s wife's infidelity; he had himself, if he might be
believed, discovered the secretary in the Queen's apartment at midnight,
under circumstances yet more unequivocally compromising than those which
had brought Chastelard to the scaffold. Another version of the pitiful
history represents Douglas as infusing suspicion of Rizzio into the
empty mind of his nephew, and thus winning his consent to a deed already
designed by others.

A bond was drawn in which Darnley pledged himself to support the
confederates who undertook to punish "certain privy persons" offensive
to the state, "especially a stranger Italian called Davie"; another was
subscribed by Darnley and the banished lords, then biding their time in
Newcastle, which engaged him to procure their pardon and restoration,
while pledging them to insure to him the enjoyment of the title he
coveted, with the consequent security of an undisputed succession to the
crown, despite the counter-claims of the house of Hamilton, in case his
wife should die without issue--a result which, intentionally or not, he
and his fellow-conspirators did all that brutality could have suggested
to accelerate and secure.

On March 9th the palace of Holyrood was invested by a troop under the
command of Morton, while Rizzio was dragged by force out of the Queen's
presence and slain without trial in the heat of the moment. The
parliament was discharged by proclamation issued in the name of Darnley
as king; and in the evening of the next day the banished lords, whom it
was to have condemned to outlawry, returned to Edinburgh. On the
following day they were graciously received by the Queen, who undertook
to sign a bond for their security, but delayed the subscription until
the next morning under plea of sickness. During the night she escaped
with Darnley, whom she had already seduced from the party of his
accomplices, and arrived at Dunbar on the third morning after the
slaughter of her favorite. From thence they returned to Edinburgh on
March 28th, guarded by two thousand horsemen under the command of
Bothwell, who had escaped from Holyrood on the night of the murder, to
raise a force on the Queen's behalf with his usual soldierly
promptitude.

The slayers of Rizzio fled to England, and were outlawed; Darnley was
permitted to protest his innocence and denounce his accomplices; after
which he became the scorn of all parties alike, and few men dared or
cared to be seen in his company. On June 19th a