w his dagger and used it to goad on his horse.
His horse, under this terrible stimulus, acquired fresh vigour, and,
leaping a gully eighteen feet deep, put between his master and his
pursuers a barrier which they dared not cross.
The murderer sought an asylum in France, where he retired under the
protection of the Guises. There, as the bold stroke he had attempted had
acquired him a great reputation, some days before the Massacre of St.
Bartholomew, they made him overtures to assassinate Admiral Coligny. But
Bothwellhaugh indignantly repulsed these proposals, saying that he was
the avenger of abuses and not an assassin, and that those who had to
complain of the admiral had only to come and ask him how he had done, and
to do as he.
As to Murray, he died the night following his wound, leaving the regency
to the Earl of Lennox, the father of Darnley: on learning the news of his
death, Elizabeth wrote that she had lost her best friend.
While these events were passing in Scotland, Mary Stuart was still a
prisoner, in spite of the pressing and successive protests of Charles IX
and Henry III. Taking fright at the attempt made in her favour,
Elizabeth even had her removed to Sheffield Castle, round which fresh
patrols were incessantly in motion.
But days, months, years passed, and poor Mary, who had borne so
impatiently her eleven months' captivity in Lochleven Castle, had been
already led from prison to prison for fifteen or sixteen years, in spite
of her protests and those of the French and Spanish ambassadors, when she
was finally taken to Tutbury Castle and placed under the care of Sir
Amyas Paulet, her last gaoler: there she found for her sole lodging two
low and damp rooms, where little by little what strength remained to her
was so exhausted that there were days on which she could not walk, on
account of the pain in all her limbs. Then it was that she who had been
the queen of two kingdoms, who was born in a gilded cradle and brought up
in silk and velvet, was forced to humble herself to ask of her gaoler a
softer bed and warmer coverings. This request, treated as an affair of
state, gave rise to negotiations which lasted a month, after which the
prisoner was at length granted what she asked. And yet the
unhealthiness, cold, and privations of all kinds still did not work
actively enough on that healthy and robust organisation. They tried to
convey to Paulet what a service he would render the Queen of England
|