CHAPTER II
Among the lords who had followed Mary Stuart to Scotland was, as we
have mentioned, a young nobleman named Chatelard, a true type of the
nobility of that time, a nephew of Bayard on his mother's side, a
poet and a knight, talented and courageous, and attached to Marshal
Damville, of whose household he formed one. Thanks to this high
position, Chatelard, throughout her stay in France, paid court to
Mary Stuart, who, in the homage he rendered her in verse, saw nothing
more than those poetical declarations of gallantry customary in that
age, and with which she especially was daily overwhelmed. But it
happened that about the time when Chatelard was most in love with the
queen she was obliged to leave France, as we have said. Then Marshal
Damville, who knew nothing of Chatelard's passion, and who himself,
encouraged by Mary's kindness, was among the candidates to succeed
Francis II as husband, set out for Scotland with the poor exile,
taking Chatelard with him, and, not imagining he would find a rival
in him, he made a confidant of him, and left him with Mary when he
was obliged to leave her, charging the young poet to support with her
the interests of his suit. This post as confidant brought Mary and
Chatelard more together; and, as in her capacity as poet, the queen
treated him like a brother, he made bold in his passion to risk all
to obtain another title. Accordingly, one evening he got into Mary
Stuart's room, and hid himself under the bed; but at the moment when
the queen was beginning to undress, a little dog she had began to
yelp so loudly that her women came running at his barking, and, led
by this indication, perceived Chatelard. A woman easily pardons a
crime for which too great love is the excuse: Mary Stuart was woman
before being queen--she pardoned.
But this kindness only increased Chatelard's confidence: he put down
the reprimand he had received to the presence of the queen's women,
and supposed that if she had been alone she would have forgiven him
still more completely; so that, three weeks after, this same scene
was repeated. But this time, Chatelard, discovered in a cupboard,
when the queen was already in bed, was placed under arrest.
The moment was badly chosen: such a scandal, just when the queen was
about to re-marry, was fatal to Mary, let alone to Chatelard. Murray
took the affair in hand, and, thinking that a public trial could
alone save his sister's reputation, he urged the prosecution with
such vigour, that Chatelard, convicted of the crime of lese-majeste,
was condemned to death. Mary entreated her brother that Chatelard
might be sent back to France; but Murray made her see what terrible
consequences such a use of her right of pardon might have, so that
Mary was obliged to let justice take its course: Chatelard was led to
execution. Arrived on the scaffold, which was set up before the
queen's palace, Chatelard, who had declined the services of a priest,
had Ronsard's Ode on Death read; and when the reading, which he
followed with evident pleasure, was ended, he turned--towards the
queen's windows, and, having cried out for the last time, "Adieu,
loveliest and most cruel of princesses!" he stretched out his neck to
the executioner, without displaying any repentance or uttering any
complaint. This death made all the more impression upon Mary, that
she did not dare to show her sympathy openly.
Meanwhile there was a rumour that the queen of Scotland was
consenting to a new marriage, and several suitors came forward,
sprung from the principal reigning families of Europe: first, the
Archduke Charles, third son of the Emperor of Germany; then the Duke
of Anjou, who afterwards became Henry III. But to wed a foreign
prince was to give up her claims to the English crown. So Mary
refused, and, making a merit of this to Elizabeth, she cast her eyes
on a relation of the latter's, Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, son of the
Earl of Lennox. Elizabeth, who had nothing plausible to urge against
this marriage, since the Queen of Scotland not only chose an
Englishman for husband, but was marrying into her own family, allowed
the Earl of Lennox and his son to go to the Scotch court, reserving
it to herself, if matters appeared to take a serious turn, to recall
them both--a command which they would be constrained to obey, since
all their property was in England.
Darnley was eighteen years of age: he was handsome, well-made,
elegant; he talked in that attractive manner of the young nobles of
the French and English courts that Mary no longer heard since her
exile in Scotland; she let herself be deceived by these appearances,
and did not see that under this brilliant exterior Darnley hid utter
insignificance, dubious courage, and a fickle and churlish character.
It is true that he came to her under the auspices of a man whose
influence was as striking as the risen fortune which gave him the
opportunity to exert it. We refer to David Rizzio.
