ned in time,
Westmoreland and Northumberland crossed the frontiers and took refuge
in the Scottish borders which were favourable to Queen Mary. The former
reached Flanders, where he died in exile; the latter, given up to
Murray, was sent to the castle of Lochleven, which guarded him more
faithfully than it had done its royal prisoner. As to Norfolk, he was
beheaded. As one sees, Mary Stuart's star had lost none of its fatal
influence.

Meanwhile the regent had returned to Edinburgh, enriched with presents
from Elizabeth, and having gained, in fact, his case with her, since
Mary remained a prisoner. He employed himself immediately in dispersing
the remainder of her adherents, and had hardly shut the gates of
Lochleven Castle upon Westmoreland than, in the name of the young King
James VI, he pursued those who had upheld his mother's cause, and among
them more particularly the Hamiltons, who since the affair of "sweeping
the streets of Edinburgh," had been the mortal enemies of the Douglases
personally; six of the chief members of this family were condemned to
death, and only obtained commutation of the penalty into an eternal
exile on the entreaties of John Knox, at that time so powerful in
Scotland that Murray dared not refuse their pardon.

One of the amnestied was a certain Hamilton of Bothwellhaugh, a man of
ancient Scottish times, wild and vindictive as the nobles in the time
of James I. He had withdrawn into the highlands, where he had found an
asylum, when he learned that Murray, who in virtue of the confiscation
pronounced against exiles had given his lands to one of his favourites,
had had the cruelty to expel his sick and bedridden wife from her own
house, and that without giving her time to dress, and although it was
in the winter cold. The poor woman, besides, without shelter, without
clothes, and without food, had gone out of her mind, had wandered about
thus for some time, an object of compassion but equally of dread; for
everyone had been afraid of compromising himself by assisting her. At
last, she had returned to expire of misery and cold on the threshold
whence she had been driven.

On learning this news, Bothwellhaugh, despite the violence of his
character, displayed no anger: he merely responded, with a terrible
smile, "It is well; I shall avenge her."

Next day, Bothwellhaugh left his highlands, and came down, disguised,
into the plain, furnished with an order of admission from the Archbishop
of