he was gathering to
crush her. She looked mainly to Spain and the Pope for help, and had all
Protestantism against her, led by Elizabeth, whose hate and fury knew no
bounds. It was a duel now of life or death between two systems and two
women, one with a heart and the other without; and, as usual, the
heartless won.

English money and skill honeycombed Scottish loyalty. Darnley, vicious,
vain, and passionate, was an easy prey to intrigue. The tools of England
whispered in his ear that his wife was too intimate with the Italian
secretary Rizzio, who had conducted the correspondence with the Catholic
powers. Darnley, who had earned his wife's contempt already, was beside
himself with jealousy, and himself led the Protestant conspirators and
friends of England, who murdered Rizzio in the queen's presence at
Holyrood (March 1566). From that hour Darnley's doom was sealed.

He had thought to be king indeed now, but Mary outwitted him; for she
recalled her exiled lords, welcomed her brother Murray, and threw
herself into the arms of Darnley's Protestant foes, the very men who had
risen in arms against the marriage. As she fled by night with Darnley
after Rizzio's murder, to betray him, she swore over Rizzio's new-made
grave that a "fatter one" than he should lie there ere long. Whether she
knew of the plot of his foes to murder her husband is not proved, but
she almost certainly did so, and welcomed the deed when it was done. She
made no pretence of love for him after Rizzio's death, and her husband
repaid her coldness by sulky loutishness and bursts of drunken violence.
Mary's conduct toward Bothwell, too, began to arouse scandal. By
November 1566, matters had reached a crisis, and Mary, at Kelso, said
that unless she was freed from Darnley she would put an end to herself.
She spoke not to deaf ears. Morton, and the rest of Rizzio's slayers and
bitter enemies, were pardoned, and the deadly bond was signed.

_IV.--Dire Infatuation_

On February 9, 1567, as the doomed consort lay sick and sorry outside
Edinburgh at the lone house of Kirk o' Field, he was, done to death by
Bothwell and the foes of the Lennoxes; and Mary Stuart's first true love
affair was ended in tragedy. But already the second was in full blast.
Bothwell had recently married; he was disliked by the Scottish nobles,
and the queen's constant association with him had already brought
discredit upon her. There had been a good political excuse for her union