or shelter and protection. 'Let
him come out of the room,' said Ruthven. 'He shall not leave the room,'
replied the Queen; 'I read his danger in your face, and it is my will
that he remain here.' They then set upon him, struggled with him,
overturned the table, dragged him out, and killed him with fifty-six
stabs. When the Queen heard that he was dead, she said, 'No more tears.
I will think now of revenge!'

Within a day or two, she gained her husband over, and prevailed on the
tall idiot to abandon the conspirators and fly with her to Dunbar. There,
he issued a proclamation, audaciously and falsely denying that he had any
knowledge of the late bloody business; and there they were joined by the
EARL BOTHWELL and some other nobles. With their help, they raised eight
thousand men; returned to Edinburgh, and drove the assassins into
England. Mary soon afterwards gave birth to a son--still thinking of
revenge.

That she should have had a greater scorn for her husband after his late
cowardice and treachery than she had had before, was natural enough.
There is little doubt that she now began to love Bothwell instead, and to
plan with him means of getting rid of Darnley. Bothwell had such power
over her that he induced her even to pardon the assassins of Rizzio. The
arrangements for the Christening of the young Prince were entrusted to
him, and he was one of the most important people at the ceremony, where
the child was named JAMES: Elizabeth being his godmother, though not
present on the occasion. A week afterwards, Darnley, who had left Mary
and gone to his father's house at Glasgow, being taken ill with the small-
pox, she sent her own physician to attend him. But there is reason to
apprehend that this was merely a show and a pretence, and that she knew
what was doing, when Bothwell within another month proposed to one of the
late conspirators against Rizzio, to murder Darnley, 'for that it was the
Queen's mind that he should be taken away.' It is certain that on that
very day she wrote to her ambassador in France, complaining of him, and
yet went immediately to Glasgow, feigning to be very anxious about him,
and to love him very much. If she wanted to get him in her power, she
succeeded to her heart's content; for she induced him to go back with her
to Edinburgh, and to occupy, instead of the palace, a lone house outside
the city called the Kirk of Field. Here, he lived for about a week. One
Sunday night, s