las.--Lady Douglas Mary's enemy.--Parties for and
against Mary.--The Hamilton lords.--Plans of Mary's enemies.--Mary's
tower.--Ruins.--The scale turns against Mary.--Proposals made to
Mary.--The commissioners.--Melville unsuccessful.--Lindsay
called in.--Lindsay's brutality.--Abdication.--Coronation of
James.--Ceremonies.--Return of Murray.--Murray's interview with
Mary.--Affecting scene.--Murray assumes the government.--His
warnings.--The young Douglases.--Their interest in Mary.--Plan for Mary's
escape.--The laundress.--The disguise.--Escape.--Discovery.--Mary's
return.--Banishment of George Douglas.--Secret communications.--New
plan of escape.--The postern gate.--Liberation of Mary.--Jane
Kennedy.--The escape.--Mary's joy.--Popular feeling.--Mary's
proclamation.--Ruins of Loch Leven Castle.--The octagonal
tower.--Visitors.

Grange, or, as he is sometimes called, Kircaldy, his title in full
being Grange of Kircaldy, was a man of integrity and honor, and he,
having been the negotiator through whose intervention Mary gave
herself up, felt himself bound to see that the stipulations on the
part of the nobles should be honorably fulfilled. He did all in his
power to protect Mary from insult on the journey, and he struck with
his sword and drove away some of the populace who were addressing her
with taunts and reproaches. When he found that the nobles were
confining her, and treating her so much more like a captive than like
a queen, he remonstrated with them. They silenced him by showing him
a letter, which they said they had intercepted on its way from Mary
to Bothwell. It was written, they said, on the night of Mary's
arrival at Edinburgh. It assured Bothwell that she retained an
unaltered affection for him; that her consenting to be separated
from him at Carberry Hill was a matter of mere necessity, and that
she should rejoin him as soon as it was in her power to do so. This
letter showed, they said, that, after all, Mary was not, as they had
supposed, Bothwell's captive and victim, but that she was his
accomplice and friend; and that, now that they had discovered their
mistake, they must treat Mary, as well as Bothwell, as an enemy, and
take effectual means to protect themselves from the one as well as
from the other. Mary's friends maintain that this letter was a
forgery.

They accordingly took Mary, as has been already stated, from the
provost's house in Edinburgh down to Holyrood House, which was just
without