tened to acquaint her with her joy, knowing that she had no better
friend; but he added that this joy had nearly cost Mary her life, so
grievous had been her confinement. As he was returning to this point for
the third time, with the object of still further increasing the queen of
England's dislike to marriage--

"Be easy, Melville," Elizabeth answered him; "you need not insist upon
it. I shall never marry; my kingdom takes the place of a husband for me,
and my subjects are my children. When I am dead, I wish graven on my
tombstone: 'Here lies Elizabeth, who reigned so many years, and who died
a virgin.'"

Melville availed himself of this opportunity to remind Elizabeth of the
desire she had shown to see Mary, three or four years before; but
Elizabeth said, besides her country's affairs, which necessitated her
presence in the heart of her possessions, she did not care, after all she
had heard said of her rival's beauty, to expose herself to a comparison
disadvantageous to her pride. She contented herself, then, with choosing
as her proxy the Earl of Bedford, who set out with several other noblemen
for Stirling Castle, where the young prince was christened with great
pomp, and received the name of Charles James.

It was remarked that Darnley did not appear at this ceremony, and that
his absence seemed to scandalise greatly the queen of England's envoy.
On the contrary, James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell, had the most important
place there.

This was because, since the evening when Bothwell, at Mary's cries, had
run to oppose the murder of Rizzio, he had made great way in the queen's
favour; to her party he himself appeared to be really attached, to the
exclusion of the two others, the king's and the Earl of Murray's.
Bothwell was already thirty-five years old, head of the powerful family
of Hepburn, which had great influence in East Lothian and the county of
Berwick; for the rest, violent, rough, given to every kind of debauchery,
and capable of anything to satisfy an ambition that he did not even give
himself the trouble to hide. In his youth he had been reputed
courageous, but for long he had had no serious opportunity to draw the
sword.

If the king's authority had been shaken by Rizzio's influence, it was
entirely upset by Bothwell's. The great nobles, following the
favourite's example, no longer rose in the presence of Darnley, and
ceased little by little to treat him as their equal: his retinue was cut
dow