She swung her hand to and fro, and his with it, which held her so fast. ‘The word,’ she said, ‘is nothing without the thing—and the thing is not true. I would that it were! Do you set so much store by names and framed breaths and idle ceremonies, and call yourself my lover? Do you tell me to my face that if I called you to come to me, to stretch open your two arms and clasp me within them, and to fly with me this world of garniture and bending backs and wicked scheming heads, and abide night and morning, through noon-heat and evening glow and the secrets of long nights under the watching stars, fast by my side, with our mouths together and our hearts kissing, and our two souls molten to one—do you tell me now that you would deny me? Answer you.’
He faced her steadfastly. ‘I do say so. I should deny you. I serve God, and honour you. How should I dare do you dishonour?’
She was very angry—shook him off. ‘Leave my wrist. How do you presume to hold your Queen? Leave me alone! You insult me by look and word.’
He left her at once, but she sent for him early next morning and easily made amends.
Driven to it at last, on the 24th of the month she wrote to old Lennox that Bothwell should be tried by his peers. She did it partly because Huntly advised it as the only possible way to stop the growing clamour, but much more because she wanted Bothwell back. He had been with his wife all the month; Huntly also had been there more than once—Adam Gordon, old Lady Huntly. A family council was, perhaps, in the nature of the case; but all the members of that had returned a week ago, and why should he remain? Why, indeed, if (as all Scotland believed) he had gone to urge divorce upon his Countess? So the excuse was made to serve: he was formally summoned; returned to town on the 28th; made public entry with an imposing force of his friends and adherents; kissed the Queen’s hand in all men’s sight, and on the same day sat at the Council board, and discussed with the others, who were to try him, the precedents for his own trial. This was no way to satisfy Lennox or Edinburgh.
The assize was fixed for 12th April. On the 7th of that month the Earl of Moray left Scotland without leave asked or leave-taking of the Queen. He stayed a day at Berwick, and had a long conference with the English Warden, then took ship and sailed for France. This should have given her pause, and did for a day or two; but to a craving nymph, stalking gauntly the waste places, what matters but the one thing? It made Des-Essars serious enough, and put French Paris in a dreadful fright. His master, he said, ‘was fool enough to be glad at his going; but the Queen knew better. M. Des-Essars told me that she wept, and would have sent messengers after him to get him back if she could. Ah, and she was right! For when yet did that lord’s departure betoken her anything but harm? Never, never, never!’ says French Paris.
The trial itself was a form from beginning to end, with the Queen a declared partisan, and the assize packed with her friends or his. My lord rode down to it as to a wedding; he rode one of the dead king’s horses—rode it gaily; and as he departed he looked up at the window and waved his hat, and all men saw the flutter of the Queen’s white handkerchief; and some say that she herself was to be seen smiling and nodding to him. Certain it is that when he was cleared—a matter of a few hours—and came out into the light of day and the face of a huge crowd, which blocked the street from side to side, he was met by Lethington, bareheaded, and by Melvill, bowing to the earth, and by the concourse with a chill and rather terrible silence. One shrill cry went up in all that quiet, and one alone. ‘Burn the hure!’ was shrieked by a woman, but instantly hushed down, and nothing was heard after it but the trampling of horses as Bothwell’s troop went by. When the Queen met him at the foot of the palace stairs, he went down on his knees; but many saw the smile that looped up his mouth. She was very much moved, could not say more than, ‘Get up—come—I must speak with you.’
He went upstairs with her—they two alone. The courts and yards of Holyrood were like a camp.
Such a state of things might not last for long. Bothwell could not go out of doors alone. Even in company his hand was always at his dagger, his eye for ever casting round, probing corners for ambushes, searching men’s faces for signs of wavering or fixed purpose. Strong man as he was, circumstances were too many for him: he told Paris one day that he was ‘near done.’
‘Sir,’ says Paris, ‘and so, I take leave to say, is the Queen’s majesty. If your lordship is for the seas——’