r attempt to break through
the combination which formed the condition of her government in
Scotland, and to effect a restoration of the old ecclesiastical and
political forms. Before the power which she wished to overthrow her
own had gone down.

But she was not yet minded to submit to it. And mainly through a
personal relation which she had entered into with the young George
Douglas, who conceived hopes of her hand, she succeeded in escaping
out of her prison and over the lake, bold and venturous as she always
was. In the country there were many who thought themselves to stand so
high above the bastard Earl of Murray, that they held it a disgrace to
obey him: all these gathered round her; and as she then, the very day
after her escape, revoked her abdication, they bound themselves
together to replace her on the throne. In the league, at the head of
which stood the Hamiltons, we find eight bishops and twelve
abbots,--for the re-establishment of the Catholic Church was part of
the plan: a considerable army was brought into the field with this
object. Murray and his party were however the stronger of the two,
they represented the organised power of the State, and their soldiers
were the best disciplined. The Queen, who, at Langsyde, from a
neighbouring eminence, looked on at the battle between the two armies,
had to witness her own men being scattered without having done the
enemy any damage,--Murray is said to have lost only one man. He
himself put a stop to the slaughter of the fugitives. Still even now
her affairs did not seem to those around her utterly lost, for all her
friends had not yet appeared in the field, and there were still strong
places to which she could retreat. But she aimed not merely at
defence, but at overpowering her enemies. As what she had just seen
left her no hope of this in Scotland, she adopted the idea of
demanding help from the Queen of England. For the latter had in the
strongest terms made known to the Scotch barons her displeasure at the
treatment of their Queen, which was not in harmony with the laws of
God or man, and had threatened to punish them for the wound thus
inflicted on the royal dignity. She had once sent Mary herself a jewel
as a pledge of her friendship. Mary was warned by those around her not
to put full trust in these assurances. But she was quite accustomed to
take her resolutions under passionate emotion, and could not then be
dissuaded from her views. Through forests an