. This was
the first ostensible act of that hatred which was afterwards so fatal to
Mary.

The queen, on her side, appealed to her nobles, who in response hastened
to rally to her, so that in a month's time she found herself at the head
of the finest army that ever a king of Scotland had raised. Darnley
assumed the command of this magnificent assembly, mounted on a superb
horse, arrayed in gilded armour; and accompanied by the queen, who, in a
riding habit, with pistols at her saddle-bow, wished to make the campaign
with him, that she might not quit his side for a moment. Both were
young, both were handsome, and they left Edinburgh amidst the cheers of
the people and the army.

Murray and his accomplices did not even try to stand against them, and
the campaign consisted of such rapid and complex marches and
counter-marches, that this rebellion is called the Run-about Raid-that is
to say, the run in every sense of the word. Murray and the rebels
withdrew into England, where Elizabeth, while seeming to condemn their
unlucky attempt, afforded them all the assistance they needed.

Mary returned to Edinburgh delighted at the success of her two first
campaigns, not suspecting that this new good fortune was the last she
would have, and that there her short-lived prosperity would cease.
Indeed, she soon saw that in Darnley she had given herself not a devoted
and very attentive husband, as she had believed, but an imperious and
brutal master, who, no longer having any motive for concealment, showed
himself to her just as he was, a man of disgraceful vices, of which
drunkenness and debauchery was the least. Accordingly, serious
differences were not long in springing up in this royal household.

Darnley in wedding Mary had not become king, but merely the queen's
husband. To confer on him authority nearly equalling a regent's, it was
necessary that Mary should grant him what was termed the crown
matrimonial--a crown Francis II had worn during his short royalty, and
that Mary, after Darnley's conduct to herself, had not the slightest
intention of bestowing on him. Thus, to whatever entreaties he made, in
whatever form they were wrapped, Mary merely replied with an unvaried and
obstinate refusal. Darnley, amazed at this force of will in a young
queen who had loved him enough to raise him to her, and not believing
that she could find it in herself, sought in her entourage for some
secret and influential adviser who might ha