Bothwell went from Carberry Hill to his castle at
Dunbar, revolving moodily in his mind his altered fortunes. After
some time he found himself not safe in this place of refuge, and so
he retreated to the north, to some estates he had there, in the
remote Highlands. A detachment of forces was sent in pursuit of him.
Now there are, north of Scotland, some groups of dismal islands, the
summits of submerged mountains and rocks, rising in dark and sublime,
but gloomy grandeur, from the midst of cold and tempestuous seas.
Bothwell, finding himself pursued, undertook to escape by ship to
these islands. His pursuers, headed by Grange, who had negotiated at
Carberry for the surrender of the queen, embarked in other vessels,
and pressed on after him. At one time they almost overtook him, and
would have captured him and all his company were it not that they got
entangled among some shoals. Grange's sailors said they must not
proceed. Grange, eager to seize his prey, insisted on their making
sail and pressing forward. The consequence was, they ran the vessels
aground, and Bothwell escaped in a small boat. As it was, however,
they seized some of his accomplices, and brought them back to
Edinburgh. These men were afterward tried, and some of them were
executed; and it was at their trial, and through the confessions they
made, that the facts were brought to light which have been related in
this narrative.

Bothwell, now a fugitive and an exile, but still retaining his
desperate and lawless character, became a pirate, and attempted to
live by robbing the commerce of the German Ocean. Rumor is the only
historian, in ordinary cases, to record the events in the life of a
pirate; and she, in this case, sent word, from time to time, to
Scotland, of the robberies and murders that the desperado committed;
of an expedition fitted out against him by the King of Denmark, of
his being taken and carried into a Danish port; of his being held in
imprisonment for a long period there, in a gloomy dungeon; of his
restless spirit chafing itself in useless struggles against his
fate, and sinking gradually, at last under the burdens of remorse for
past crimes, and despair of any earthly deliverance; of his insanity,
and, finally, of his miserable end.

CHAPTER X.

LOCH LEVEN CASTLE.

1567-1568

Grange of Kircaldy.--Mary's letter.--Removal of Mary.--A ride at
night.--Loch Leven Castle.--The square tower.--Plan of Loch Leven
Castle.--Lady Doug