David Rizzio, who played such a great part in the life of Mary
Stuart, whose strange favour for him has given her enemies, probably
without any cause, such cruel weapons against her, was the son of a
Turin musician burdened with a numerous family, who, recognising in
him a pronounced musical taste, had him instructed in the first
principles of the art. At the age of fifteen he had left his
father's house and had gone on foot to Nice, where the Duke of Savoy
held his court; there he entered the service of the Duke of Moreto,
and this lord having been appointed, some years afterwards, to the
Scottish embassy, Rizzio followed him to Scotland. As this young man
had a very fine voice, and accompanied on the viol and fiddle songs
of which both the airs and the words were of his own composition, the
ambassador spoke of him to Mary, who wished to see him. Rizzio, full
of confidence in himself, and seeing in the queen's desire a road to
success, hastened to obey her command, sang before her, and pleased
her. She begged him then of Moreto, making no more of it than if she
had asked of him a thoroughbred dog or a well-trained falcon. Moreta
presented him to her, delighted at finding such an opportunity to pay
his court; but scarcely was Rizzio in her service than Mary
discovered that music was the least of his gifts, that he possessed,
besides that, education if not profound at least varied, a supple
mind, a lively imagination, gentle ways, and at the same time much
boldness and presumption. He reminded her of those Italian artists
whom she had seen at the French court, and spoke to her the tongue of
Marot and Ronsard, whose most beautiful poems he knew by heart: this
was more than enough to please Mary Stuart. In a short time he
became her favourite, and meanwhile the place of secretary for the
French despatches falling vacant, Rizzio was provided for with it.
Darnley, who wished to succeed at all costs, enlisted Rizzio in his
interests, unconscious that he had no need of this support; and as,
on her side, Mary, who had fallen in love with him at first sight,
fearing some new intrigue of Elizabeth's, hastened on this union so
far as the proprieties permitted, the affair moved forward with
wonderful rapidity; and in the midst of public rejoicing, with the
approbation of the nobility, except for a small minority, with Murray
at its head, the marriage was solemnised under the happiest auspices,
29th July 1565. Two days before, Darnley and his father, the Earl of
Lennox, had received a command to return to London, and as they had
not obeyed it, a week after the celebration of the marriage they
learned that the Countess of Lennox, the only one of the family
remaining in Elizabeth's power, had been arrested and taken to the
Tower. Thus Elizabeth, in spite of her dissimulation, yielding to
that first impulse of violence that she always had such trouble to
overcome, publicly displayed her resentment.
However, Elizabeth was not the woman to be satisfied with useless
vengeance: she soon released the countess, and turned her eyes
towards Murray, the most discontented of the nobles in opposition,
who by this marriage was losing all his personal influence. It was
thus easy for Elizabeth to put arms in his hand. In fact, when he
had failed in his first attempt to seize Darnley, he called to his
aid the Duke of Chatellerault, Glencairn, Argyll, and Rothes, and
collecting what partisans they could, they openly rebelled against
the queen. This was the first ostensible act of that hatred which
was afterwards so fatal to Mary.
The queen, on her side, appealed to her nobles, who in response
hastened to rally to her, so that in a month's time she found herself
at the head of the finest army that ever a king of Scotland had
raised. Darnley assumed the command of this magnificent assembly,
mounted on a superb horse, arrayed in gilded armour; and accompanied
by the queen, who, in a riding habit, with pistols at her saddle-bow,
wished to make the campaign with him, that she might not quit his
side for a moment. Both were young, both were handsome, and they
left Edinburgh amidst the cheers of the people and the army.
Murray and his accomplices did not even try to stand against them,
and the campaign consisted of such rapid and complex marches and
counter-marches, that this rebellion is called the Run-about Raid-
that is to say, the run in every sense of the word. Murray and the
rebels withdrew into England, where Elizabeth, while seeming to
condemn their unlucky attempt, afforded them all the assistance they
needed.
Mary returned to Edinburgh delighted at the success of her two first
campaigns, not suspecting that this new good fortune was the last she
would have, and that there her short-lived prosperity would cease.
Indeed, she soon saw that in Darnley she had given herself not a
devoted and very attentive husband, as she had believed, but an
imperious and brutal master, who, no longer having any motive for
concealment, showed himself to her just as he was, a man of
disgraceful vices, of which drunkenness and debauchery was the least.
Accordingly, serious differences were not long in springing up in
this royal household.
