16. Captivity of the Queen.—Just a month after her third marriage the Queen was brought back to Edinburgh, to be greeted by the railings of the mob, who now openly accused her as a murderess, and paraded before her eyes a banner, showing the dead body of her husband; her infant son on his knees, as though praying for justice against the murderers of his father, and the words, "Judge and avenge my cause, O Lord," embroidered upon it. From Edinburgh she was taken to a lonely castle built on a small island in the centre of Loch Leven. A few days later a casket containing eight letters was produced. These letters, it was said, Bothwell had left behind him in his flight, and they seemed to have been written by Mary to him while Darnley was ill in Glasgow. If she really wrote them, they proved very plainly that she had planned the murder with Bothwell. They are called the "casket letters," from the box or casket in which they were found. The confederate barons acted as if they were really hers. The Lord Lindsay and Robert Melville were sent to her at Loch Leven, and she there signed the demission of the government to her son, and desired that Murray should be the first Regent. From that time Mary ceased to be Queen of Scots. Her beauty, talents, and misfortunes have won her much pity and many champions, but it was her own folly and sin that changed the love of her people into hate, and their rejection of her stands out as one of the facts in their history that does most honour to the nation.
17. James VI., 1567-1625. Regency of Murray.—The infant King who was now to be set up in the room of his mother was crowned and anointed at Stirling. By his sponsor Morton he took an oath to uphold the Reformed, or as its supporters called it, the true Church, and to root out all heretics and enemies of the same. Murray was recalled from France, whither he had gone soon after the murder of the King. He made some objection to accepting the regency, and would not do so till he had had an interview with his sister. At last he agreed to take it, to comply with her wishes, as he said. As the country was crying out for vengeance on the murderers of the King, four of Bothwell's creatures who had aided in his crime were hanged at Edinburgh, but no steps were taken to punish the lords who had joined themselves by a bond with Bothwell.
18. Escape of Mary.—But there was a large party of the nobles, with the Hamiltons at their head, who were opposed to the new government and kept themselves apart at Hamilton. Before a year of her captivity had passed, Mary escaped and joined them there, and again took up the sceptre which she had so lately laid down. Eighteen lords of parliament and many lesser barons signed a bond to uphold their Queen, and she sent a message from her court at Hamilton to Murray, who was at Glasgow almost unguarded, commanding him to resign the regency. Instead of obeying, Murray seized the herald who had come to proclaim the Queen; sent to Stirling for cannon, and called out the feudal force in the name of King James.
19. Battle of Langside.—The Castle of Dunbarton Rock, the strongest fortress in the kingdom, was held for the Queen, and to it she determined to go for greater safety. To get there she had to pass close by Glasgow, where Murray was. At Langside, on the southern shore of the Clyde, her way was barred by the King's army, which, though not so large as her own, had much better leaders. The fight that followed settled the fate of Scotland, May 13, 1568. Few lives were lost, for at the first charge the spears of the front rank got locked in the jacks of their opponents. They could thus neither go backward nor forward, and kept those behind from coming within arm's length of one another. Grange turned the day by charging the Queen's force with his cavalry. They fled in confusion, and Mary rode with all speed to the Border; crossed the Solway, and going straight to Carlisle, threw herself on the protection of Elizabeth. But Elizabeth had not forgotten how Mary had assumed her arms and had given herself out as the real Queen of England; and as she knew that Mary, if left at liberty, would plot with the English Roman Catholics, she put her in ward in Bolton Castle, and refused to see her till she cleared herself of the suspicion under which she lay of having been concerned in her husband's death. But at the same time Elizabeth would not acknowledge the government of Scotland, nor approve the conduct of the lords who had set up King James, for she did not like the doctrine that princes, however badly they had acted, might be judged and punished by their subjects.
20. The Conference.—To give both parties a chance of saying what they could for themselves, it was agreed to hold a conference, to which Murray came in person, and Mary and Elizabeth each sent commissioners. The conference met at York in October. On opening it the Duke of Norfolk required that Murray should do homage in the name of his King to the Queen of England. On this, William Maitland of Lethington, the Scottish Secretary of State, a very subtle man, said that if England liked to give up again the northern counties, once held by Scotland, their King would gladly do homage for them; but as for the kingdom it was as free, or more so, than England itself. This he said to show that they did not ask Elizabeth to judge between them because she had any right to interfere, but only because she was their nearest neighbour. Before the end of the month the conference was removed to Hampton Court, and held before the Queen in Council. The lords brought forward the "casket letters," as a proof against Mary, and she refused to vindicate herself, but ordered her commissioners to withdraw. Thus the conference ended, leaving matters much as they were before, for Elizabeth decided that nothing had been brought forward to the dishonour of Murray, nor anything proved against Mary. At the same time she lent Murray five thousand pounds for the maintenance of peace and order between the two countries, which was an indirect acknowledgment of his government.
