That same night it was alleged that her Majesty wrote a letter unto the Earl Bothwell.... Upon the which letter the lords took occasion to send her to Lochleven to be kept, against promise as she alleged.
1567.—July 12. Lochleven Castle.
Guzman de Silva to the King. Spanish State Papers.
[Mary was a prisoner in Lochleven from 17th June 1567 to 2nd May 1568. The chief events of her captivity were her compulsory abdication on 24th July, the coronation of her infant son on the 29th of the same month, and the proclamation of the Earl of Murray as Regent on August 22nd. Her escape was preceded by at least one unsuccessful attempt. Murray visited Mary in Lochleven, and was by her asked to undertake the Regency, according to a letter from Throgmorton to Elizabeth, 20th August 1567 (in "Foreign Calendar," and in Keith's "History," vol. ii. p. 737).]
LOCHLEVEN CASTLE.
... Croc, who was French Ambassador in Scotland, has passed here on his way to France, and there is nobody now representing his King.
The Ambassador here assures me that the King (of France) has in his favour both those who have assembled to detain the Queen (of Scots) and those who are against them, and has their signatures promising to keep up the friendship and alliance that the country has had with his predecessors. For this reason the King had proceeded in such a way as not to lose the support of the one side by taking up the cause of the other, but he could not avoid giving his aid to the Queen, whose adversaries assert positively that she knew she had been concerned in the murder of her husband, which was proved by letters under her own hand, copies of which were in his possession.