Darnley in wedding Mary had not become king, but merely the queen's
husband. To confer on him authority nearly equalling a regent's, it
was necessary that Mary should grant him what was termed the crown
matrimonial--a crown Francis II had worn during his short royalty,
and that Mary, after Darnley's conduct to herself, had not the
slightest intention of bestowing on him. Thus, to whatever
entreaties he made, in whatever form they were wrapped, Mary merely
replied with an unvaried and obstinate refusal. Darnley, amazed at
this force of will in a young queen who had loved him enough to raise
him to her, and not believing that she could find it in herself,
sought in her entourage for some secret and influential adviser who
might have inspired her with it. His suspicions fell on Rizzio.
In reality, to whatever cause Rizzio owed his power (and to even the
most clear-sighted historians this point has always remained
obscure), be it that he ruled as lover, be it that he advised as
minister, his counsels as long as he lived were always given for the
greater glory of the queen. Sprung from so low, he at least wished
to show himself worthy, of having risen so high, and owing everything
to Mary, he tried to repay her with devotion. Thus Darnley was not
mistaken, and it was indeed Rizzio who, in despair at having helped
to bring about a union which he foresaw must become so unfortunate,
gave Mary the advice not to give up any of her power to one who
already possessed much more than he deserved, in possessing her
person.
Darnley, like all persons of both weak and violent character,
disbelieved in the persistence of will in others, unless this will
was sustained by an outside influence. He thought that in ridding
himself of Rizzio he could not fail to gain the day, since, as he
believed, he alone was opposing the grant of this great desire of
his, the crown matrimonial. Consequently, as Rizzio was disliked by
the nobles in proportion as his merits had raised him above them, it
was easy for Darnley to organise a conspiracy, and James Douglas of
Morton, chancellor of the kingdom, consented to act as chief.
This is the second time since the beginning of our narrative that we
inscribe this name Douglas, so often pronounced, in Scottish history,
and which at this time, extinct in the elder branch, known as the
Black Douglases, was perpetuated in the younger branch, known as the
Red Douglases. It was an ancient, noble, and powerful family, which,
when the descent in the male line from Robert Bruce had lapsed,
disputed the royal title with the first Stuart, and which since then
had constantly kept alongside the throne, sometimes its support,
sometimes its enemy, envying every great house, for greatness made it
uneasy, but above all envious of the house of Hamilton, which, if not
its equal, was at any rate after itself the next most powerful.
During the whole reign of James V, thanks to the hatred which the
king bore them, the Douglases had: not only lost all their influence,
but had also been exiled to England. This hatred was on account of
their having seized the guardianship of the young prince and kept him
prisoner till he was fifteen. Then, with the help of one of his
pages, James V had escaped from Falkland, and had reached Stirling,
whose governor was in his interests. Scarcely was he safe in the
castle than he made proclamation that any Douglas who should approach
within a dozen miles of it would be prosecuted for high treason.
This was not all: he obtained a decree from Parliament, declaring
them guilty of felony, and condemning them to exile; they remained
proscribed, then, during the king's lifetime, and returned to
Scotland only upon his death. The result was that, although they had
been recalled about the throne, and though, thanks to the past
influence of Murray, who, one remembers, was a Douglas on the
mother's side, they filled the most important posts there, they had
not forgiven to the daughter the enmity borne them by the father.
This was why James Douglas, chancellor as he was, and consequently
entrusted with the execution of the laws, put himself at the head of
a conspiracy which had for its aim the violation of all laws; human
and divine.
Douglas's first idea had been to treat Rizzio as the favourites of
James III had been treated at the Bridge of Lauder--that is to say,
to make a show of having a trial and to hang him afterwards. But
such a death did not suffice for Darnley's vengeance; as above
everything he wished to punish the queen in Rizzio's person, he
exacted that the murder should take place in her presence.
Douglas associated with himself Lord Ruthven, an idle and dissolute
sybarite, who under the circumstances promised to push his devotion
so far as to wear a cuirass; then, sure of this important accomplice,
he busied himself with finding other agents.
However, the plot was not woven with such secrecy but that something
of it transpired; and Rizzio received several warnings that he
despised. Sir James Melville, among others, tried every means to
make him understand the perils a stranger ran who enjoyed such
absolute confidence in a wild, jealous court like that of Scotland.
Rizzio received these hints as if resolved not to apply them to
himself; and Sir James Melville, satisfied that he had done enough to
ease his conscience, did not insist further. Then a French priest,
who had a reputation as a clever astrologer, got himself admitted to
Rizzio, and warned him that the stars predicted that he was in deadly
peril, and that he should beware of a certain bastard above all.
