[#] I do not think it can be any longer doubted that Mary learned in the course of time to regard her marriage with Bothwell as invalid; and I am surprised that so eminent and enlightened a writer as Mr. Skelton should argue that her "subsequent anxiety to obtain a divorce from Bothwell proves that she continued to believe that the marriage was binding." She was too well versed in Catholic doctrine and in the history of Henry the Eighth's conflict with Rome to hope for a divorce from Bothwell, if she believed the marriage was binding. At any rate, her instructions to Bishop Leslie, whom she sent to Rome in 1575, leave it beyond doubt that it was not a divorce, but merely a declaration that the marriage was null from the beginning, that she asked of the Pope. "Take good heed," she said, "that the Holy Father shall publicly announce that the pretended marriage contracted between me and Bothwell, without any legality but by a pretended procedure is of no (force). For although there are many reasons which, as you know, make it clearly invalid in itself, yet the matter will be much clearer if his Holiness, acting as the most certain lawyer of the Church, will come forward to annul it." (Published from a Cottonian MS. by the late Rev. Joseph Stevenson, S.J., in notes to his preface to Claude Nau's narrative.)

During the nine days that intervened between the times he was brought back to Edinburgh and the day of her marriage, no effort was made to stay the proceedings. Craig, the minister of St. Giles, to whom it fell to publish the marriage banns, courageously declared his disapproval of the union, adding, however, the significant words that "the best part of the realm did approve it, either by flattery or by their silence"--words that show how completely the unfortunate Queen was left under the control of Bothwell.

But as soon as Mary's fortunes were identified with Bothwell's by the bond of marriage, the sound of approaching war was heard. The Confederate lords rose in arms to avenge the murder of the late King (so they said), and to liberate the Queen; and many true friends of Mary's, little suspecting the real purpose of the prime movers, arrayed themselves under their standard. The two armies met at Carberry Hill; no battle ensued. The Confederates promised that if Mary would separate herself from Bothwell and confide in them, they would respect her as their true sovereign. Mary agreed, but once in their power her eyes were opened. She was brought back to Edinburgh, flouted along the way with a banner on which was depicted the effigy of her murdered husband, and exposed to the studied insults of a rabble, half frantic from the fierce harangues of the Knoxonian preachers. The following night she was hurried away, and placed in the lonely castle of Lochleven, situated on a rock in a lake of the same name, in the County of Kinross. And that was how they fulfilled their promises to restore her to her royal estate,--that was her reward for the confidence she had placed in their word.

Froude attempts to justify the action of the Confederates on the ground that Mary, after reaching Edinburgh, refused to give up Bothwell, and that she wrote him a letter which was intercepted that same night, declaring her anxiety to be with him at almost any cost. Of course Froude was not the first to offer this explanation; but no writer who wishes to be classed among respectable historians would now embody that unauthenticated gossip in his narrative in the manner in which Froude has done. Froude evidently relies much on the gullibility of his readers; and not without reason; for how many of those who sweep over his dramatic pages, captivated by the brilliancy of his master style, ever suspect that his statements are reckless and unwarranted?

But did the Confederate lords imprison the Queen because she refused to give up Bothwell? We cannot tell. The alleged letter to Bothwell is the only argument for it, and that letter was never afterwards produced, although the production of it would have been of incalculable value to her enemies. The fact is, the lords gave nobody access to the Queen--not even the English envoy and what she did, or what she desired, we know only through those whose interest it was to make out a case against her.

CHAPTER VII.

CAPTIVITY.--ESCAPE.--FLIGHT.

The next step was to force Mary to abdicate in favour of her infant son. (To use the child against the parent monarch had long been a favourite policy with the Scottish rebel lords.) A delegation was sent to her for that purpose, headed by Lord Lindsay, whom Sir Walter Scott calls "the rudest baron of that rude age"--fit agent for the tyrranous deed. Moved partly by fear that refusal would lead to a violent death, and partly by the previous representation of some of her friends that what she did under constraint could not bind her if she regained her liberty, Mary signed the cruel document--

"She wrote the words--She stood erect--a queen without a crown,"

and although prudence would prevent her from uttering them with her lips, we may be sure that in her heart she spoke the words attributed to her by the poet:--