he strength of the Protestant nobles had been broken by the
flight of Murray, the Douglases remained at the court. Morton had no
purpose of lending himself to the ruin of the religion he professed,
and Ruthven and Lindesay were roused to action when they saw themselves
threatened with a restoration of Catholicism, and with a legal
banishment of Murray and his companions in the coming Parliament, which
could only serve as a prelude to their own ruin. Rizzio was the author
of this policy; and when Darnley called on his kinsmen to aid him in
attacking Rizzio, the Douglases grasped at his proposal. Their aid and
their promise of the crown matrimonial were bought by Darnley's consent
to the recall of the fugitive lords and of Murray. The plot of the
Douglases was so jealously hidden that no whisper of it reached the
Queen. Her plans were on the brink of success. The Catholic nobles were
ready for action at her court. Huntly and Bothwell were called into the
Privy Council. At the opening of March 1566 the Parliament which was to
carry out her projects was to assemble; and the Queen prepared for her
decisive stroke by naming men whom she could trust as Lords of the
Articles--a body with whom lay the proposal of measures to the
Houses--and by restoring the bishops to their old places among the
peers. But at the moment when Mary revealed the extent of her schemes by
her dismissal of the English ambassador, the young king, followed by
Lord Ruthven, burst into her chamber, dragged Rizzio from her presence,
and stabbed him in an outer chamber, while Morton and Lord Lindesay with
their followers seized the palace gate. Mary found herself a prisoner
in the hands of her husband and his confederates. Her plans were wrecked
in an hour. A proclamation of the king dissolved the Parliament which
she had called for the ruin of her foes; and Murray, who was on his way
back from England when the deed was done, was received at Court and
restored to his old post at the Council-board.

[Sidenote: Mary's revenge.]

Terrible as the blow had been, it roused the more terrible energies
which lay hid beneath the graceful bearing of the Queen. The darker
features of her character were now to develope themselves. With an
inflexible will she turned to build up again the policy which seemed
shattered in Rizzio's murder. Her passionate resentment bent to the
demands of her ambition. "No more tears," she said when they brought her
news of Rizzio's murder;