Rizzio replied that from the day when he had been honoured with his
sovereign's confidence, he had sacrificed in advance his life to his
position; that since that time, however, he had had occasion to
notice that in general the Scotch were ready to threaten but slow to
act; that, as to the bastard referred to, who was doubtless the Earl
of Murray, he would take care that he should never enter Scotland far
enough for his sword to reach him, were it as long as from Dumfries
to Edinburgh; which in other words was as much as to say that Murray
should remain exiled in England for life, since Dumfries was one of
the principal frontier towns.
Meanwhile the conspiracy proceeded, and Douglas and Ruthven, having
collected their accomplices and taken their measures, came to Darnley
to finish the compact. As the price of the bloody service they
rendered the king, they exacted from him a promise to obtain the
pardon of Murray and the nobles compromised with him in the affair of
the "run in every sense". Darnley granted all they asked of him, and
a messenger was sent to Murray to inform him of the expedition in
preparation, and to invite him to hold himself in readiness to
reenter Scotland at the first notice he should receive. Then, this
point settled, they made Darnley sign a paper in which he
acknowledged himself the author and chief of the enterprise. The
other assassins were the Earl of Morton, the Earl of Ruthven, George
Douglas the bastard of Angus, Lindley, and Andrew, Carew. The
remainder were soldiers, simple murderers' tools, who did not even
know what was afoot. Darnley reserved it for himself to appoint the
time.
Two days after these conditions were agreed upon, Darnley having been
notified that the queen was alone with Rizzio, wished to make himself
sure of the degree of her favour enjoyed by the minister. He
accordingly went to her apartment by a little door of which he always
kept the key upon him; but though the key turned in the lock, the
door did not open. Then Darnley knocked, announcing himself; but
such was the contempt into which he had fallen with the queen, that
Mary left him outside, although, supposing she had been alone with
Rizzio, she would have had time to send him away. Darnley, driven to
extremities by this, summoned Morton, Ruthven, Lennox, Lindley, and
Douglas's bastard, and fixed the assassination of Rizzio for two days
later.
They had just completed all the details, and had, distributed the
parts that each must play in this bloody tragedy, when suddenly, and
at the moment when they least expected it, the door opened and, Mary
Stuart appeared on the threshold.
"My lords," said she, "your holding these secret counsels is useless.
I am informed of your plots, and with God's help I shall soon apply a
remedy".
With these words, and before the conspirators hid had time to collect
themselves, she shut the door again, and vanished like a passing but
threatening vision. All remained thunderstruck. Morton was the
first to find his tongue.
"My lords," said he, "this is a game of life and death, and the
winner will not be the cleverest or the strongest, but the readiest.
If we do not destroy this man, we are lost. We must strike him down,
this very evening, not the day after to-morrow."
Everyone applauded, even Ruthven, who, still pale and feverish from
riotous living, promised not to be behindhand. The only point
changed, on Morton's suggestion, was that the murder should take
place next day; for, in the opinion of all, not less than a day's
interval was needed to collect the minor conspirators, who numbered
not less than five hundred.
The next day, which was Saturday, March 9th, 1566, Mary Stuart, who
had inherited from her father, James V, a dislike of ceremony and the
need of liberty, had invited to supper with her six persons, Rizzio
among the number. Darnley, informed of this in the morning,
immediately gave notice of it to the conspirators, telling them that
he himself would let them into the palace between six and seven
o'clock in the evening. The conspirators replied that they would be
in readiness.
The morning had been dark and stormy, as nearly all the first days of
spring are in Scotland, and towards evening the snow and wind
redoubled in depth and violence. So Mary had remained shut up with
Rizzio, and Darnley, who had gone to the secret door several times,
could hear the sound of instruments and the voice of the favourite,
who was singing those sweet melodies which have come down to our
time, and which Edinburgh people still attribute to him. These songs
were for Mary a reminder of her stay in France, where the artists in
the train of the Medicis had already brought echoes from Italy; but
for Darnley they were an insult, and each time he had withdrawn
strengthened in his design.
