ew taken at the time, according to which the better
relations that had begun between husband and wife were not due to
hypocrisy but were genuine, and a complete reconciliation and reunion
was to have been expected: the returning inclination towards her
husband was contending in the Queen with her passion for Bothwell; and
he was driven on, by the apprehension that his prey and the prize of
his ambition would escape him, to hasten the execution of his
scheme.[224] And psychologically the event might be best explained in
this way. But the statement has not sufficiently good evidence for it
to be maintained historically. A poet might, I think, so apprehend it:
for it is one of the advantages of poetic representation, that it can
take up even a slightly supported tradition, and following it can
infer the depths of the heart, those abysmal depths in which the
storms of passion rage, and those actions are begotten which laugh
laws and morality to scorn, and yet are deeply rooted in the souls of
men. The informations on which our historical representation must be
based do not reach so far: on a scrupulous examination they do not
allow us to attain a definite conviction as to the degree of
complicity. Only there can be no doubt as to the fact that this time
too ambition and the lust of power played a great part. If Bothwell
once said he would prevent Darnley from setting his foot on the necks
of the Scotch, he thereby only expressed the feeling of the other
nobles. Yet he executed his murderous plot without their joining in it
and by means of his own servants.[225] In the house before mentioned
he caused a quantity of gunpowder to be laid under the chamber in
which Darnley slept, in order to blow him into the air: alarmed at the
noise made by opening the door, the young sovereign sprang from his
bed; while trying to save himself, he was strangled together with the
page who was with him: the powder was then fired and the house laid in
ruins.[226]

So the dreadful deed was done: the news of it filled men at first with
that curiosity which always attaches to dark events that touch the
highest circles; they then busied themselves with the question as to
who would ascend the Scottish throne and give the Queen his
hand,--among the other suitors Leicester now thought the time come for
him, and for renewing good relations between England and
Scotland:--but meanwhile to every man's astonishment and horror a
rumour spread that the Queen