turned to Edinburgh, enriched with presents
from Elizabeth, and having gained, in fact, his case with her, since Mary
remained a prisoner. He employed himself immediately in dispersing the
remainder of her adherents, and had hardly shut the gates of Lochleven
Castle upon Westmoreland than, in the name of the young King James VI, he
pursued those who had upheld his mother's cause, and among them more
particularly the Hamiltons, who since the affair of "sweeping the streets
of Edinburgh," had been the mortal enemies of the Douglases personally;
six of the chief members of this family were condemned to death, and only
obtained commutation of the penalty into an eternal exile on the
entreaties of John Knox, at that time so powerful in Scotland that Murray
dared not refuse their pardon.

One of the amnestied was a certain Hamilton of Bothwellhaugh, a man of
ancient Scottish times, wild and vindictive as the nobles in the time of
James I. He had withdrawn into the highlands, where he had found an
asylum, when he learned that Murray, who in virtue of the confiscation
pronounced against exiles had given his lands to one of his favourites,
had had the cruelty to expel his sick and bedridden wife from her own
house, and that without giving her time to dress, and although it was in
the winter cold. The poor woman, besides, without shelter, without
clothes, and without food, had gone out of her mind, had wandered about
thus for some time, an object of compassion but equally of dread; for
everyone had been afraid of compromising himself by assisting her. At
last, she had returned to expire of misery and cold on the threshold
whence she had been driven.

On learning this news, Bothwellhaugh, despite the violence of his
character, displayed no anger: he merely responded, with a terrible
smile, "It is well; I shall avenge her."

Next day, Bothwellhaugh left his highlands, and came down, disguised,
into the plain, furnished with an order of admission from the Archbishop
of St. Andrews to a house which this prelate--who, as one remembers, had
followed the queen's fortunes to the last moment--had at Linlithgow.
This house, situated in the main street, had a wooden balcony looking on
to the square, and a gate which opened out into the country.
Bothwellhaugh entered it at night, installed himself on the first floor,
hung black cloth on the walls so that his shadow should not be seen from
without, covered the floor with mattresses so t