and encouraged them to refuse any connection with the Hamiltons, who had warned them to acknowledge no authority but that of the queen. Morton and his friends replied by a proclamation, maintaining the rights of the king, and forbidding any one, on pain of treason, to hold communication with the Hamiltons. As they wanted a clever head, they liberated Maitland from the castle; and on his declaration of innocence of the murder of Darnley—a notorious untruth—they reinstated him in his old post of Secretary, and made Morton Chancellor. Randolph assured them of Elizabeth's determination to increase the rigour of the imprisonment of the Queen of Scots, and promised them both money and soldiers on condition that they should take care that the young king should not be carried off to France, that they should maintain the Protestant religion, and deliver up Westmoreland and Northumberland. These conditions were readily accepted, and letters were dispatched to hasten the arrival of Lennox.
On the queen's side were now ranged the whole power of the Hamiltons, the Earls of Argyll, Huntly, Athole, Errol, Crawford, and Marshall; Caithness, Cassillis, Sutherland, and Eglinton; the Lords Home, Seton, Ogilvy, Ross, Borthwick, Oliphant, Yester, and Fleming; Herries, Boyd, Somerville, Innermeith, Forbes, and Gray. But more than all, their strength lay in the military abilities of Kirkaldy of Grange, and the diplomatic abilities of Maitland, who was no sooner at liberty than he went over to them. On the side of the king were Lennox, Mar, the governor of his youthful majesty, Glencairn, Buchanan, and the Lords Glammis, Ruthven, Lindsay, Cathcart, Methven, Ochiltree, and Saltoun.