The work proceeds. Moray is notified to be within convenient distance of Edinburgh. On March 9th, 1566, about seven o'clock in the evening, while Mary is at supper with a few attendants and Rizzio, a door opening into a private stairway leading from Darnley's apartments to the Queen's, opens, and Darnley enters in an apparently friendly mood. The meaning of this unexpected entrance soon becomes evident. The evil-boding figure of Lord Ruthven, in full armour, appears in the door, his face haggard and his eyes sunken, for he has risen from a bed of sickness to direct the work of blood. A number of associates follow him. Rizzio, understanding their purpose, flees for protection behind the Queen, and cries out for justice. The Queen attempts to protect her faithful servant, but is rudely thrust aside, and the defenceless Secretary, being dragged, wounded and bleeding, to the door, is dispatched with fifty-six stabs. "Ah, poor Davit" (says Mary as she hears the dying Rizzio's groans)--"ah, poor Davit, my good and faithful servant; may the Lord have mercy on your soul!"
Three months after this tragedy James VI. was born. Considering the time and place chosen for the murder, we have good reason to suspect that harm was intended to the Queen herself, and to the future heir to the throne, as well as to Rizzio. Add to this the remarks dropped by a certain confidant of the conspirators, and suspicion gives place to conviction. Randolph, the English Ambassador, writing nearly a month before to Leicester, referred to the plot, and said that if it should take place "David shall have his throat cut within these ten days. Many things," he adds, "grievouser and worse than these are brought to my ears, yea, of things intended against her own person, which, because I think better to keep secret than to write to Mr. Secretary (Cecil), I speak of them but now to Your Lordship."
Mary was kept closely guarded, and Darnley himself, observing the movements of the traitors, began to fear for his own safety.
Darnley could be led by ambition into a rash act, but he had not reached that depth of wickedness in which the heart becomes callous to the feelings of humanity.
Stricken partly by remorse for his unfaithful and ungrateful conduct to his wife, and partly by fear of his threatened ruin, in the gray of the morning succeeding the night of murder, while all was still in Holyrood, the wretched and repentant youth stole quietly up to the Queen's chamber, and, throwing himself on his knees before her, said: "Ah, my Mary, I am bound to confess at this time, though now it is too late, that I have failed in my duty towards you. The only atonement which I can make for this, is to acknowledge my fault and sue for pardon, by pleading my youth and great indiscretion. I have been most miserably deluded and deceived by the persuasions of these wicked traitors, who have led me to confirm and support all their plots against you, myself, and all our family. I see it all now, and I see clearly that they aim at our ruin. I take God to witness that I never could have thought, nor expected, that they would have gone to such lengths. I confess that ambition has blinded me. But since the grace of God has stopped me from going further, and has led me to repent before it is too late, as I hope, I ask you, my Mary, to have pity on me, have pity on our child, have pity on yourself. Unless you take some means to prevent it, we are all ruined, and that speedily."
This report of Darnley's prayer for pardon is taken from a fragmentary sketch of Mary's life, written most probably by Claude Nau, her Secretary during the most part of her imprisonment in England, who, during the long hours of conversation with his captive mistress, had special opportunities of hearing her own account of that painful ordeal through which she had passed. It is all the more interesting, therefore, to note the answer that Nau attributes to the Queen. "The Queen," he continues, "still troubled with the agitation and weakness arising from the emotions of the previous night, answered him frankly, for she had never been trained to dissemble, nor was it her custom to do so: 'Sire,' she said, 'within the last twenty-four hours you have done me such a wrong that neither the recollection of our early friendship, nor all the hopes you can give me of the future, can ever make me forget it. As I do not wish to hide from you the impression which it has made on me, I may tell you that I think you will never be able to undo what you have done. You have committed a very grave error. What did you hope to possess in safety without me? You are aware that, contrary to the advice of those very persons whom you now court, I have made earnest suit to obtain for you of them the very thing which you think you can obtain through their means and wicked devices. I have been more careful about your elevation than you yourself have been. Have I ever refused you anything that was reasonable, and which was for your advantage, by placing you above those persons who to-day are trying to get both you and me into their power, that they may tread us under their feet? Examine your conscience, Sire, and see the blot of ingratitude with which you have stained it. You say you are sorry for what you have done, and this gives me some comfort; yet I cannot but think that you are driven to it rather by necessity than led by any sentiment of true and sincere affection. Had I offended you as deeply as can be imagined, you could not have discovered how to avenge yourself on me with greater disgrace and cruelty. I thank God that neither you nor anyone in the world can charge me with ever having done or said aught justly to displease you, were it not for your own personal good. Your life is dear to me, and God and my duty oblige me to be as careful of it as of my own. But since you have placed us both on the brink of the precipice, you must now deliberate how we shall escape the peril.'"
Such we can well believe to have been the feeling words of the outraged wife and queen. She had been humiliated by her husband in the eyes of the nation and of the world; and the ingratitude of him to whom she had been so devoted had inflicted on her heart a wound that she feared time could never heal. The bonds of love, which had been severed in spite of her and could not be reunited by an act of her will, no longer bound her to him, but "God and her duty" did, and his life would still be dear to her.
A plan of escape was arranged, and Darnley, acting with more coolness and shrewdness than was his wont, had the guards removed from the royal apartments, and, two nights later, he and Mary, accompanied by a few faithful attendants, having stealthily escaped from the palace by a back way, mounted their horses and hurried off to Dunbar.
Once more free to appeal to the loyalty of her people, the Queen had nothing to fear. The traitor lords, outwitted and alarmed, dispersed and fled, some--especially those most prominent in the execution of the murder--betaking themselves across the border, and others withdrawing to retreats in the country. Mary was now in a position in which, had she been of a vindictive nature, she could have taken complete revenge on her enemies. But her habitual clemency prevailed, and her ear was soon again open to the prayers for pardon that reached her from the conspirators.
Her generous conduct could not fail to win hearts even among her former foes, and when, three months afterwards, James VI. was born in Edinburgh Castle, hearty demonstrations of joy marked the event throughout the whole realm. "I never," wrote the French Ambassador, Le Croc, to Cardinal Beaton, "saw Her Majesty so much beloved, honoured and esteemed, nor so great a harmony among all her subjects as at present is by her wise conduct; for I cannot perceive the smallest difference or division."