At the appointed time, the conspirators, who had been given the
password during the day, knocked at the palace gate, and were
received there so much the more easily that Darnley himself, wrapped
in a great cloak, awaited them at the postern by which they were
admitted. The five hundred soldiers immediately stole into an inner
courtyard, where they placed themselves under some sheds, as much to
keep themselves from the cold as that they might not be seen on the
snow-covered ground. A brightly lighted window looked into this
courtyard; it was that of the queen's study: at the first signal give
them from this window, the soldiers were to break in the door and go
to the help of the chief conspirators.
These instructions given, Darnley led Morton, Ruthven, Lennox,
Lindley, Andrew Carew, and Douglas's bastard into the room adjoining
the study, and only separated from it by a tapestry hanging before
the door. From there one could overhear all that was being said, and
at a single bound fall upon the guests.
Darnley left them in this room, enjoining silence; then, giving them
as a signal to enter the moment when they should hear him cry, "To
me, Douglas!" he went round by the secret passage, so that seeing him
come in by his usual door the queen's suspicions might not be roused
by his unlooked-for visit.
Mary was at supper with six persons, having, say de Thou and
Melville, Rizzio seated on her right; while, on the contrary,
Carapden assures us that he was eating standing at a sideboard. The
talk was gay and intimate; for all were giving themselves up to the
ease one feels at being safe and warm, at a hospitable board, while
the snow is beating against the windows and the wind roaring in the
chimneys. Suddenly Mary, surprised that the most profound silence
had succeeded to the lively and animated flow of words among her
guests since the beginning of supper, and suspecting, from their
glances, that the cause of their uneasiness was behind her, turned
round and saw Darnley leaning on the back of her chair. The queen
shuddered; for although her husband was smiling when looking at
Rizzio, this smile lead assumed such a strange expression that it was
clear that something terrible was about to happen. At the same
moment, Mary heard in the next room a heavy, dragging step drew near
the cabinet, then the tapestry was raised, and Lord Ruthven, in
armour of which he could barely support the weight, pale as a ghost,
appeared on the threshold, and, drawing his sword in silence, leaned
upon it.
The queen thought he was delirious.
"What do you want, my lord?" she said to him; "and why do you come to
the palace like this?"
"Ask the king, madam," replied Ruthven in an indistinct voice. "It is
for him to answer."
"Explain, my lord," Mary demanded, turning again towards Darnley;
"what does such a neglect of ordinary propriety mean?"
"It means, madam," returned Darnley, pointing to Rizzio, "that that
man must leave here this very minute."
"That man is mine, my lord," Mary said, rising proudly, "and
consequently takes orders only from me."
"To me, Douglas!" cried Darnley.
At these words, the conspirators, who for some moments had drawn
nearer Ruthven, fearing, so changeable was Darnley's character, lest
he had brought them in vain and would not dare to utter the signal
--at these words, the conspirators rushed into the room with such
haste that they overturned the table. Then David Rizzio, seeing that
it was he alone they wanted, threw himself on his knees behind the
queen, seizing the hem of her robe and crying in Italian, "Giustizia!
giustizia!" Indeed, the queen, true to her character, not allowing
herself to be intimidated by this terrible irruption, placed herself
in front of Rizzio and sheltered him behind her Majesty. But she
counted too much on the respect of a nobility accustomed to struggle
hand to hand with its kings for five centuries. Andrew Carew held a
dagger to her breast and threatened to kill her if she insisted on
defending any longer him whose death was resolved upon. Then
Darnley, without consideration for the queen's pregnancy, seized her
round the waist and bore her away from Rizzio, who remained on his
knees pale and trembling, while Douglas's bastard, confirming the
prediction of the astrologer who had warned Rizzio to beware of a
certain bastard, drawing the king's own dagger, plunged it into the
breast of the minister, who fell wounded, but not dead. Morton
immediately took him by the feet and dragged him from the cabinet
into the larger room, leaving on the floor that long track of blood
which is still shown there; then, arrived there, each rushed upon him
as upon a quarry, and set upon the corpse, which they stabbed in
fifty-six places. Meanwhile Darnley held the queen, who, thinking
that all was not over, did not cease crying for mercy. But Ruthven
came back, paler than at first, and at Darnley's inquiry if Rizzio
were dead, he nodded in the affirmative; then, as he could not bear
further fatigue in his convalescent state, he sat down, although the
queen, whom Darnley had at last released, remained standing on the
same spot. At this Mary could not contain herself.
"My lord," cried she, "who has given you permission to sit down in my
presence, and whence comes such insolence?"
