But Ruthven cried out, How could it be there when his lordship was over the Border?
Morton shook his head. ‘It should be here, gentlemen. ’Twere better to wait for it. What hurry is there?’
Ruthven said that the game was begun and ought to go on now. ‘Judge you, my lord,’ he appealed, ‘if I should put my head into a noose unless I held the cord in my own hand.’
In his private mind Morton believed Ruthven a madman. But he did not see how he could draw out now.
He read through the two papers—bands, they called them. It was required of those who signed that they should assist the King their sovereign lord to get the Crown-Matrimonial—no harm in that!—and that they should stand enemies to his enemies, friends to his friends. On his side the King engaged to remove the forfeiture from the exiled lords, to put back the Earl of Morton into his office, and to establish the Protestant religion. Not a word of the Italian, not a word of the Queen. The things were well worded, evidently by Lethington.
‘When are we to be at it?’ he asked.
Ruthven told him, ‘Saturday coming, at night.’ It was now Thursday.
‘How shall you deal?’ This was Morton again.
He was told, In the small hours of the night——and there he stopped them at once. ‘Oh, Ruthven! Oh, Lindsay! Never on the Sabbath morn! Sirs, ye should not——’
But Ruthven waved him off. The exact hour, he said, must depend upon events. This, however, was the plan proposed. When the Queen was set down to cards or a late supper, Lord Morton with his men was to hold the entry, doors, stairheads, passages, forecourt of the palace. Traquair would be off duty, Erskine could be dealt with. Bothwell, Huntly, Atholl, and all the rest of the Queen’s friends would be abed; and Lindsay was to answer for keeping them there. The King was to go into the Queen’s closet and look over her shoulder at the game. At a moment agreed upon he would lift up her chin, say certain words, kiss her, and repeat the words. That was to be the signal: then Ruthven, Archie Douglas, and Fawdonsyde—Ker of Fawdonsyde, a notorious ruffian—would do their work.