ecretary; and now that Morton was under the same suspicion, it
was openly said that the Seigneur Davie would be made chancellor in his
stead.

Thus the Seigneur Davie was become the most powerful man in Scotland,
and it is not to be dreamt that a dour, stiff-necked nobility would
suffer it without demur. They intrigued against him, putting it abroad,
amongst other things, that this foreign upstart was an emissary, of the
Pope's, scheming to overthrow the Protestant religion in Scotland. But
in the duel that followed their blunt Scotch wits were no match for his
Italian subtlety. Intrigue as they might his power remained unshaken.
And then, at last it began to be whispered that he owed his high favour
with the beautiful young Queen to other than his secretarial abilities,
so that Bedford wrote to Cecil:

"What countenance the Queen shows David I will not write, for the honour
due to the person of a queen."

This bruit found credit--indeed, there have been ever since those who
have believed it--and, as it spread, it reached the ears of Darnley.
Because it afforded him an explanation of the Queen's hostility, since
he was without the introspection that would have discovered the true
explanation in his own shortcomings, he flung it as so much fuel upon
the seething fires of his rancour, and became the most implacable of
those who sought the ruin of Rizzio.

He sent for Ruthven, the friend of Murray and the exiled lords--exiled,
remember, on Darnley's own account--and offered to procure the
reinstatement of those outlaws if they would avenge his honour and make
him King of Scots in something more than name.

Ruthven, sick of a mortal illness, having risen from a bed of pain to
come in answer to that summons, listened dourly to the frothing speeches
of that silly, lovely boy.

"No doubt you'll be right about yon fellow Davie," he agreed sombrely,
and purposely he added things that must have outraged Darnley's every
feeling as king and as husband. Then he stated the terms on which
Darnley might count upon his aid.

"Early next month Parliament is to meet over the business of a Bill
of Attainder against Murray and his friends, declaring them by their
rebellion to have forfeited life, land, and goods. Ye can see the power
with her o' this foreign fiddler, that it drives her so to attaint her
own brother. Murray has ever hated Davie, knowing too much of what lies
'twixt the Queen and him to her dishonour, and Master Davie