land. Every body was on the
alert to discover the authors of the crime. Rewards were offered;
proclamations were made. Rumors began to circulate that Bothwell was
the criminal. He was accused by anonymous placards put up at night in
Edinburgh. Lennox, Darnley's father, demanded his trial; and a trial
was ordered. The circumstances of the trial were such, however, and
Bothwell's power and desperate recklessness were so great, that
Lennox, when the time came, did not appear. He said he had not _force
enough_ at his command to come safely into court. There being no
testimony offered, Bothwell was acquitted; and he immediately
afterward issued his proclamation, offering to fight any man who
should intimate, in any way, that he was concerned in the murder of
the king. Thus Bothwell established his innocence; at least, no man
dared to gainsay it.

Darnley was murdered in February. Bothwell was tried and acquitted in
April. Immediately afterward, he took measures for privately making
known to the leading nobles that it was his design to marry the
queen, and for securing their concurrence in the plan. They
concurred; or at least, perhaps for fear of displeasing such a
desperado, said what he understood to mean that they concurred. The
queen heard the reports of such a design, and said, as ladies often
do in similar cases, that she did not know what people meant by such
reports; there was no foundation for them whatever.

Toward the end of April, Mary was about returning from the castle of
Stirling to Edinburgh with a small escort of troops and attendants.
Melville was in her train. Bothwell set out at the head of a force of
more than five hundred men to intercept her. Mary lodged one night,
on her way, at Linlithgow, the palace where she was born, and the
next morning was quietly pursuing her journey, when Bothwell came up
at the head of his troops. Resistance was vain. Bothwell advanced to
Mary's horse, and, taking the bridle, led her away. A few of her
principal followers were taken prisoners too, and the rest were
dismissed. Bothwell took his captive across the country by a rapid
flight to his castle of Dunbar. The attendants who were taken with
her were released, and she remained in the Castle of Dunbar for ten
days, entirely in Bothwell's power.

[Illustration: DUNBAR CASTLE--The Residence of Earl Bothwell.]

According to the account which Mary herself gives of what took place
during this captivity, she at first repro