em all, and even proposed as a matter of policy
that she should marry that very Earl of Leicester who had aspired to be
the husband of Elizabeth. At last, LORD DARNLEY, son of the Earl of
Lennox, and himself descended from the Royal Family of Scotland, went
over with Elizabeth's consent to try his fortune at Holyrood. He was a
tall simpleton; and could dance and play the guitar; but I know of
nothing else he could do, unless it were to get very drunk, and eat
gluttonously, and make a contemptible spectacle of himself in many mean
and vain ways. However, he gained Mary's heart, not disdaining in the
pursuit of his object to ally himself with one of her secretaries, DAVID
RIZZIO, who had great influence with her. He soon married the Queen.
This marriage does not say much for her, but what followed will presently
say less.

Mary's brother, the EARL OF MURRAY, and head of the Protestant party in
Scotland, had opposed this marriage, partly on religious grounds, and
partly perhaps from personal dislike of the very contemptible bridegroom.
When it had taken place, through Mary's gaining over to it the more
powerful of the lords about her, she banished Murray for his pains; and,
when he and some other nobles rose in arms to support the reformed
religion, she herself, within a month of her wedding day, rode against
them in armour with loaded pistols in her saddle. Driven out of
Scotland, they presented themselves before Elizabeth--who called them
traitors in public, and assisted them in private, according to her crafty
nature.

Mary had been married but a little while, when she began to hate her
husband, who, in his turn, began to hate that David Rizzio, with whom he
had leagued to gain her favour, and whom he now believed to be her lover.
He hated Rizzio to that extent, that he made a compact with LORD RUTHVEN
and three other lords to get rid of him by murder. This wicked agreement
they made in solemn secrecy upon the first of March, fifteen hundred and
sixty-six, and on the night of Saturday the ninth, the conspirators were
brought by Darnley up a private staircase, dark and steep, into a range
of rooms where they knew that Mary was sitting at supper with her sister,
Lady Argyle, and this doomed man. When they went into the room, Darnley
took the Queen round the waist, and Lord Ruthven, who had risen from a
bed of sickness to do this murder, came in, gaunt and ghastly, leaning on
two men. Rizzio ran behind the Queen f