"Madam," Ruthven answered, "I act thus not from insolence, but from
weakness; for, to serve your husband, I have just taken more exercise
than my doctors allow". Then turning round to a servant, "Give me a
glass of wine," said he, showing Darnley his bloody dagger before
putting it back in its sheath, "for here is the proof that I have
well earned it". The servant obeyed, and Ruthven drained his glass
with as much calmness as if he had just performed the most innocent
act.
"My lord," the queen then said, taking a step towards him, "it may be
that as I am a woman, in spite of my desire and my will, I never find
an opportunity to repay you what you are doing to me; but," she
added, energetically striking her womb with her hand, "he whom I bear
there, and whose life you should have respected, since you respect my
Majesty so little, will one day revenge me for all these insults".
Then, with a gesture at once superb and threatening, she withdrew by
Darnley's door, which she closed behind her.
At that moment a great noise was heard in the queen's room. Huntly,
Athol, and Bothwell, who, we are soon about to see, play such an
important part in the sequel of this history, were supping together
in another hall of the palace, when suddenly they had heard outcries
and the clash of arms, so that they had run with all speed. When
Athol, who came first, without knowing whose it was, struck against
the dead body of Rizzio, which was stretched at the top of the
staircase, they believed, seeing someone assassinated, that the lives
of the king and queen were threatened, and they had drawn their
swords to force the door that Morton was guarding. But directly
Darnley understood what was going on, he darted from the cabinet,
followed by Ruthven, and showing himself to the newcomers--
"My lords," he said, "the persons of the queen and myself are safe,
and nothing has occurred here but by our orders. Withdraw, then; you
will know more about it in time. As to him," he added, holding up
Rizzio's head by the hair, whilst the bastard of Douglas lit up the
face with a torch so that it could be recognised, "you see who it is,
and whether it is worth your while to get into trouble for him".
And in fact, as soon as Huntly, Athol, and Bothwell had recognised
the musician-minister, they sheathed their swords, and, having
saluted the king, went away.
Mary had gone away with a single thought in her heart, vengeance.
But she understood that she could not revenge herself at one and the
same time on her husband and his companions: she set to work, then,
with all the charms of her wit and beauty to detach the kind from his
accomplices. It was not a difficult task: when that brutal rage
which often carried Darnley beyond all bounds was spent, he was
frightened himself at the crime he had committed, and while the
assassins, assembled by Murray, were resolving that he should have
that greatly desired crown matrimonial, Darnley, as fickle as he was
violent, and as cowardly as he was cruel, in Mary's very room, before
the scarcely dried blood, made another compact, in which he engaged
to deliver up his accomplices. Indeed, three days after the event
that we have just related, the murderers learned a strange piece of
news--that Darnley and Mary, accompanied by Lord Seyton, had escaped
together from Holyrood Palace. Three days later still, a
proclamation appeared, signed by Mary and dated from Dunbar, which
summoned round the queen, in her own name and the king's, all the
Scottish lords and barons, including those who had been compromised
in the affair of the "run in every sense," to whom she not only
granted full and complete pardon, but also restored her entire
confidence. In this way she separated Murray's cause from that of
Morton and the other assassins, who, in their turn, seeing that there
was no longer any safety for them in Scotland, fled to England, where
all the queen's enemies were always certain to find a warm welcome,
in spite of the good relations which reigned in appearance between
Mary and Elizabeth. As to Bothwell, who had wanted to oppose the
assassination, he was appointed Warden of all the Marches of the
Kingdom.
Unfortunately for her honour, Mary, always more the woman than the
queen, while, on the contrary, Elizabeth was always more the queen
than the woman, had no sooner regained her power than her first royal
act was to exhume Rizzio, who had been quietly buried on the
threshold of the chapel nearest Holyrood Palace, and to have him
removed to the burial-place of the Scottish kings, compromising
herself still more by the honours she paid him dead than by the
favour she had granted him living.
Such an imprudent demonstration naturally led to fresh quarrels
between Mary and Darnley: these quarrels were the more bitter that,
as one can well understand, the reconciliation between the husband
and wife, at least on the latter's side, had never been anything but
a pretence; so that, feeling herself in a stronger position still on
account of her pregnancy, she restrained herself no longer, and,
leaving Darnley, she went from Dunbar to Edinburgh Castle, where on
June 19th, 1566, three months after the assassination of Rizzio, she
gave birth to a son who afterwards became James VI.
