It is doubly unfortunate that we should have no record from himself of
the first chapter of that tragedy which was soon to make Scotland the
centre of curiosity and horror to Christendom, and which came into the
already troubled national life like a thunderbolt. Nothing, perhaps,
will ever fully clear up the dark death-scene of Rizzio, the darker
conspiracies and plots that led to it. The fact that the return of the
banished lords was simultaneous with his murder, and that Murray and the
rest had bound themselves in a covenant of duty and service to Darnley
for his good offices in procuring their recall, of the same date with
the other and darker bond which bound that wretched boy to the
executioners of the favourite, will always make it possible for the
partisans of the Queen to make out a certain case against the lords. And
that Knox should have left Edinburgh suddenly and without a word when
that dark deed was accomplished is once more a painful presumption
against him. But there seems no absolute evidence that either one or the
other were involved. It is extremely possible, since the English envoy
knew beforehand of some such dark purpose, that they too may have known.
But it is also evident that so summary a conclusion to the matter was
not in the mind even of Ruthven when he first presented himself like a
ghost in the Queen's closet. Persistent tradition will have it still, in
spite of demonstration to the contrary, that Signor Davie was killed in
Mary's presence at her feet; but the evidence would seem to prove that
immediate execution had not even been determined on, and that but for
the fury of the party among whom the struggling Italian was flung, and
who could not wait for their vengeance, there might have been some
pretence at legality, some sort of impeachment and condemnation, to
justify the deed, in which proceedings had they been taken both Knox and
Murray would have concurred. It is satisfactory, however, to see that
Sir James Melville, Mary's trusted and faithful friend, who was in
Holyrood during the night of the murder, and who had previously urged
upon the Queen, with all the zeal and earnestness of a man who felt his
mistress's dearest interests to be at stake, to recall and pardon Murray
(which had been done also in the strongest terms by Sir N. Throgmorton,
the English envoy), had evidently not the slightest suspicion of any
complicity on his part, and even recorded the disappointment of Ruthven