barite, who under the circumstances promised to push his devotion so
far as to wear a cuirass; then, sure of this important accomplice, he
busied himself with finding other agents.

However, the plot was not woven with such secrecy but that something of
it transpired; and Rizzio received several warnings that he despised.
Sir James Melville, among others, tried every means to make him
understand the perils a stranger ran who enjoyed such absolute
confidence in a wild, jealous court like that of Scotland. Rizzio
received these hints as if resolved not to apply them to himself;
and Sir James Melville, satisfied that he had done enough to ease his
conscience, did not insist further. Then a French priest, who had a
reputation as a clever astrologer, got himself admitted to Rizzio, and
warned him that the stars predicted that he was in deadly peril, and
that he should beware of a certain bastard above all. Rizzio replied
that from the day when he had been honoured with his sovereign's
confidence, he had sacrificed in advance his life to his position; that
since that time, however, he had had occasion to notice that in general
the Scotch were ready to threaten but slow to act; that, as to the
bastard referred to, who was doubtless the Earl of Murray, he would take
care that he should never enter Scotland far enough for his sword to
reach him, were it as long as from Dumfries to Edinburgh; which in other
words was as much as to say that Murray should remain exiled in England
for life, since Dumfries was one of the principal frontier towns.

Meanwhile the conspiracy proceeded, and Douglas and Ruthven, having
collected their accomplices and taken their measures, came to Darnley to
finish the compact. As the price of the bloody service they rendered the
king, they exacted from him a promise to obtain the pardon of Murray
and the nobles compromised with him in the affair of the "run in every
sense". Darnley granted all they asked of him, and a messenger was sent
to Murray to inform him of the expedition in preparation, and to invite
him to hold himself in readiness to reenter Scotland at the first notice
he should receive. Then, this point settled, they made Darnley sign
a paper in which he acknowledged himself the author and chief of the
enterprise. The other assassins were the Earl of Morton, the Earl of
Ruthven, George Douglas the bastard of Angus, Lindley, and Andrew,
Carew. The remainder were soldiers, simple murderers' tools