ire. At any rate, they made their escape, they reached Dunbar,
and Mary, or Bothwell in her name, immediately issued a proclamation,
calling upon all her faithful subjects to assemble in arms, to
deliver her from her dangers. At the same time, the prince's lords
issued _their_ proclamation, calling upon all faithful subjects to
assemble with them, to aid them in delivering the queen from the
tyrant who held her captive.

The faithful subjects were at a loss which proclamation to obey. By
far the greater number joined the insurgents. Some thousands,
however, went to Dunbar. With this force the queen and Bothwell
sallied forth, about the middle of June, to meet the prince's lords,
or the insurgents, as they called them, to settle the question at
issue by the kind of ballot with which such questions were generally
settled in those days.

Mary had a proclamation read at the head of her army, now that she
supposed she was on the eve of battle, in which she explained the
causes of the quarrel. The proclamation stated that the marriage was
Mary's free act, and that, although it was in some respects an
extraordinary one, still the circumstances were such that she could
not do otherwise than she had done. For ten days she had been in
Bothwell's power in his castle at Dunbar, and not an arm had been
raised for her deliverance. Her subjects ought to have interposed
then, if they were intending really to rescue her from Bothwell's
power. They had done nothing then, but now, when she had been
compelled, by the cruel circumstances of her condition, to marry
Bothwell--when the act was done, and could no longer be recalled,
they had taken up arms against her, and compelled her to take the
field in her own defense.

The army of the prince's lords, with Mary's most determined enemies
at their head, advanced to meet the queen's forces. The queen finally
took her post on an elevated piece of ground called Carberry Hill.
Carberry is an old Scotch name for gooseberry. Carberry Hill is a few
miles to the eastward of Edinburgh, near Dalkeith. Here the two
armies were drawn up, opposite to each other, in hostile array.

Le Croc, the aged and venerable French embassador, made a great
effort to effect an accommodation and prevent a battle. He first went
to the queen and obtained authority from her to offer terms of peace,
and then went to the camp of the prince's lords and proposed that
they should lay down their arms and submit to the queen