e from that
of Morton and the other assassins, who, in their turn, seeing that there
was no longer any safety for them in Scotland, fled to England, where
all the queen's enemies were always certain to find a warm welcome, in
spite of the good relations which reigned in appearance between Mary and
Elizabeth. As to Bothwell, who had wanted to oppose the assassination,
he was appointed Warden of all the Marches of the Kingdom.

Unfortunately for her honour, Mary, always more the woman than the
queen, while, on the contrary, Elizabeth was always more the queen than
the woman, had no sooner regained her power than her first royal act was
to exhume Rizzio, who had been quietly buried on the threshold of
the chapel nearest Holyrood Palace, and to have him removed to the
burial-place of the Scottish kings, compromising herself still more by
the honours she paid him dead than by the favour she had granted him
living.

Such an imprudent demonstration naturally led to fresh quarrels between
Mary and Darnley: these quarrels were the more bitter that, as one can
well understand, the reconciliation between the husband and wife, at
least on the latter's side, had never been anything but a pretence; so
that, feeling herself in a stronger position still on account of her
pregnancy, she restrained herself no longer, and, leaving Darnley, she
went from Dunbar to Edinburgh Castle, where on June 19th, 1566, three
months after the assassination of Rizzio, she gave birth to a son who
afterwards became James VI.

CHAPTER III

Directly she was delivered, Mary sent for James Melville, her usual
envoy to Elizabeth, and charged him to convey this news to the Queen of
England, and to beg her to be godmother to the royal child at the same
time. On arriving in London, Melville immediately presented himself at
the palace; but as there was a court ball, he could not see the queen,
and contented himself with making known the reason for his journey to
the minister Cecil, and with begging him to ask his mistress for an
audience next day. Elizabeth was dancing in a quadrille at the moment
when Cecil, approaching her, said in a low voice, "Queen Mary of
Scotland has just given birth to a son". At these words she grew
frightfully pale, and, looking about her with a bewildered air, and as
if she were about to faint, she leaned against an arm-chair; then, soon,
not being able to stand upright, she sat down, threw back her head, and
plunged into a m