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[ NOTE F, p. 61. This year, the council of Trent was dissolved, which had sitten from 1545. The publication of its decrees excited anew the general ferment in Europe, while the Catholics endeavored to enforce the acceptance of them, and the Protestants rejected them. The religious controversies were too far advanced to expect that any conviction would result from the decrees of this council. It is the only general council which has been held in an age truly learned and inquisitive; and as the history of it has been written with great penetration and Judgment, it has tended very much to expose clerical usurpations and intrigues, and may serve us as a specimen of more ancient councils. No one expects to see another general council, till the decay of learning and the progress of ignorance shall again fit mankind for these great impostures.]
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[ NOTE G, p. 69. It appears, however, from Randolfs Letters, (see Keith, p. 200,) that some offers had been made to that minister, of seizing Lenox and Darnley, and delivering them into Queen Elizabeth’s hands. Melvil confirms the same story, and says that the design was acknowledged by the conspirators, (p. 56.) This serves to justify the account given by the queen’s party of the Raid of Baith, as it is called. See farther, Goodall, vol. ii. p. 358. The other conspiracy, of which Murray complained, is much more uncertain, and is founded on very doubtful evidence.]
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[ NOTE H, p. 73. Buchanan confesses that Rizzio was ugly: but it may be inferred, from the narration of that author, that he was young. He says that, on the return of the duke of Savoy to Turin, Rizzio was “in adolescentiæ vigore;” in the vigor of youth. Now, that event happened only a few years before, (lib. xvii. cap. 44.) That Bothwell was young, appears, among many other invincible proofs, from Mary’s instructions to the bishop of Dumblain, her ambassador at Paris; where she says, that in 1559, only eight years before, he was “very young.” He might therefore have been about thirty when he married her. See Keith’s History, p. 388. From the appendix to the Epistolae Regum Scotorum. it appears, by authentic documents, that Patrick, earl of Bothwell, father to James, who espoused Queen Mary, was alive till near the year 1560. Buchanan, by a mistake which has been long ago corrected, calls him James.]
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[ NOTE I, p. 84. Mary herself confessed, in her instructions to the ambassadors, whom she sent to France, that Bothwell persuaded all the noblemen, that their application in favor of his marriage was agreeable to her. Keith, p. 389. Anderson, vol. i. p. 94. Murray afterwards produced, to Queen Elizabeth’s commissioners, a paper signed by Mary, by which she permitted them to make this application to her. This permission was a sufficient declaration of her intentions, and was esteemed equivalent to a command. Anderson, vol. iv. p. 59. They even asserted that the house in which they met was surrounded with armed men. Goodall, vol. ii. p 141.]
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[ NOTE K, p. 108 Mary’s complaints of the queen’s partiality in admitting Murray to a conference was a mere pretext, in order to break off the conference. She indeed employs that reason in her order for that purpose, (see Goodall, vol. ii. p. 184;) but in her private letter, her commissioners are directed to make use of that order to prevent her honor from being attacked. Goodall, vol. ii. p. 183. It was therefore the accusation only she was afraid of. Murray was the least obnoxious of all her enemies. He was abroad when her subjects rebelled, and reduced her to captivity. He had only accepted of the regency, when voluntarily proffered him by the nation. His being admitted to Queen Elizabeth’s presence was therefore a very bad foundation for a quarrel, or for breaking off the conference, and was plainly a mere pretence.]