The Knights of England, France, and Scotland

by Henry William Herbert

“A guard!” she cried, in notes that might have vied with the clangor of a trumpet, so shrilly did they pierce the ears of all; “a guard for my lord of Bothwell!”

Had the thunder of heaven darted its sulphurous and scathing bolt into the midst of that assembly, a greater change its terrors could not have effected than did that thrilling cry. A hundred rapiers flashed in the bright torchlight, as with bent brows and angry voices the barons of the realm rushed to the aid of their liege-lady. An air of cool defiance sat on the massive forehead of the culprit; his eye was fixed upon the queen in sorrow, as it would seem, rather than in anger; his sword lay quietly in his scabbard, although there were a hundred there with weapons thirsting for his blood, and hearts burning with the insatiable hate of ancient feuds. Murray and Morton, speaking eagerly and even sternly to the queen, urged his immediate seizure; and the gray-haired duke of Lennox, clutching his poniard’s hilt with the palsied gripe of eighty years, awaited but a sign to slay, he knew not and he recked not why, the ancient foeman of his race.

But so it was not fated! Before a word was spoken, the deep and sullen roar as of an earthquake burst upon their ears, and stunned their very hearts; a second din, as of some mighty tower rushing from its base, succeeded, ere the casements had ceased to rattle with the shock of the first.

“God of my fathers!” shouted Murray, “what means that din? Treason, my lords, treason! Look to the queen—secure the traitor! Thou, duke of Lennox, with thy followers, haste straight to the kirk of Field! Without, there—let my trumpets sound to horse! By Him that made me,” he continued, “the populace are rising!”—for the deep swell of voices, that rose without, announced the presence of a mighty multitude.

In an instant the vaulted arches of the palace echoed with the flourished cadences of the royal trumpets, the ringing steps of steel-clad men, the tramp of hoofs in the courtyard, the gathering cries of the followers of each fierce baron, succeeding wildly to the soft breathings of minstrelsey and song. At this instant Murray had resolved himself to act, and, with his hand upon the pommel of his sword, slowly but resolutely stepped forward. “Yield thee!” he said, in stern, low tones; “yield thee, my lord of Bothwell! Hence from this presence thou canst not pass until all this night’s strange occurrences be fully manifested; ay, and if there be guilt—as I misdoubt me much there is—till it be fearfully avenged!”

The touch of Murray on his shoulder, lightly as it fell, and grave as were the words of that high baron, aroused the reckless disposition of Bothwell almost to madness. “Thou liest, lord!” he shouted, in the fierce impulse of the moment—“thou liest, if thou dare to couple the name of guilt with Bothwell! Forego thy hold, or perish!”—and his dagger’s blade was seen slowly emerging from its sheath, while his clinched teeth and the starting veins of his broad forehead spoke volumes of the bitterness of his wrath. Another second, and blood, the blood of Scotland’s noblest, would have been poured forth like water, and in the presence of the queen; the destinies of a great kingdom would have perchance been altered, and the history of ages changed, all by the madness of a single moment. In the fearful crisis, a wild shriek was heard from the upper end of the hall, to which the ladies of the court had congregated, round the queen, like the songsters of spring when the dark pinions of the hawk are casting down a shadow of terror on their peaceful groves.

“Help! help!—her grace is dying!” And, in truth, it did seem as though she were about to pass away. Better, a thousand times better, and happier, had it been for her, to have then died quietly in the palace of her forefathers, with the nobles of her land around her, than to have borne, for many an after-year, the chilling miseries which were showered by pitiless fortune on her head, till that most fatal hour of her tragic life arrived, and Mary was at length at rest!

Murray relaxed his hold, turned on his heel, and strode abruptly to the elevated dais, on which the queen had sunk in worn-out nature’s weariness. For a minute’s space Bothwell glared on him as he strode away, like a tiger balked of his dear revenge. It was most evident he doubted—doubted whether he should set all, even now, upon a cast, strike down a foeman in the very fortress of his power, and if he must die, like the crushed wasp, sting home in dying. Prudence, however, conquered: he also turned upon his heel, and with a glance of the deepest scorn and hatred on the baffled lords, who, in the absence of their master-spirit, had lost all unison, stalked slowly through the portal of the hall, and disappeared.

Before ten seconds had elapsed, the rapid clatter of hoofs, the jingling of mail, and the war-cry—“A Bothwell! ho! a Bothwell!” proclaimed that he had escaped the toils, and was surrounded by his faithful followers.

When Murray reached the couch on which the queen was extended, gasping as though in the last extremity, her case indeed was pitiable. Her long locks had burst from their confinement, and flowed over her person like a veil; her corsage had been cut asunder by the damsels of her court, and her bosom, bare in its unspeakable beauty, was disclosed to the licentious gaze of the haughty nobles. An angle of the couch, as she had fallen, had grazed her temple, and the blood streamed down her cheek and neck, giving, by the contrast of its dark crimson, an ashy, deathlike whiteness to her whole complexion.