's authority,
and that she would forgive and forget what they had done. They
replied that they had done no wrong, and asked for no pardon; that
they were not in arms against the queen's authority, but in favor of
it. They sought only to deliver her from the durance in which she was
held, and to bring to punishment the murderers of her husband,
whoever they might be. Le Croc went back and forth several times,
vainly endeavoring to effect an accommodation, and finally, giving up
in despair, he returned to Edinburgh, leaving the contending parties
to settle the contest in their own way.

Bothwell now sent a herald to the camp of his enemies, challenging
any one of them to meet him, and settle the question of his guilt or
innocence by single combat. This proposition was not quite so absurd
in those days as it would be now, for it was not an uncommon thing,
in the Middle Ages, to try in this way questions of crime. Many
negotiations ensued on Bothwell's proposal. One or two persons
expressed themselves ready to accept the challenge. Bothwell objected
to them on account of their rank being inferior to his, but said he
would fight Morton, if Morton would accept his challenge. Morton had
been his accomplice in the murder of Darnley, but had afterward
joined the party of Bothwell's foes. It would have been a singular
spectacle to see one of these confederates in the commission of a
crime contending desperately in single combat to settle the question
of the guilt or innocence of the other.

The combat, however, did not take place. After many negotiations on
the subject, the plan was abandoned, each party charging the other
with declining the contest. The queen and Bothwell, in the mean time,
found such evidences of strength on the part of their enemies, and
felt probably, in their own hearts, so much of that faintness and
misgiving under which human energy almost always sinks when the tide
begins to turn against it, after the commission of wrong, that they
began to feel disheartened and discouraged. The queen sent to the
opposite camp with a request that a certain personage, the Laird of
Grange, in whom all parties had great confidence, should come to her,
that she might make one more effort at reconciliation. Grange, after
consulting with the prince's lords, made a proposition to Mary, which
she finally concluded to accept. It was as follows:

They proposed that Mary should come over to their camp, not saying
very distinctly