21. State of Parties.—The Hamiltons and Huntly were the chief upholders of Mary's interest. The Hamiltons wished to keep Mary on the throne, because they were the next heirs to Mary, and in the event of her son dying before her, Chatelherault could claim the crown. But as they were not the next heirs to James, they were naturally opposed to the revolution which had placed him on the throne, for they feared that if he died when actually reigning, the crown would pass to his heir, Charles Stewart, his father's brother. Huntly held out, from hatred of Murray and love of the old Church, which was still strong in his county. A compromise was at last made between the two parties. Murray promised a pardon for all past offences and a reversal of forfeitures if the other party would promise to obey King James. To make matters more sure, when the Duke of Chatelherault went up to Edinburgh, Murray put him in ward in the Castle. Just at this time there was a great rising of the Roman Catholics in the north of England, Murray marched southward, in order to be ready to put down any disturbance on the Border. There he seized as his prisoner the Earl of Northumberland, the head of the Romanists in England, who had come to seek a refuge on the Scottish side among the Borderers, many of whom still clung to the old Church.
22. Murder of the Regent.—The Hamiltons had determined on Murray's death. Though the Duke was in prison, John, the archbishop, the constant stirrer up of strife, was at liberty, and he was popularly supposed to be the contriver of a plot against the life of the Regent. Murray was murdered by James Hamilton of Bothwellhaugh, who shot at him as he was riding in state through that town on his way from Stirling to Edinburgh, February 23, 1570. This foul murder, the third which had disgraced Scotland within the last quarter of a century, was a great misfortune for the country, for Murray had ruled well and wisely, he had put down the Highlanders and the Borderers, and had enforced justice and order with a strong hand. In his time the land was visited by a famine and a plague, evils for which the people are ever apt to blame their rulers, but, in spite of these calamities, he was popular during his life, and was remembered after his death as the Good Regent.
23. Regency of Lennox.—While the government was thus without a head, and the country was in confusion, two English armies invaded Scotland to punish the Borderers for the shelter which they had given to the leaders of the late rising in England. One of these armies came north as far as the Clyde and wasted the Hamilton country. Hitherto the Queen's party had been chiefly made up of nobles with but a small following, but this attack on the part of the English aroused the old hatred of England and drove a large mass of the people to join them. The choice of Lennox, the King's grandfather, as the new Regent, did still more to divide the nation, for not only was he the subject of Elizabeth and recommended by her, but also, when he came to Scotland, it was as joint leader of one of these invading armies. Now, for the first time, the nation was truly divided against itself. The war which followed was the first real civil war in the annals of Scotland. It was no strife of class against class, or of one chief against another, but a war in which the commons were severed into two parties by the great questions of loyalty, national honour, and religion. Grange, whom Murray had made governor of Edinburgh Castle, declared for the Queen, and Lethington, who was there in ward on a charge of having had some part in the King's murder, followed his example.
24. Taking of Dunbarton.—This castle, the strongest in the kingdom, was the chief strength of the Queen's party, and in it was the moving spirit of the Hamiltons, John, the much hated and feared archbishop. Both fell during this regency. Crawford of Jordanhill, a retainer of Lennox, took the castle by subtlety with but a handful of men. He scaled the steep rock on which the castle is built under cover of the night, and when he had gained the highest point he turned the guns on the garrison below, who had no choice left but to give in, April 2, 1571. Five days later, the archbishop was hanged at Stirling, after the form of a trial had been hurried through, on a charge of having planned the murder of the King and of the Regent.
25. Parliament at Stirling.—The other noteworthy event during the regency of Lennox was the holding of a parliament, for the first time since 1567. It met at Stirling, and the young King, who lived in the castle under the care of the Earl of Mar, was himself present. While the Regent and all the leaders of his party were thus gathered in the town, a body of four hundred men, sent out by the Queen's party in Edinburgh Castle, came down upon them suddenly, swept the streets, and captured Morton and the Regent; and though the latter was afterwards rescued, he had been mortally wounded in the scuffle, and died after lingering a few hours, September 4, 1571. It was then remembered how the little King had spied a hole in the cloth with which the board whereon he sat was covered, and, trying to poke his finger into it, had said, "There is a hole in this parliament." This was looked on as a prophecy of the violent death of the Regent, and laid the foundation of that reputation for wisdom and acuteness which clung to James all his life.