On April 21st Mary went to visit her child at Stirling, where his
guardian, the Earl of Mar, refused to admit more than two women in her
train. It was well known in Edinburgh that Bothwell had a body of men
ready to intercept her on the way back, and carry her to Dunbar--not,
as was naturally inferred, without good assurance of her consent. On
April 24th, as she approached Edinburgh, Bothwell accordingly met her
at the head of eight hundred spearmen, assured her--as she afterward
averred--that she was in the utmost peril, and escorted her, together
with Huntly, Lethington, and Melville, who were then in attendance, to
Dunbar castle. On May 3d Lady Jane Gordon, who had become Countess of
Bothwell on February 22d of the year preceding, obtained, on the ground
of her husband's infidelities, a separation, which, however, would not
under the old laws of Catholic Scotland have left him free to marry
again.

On the day when the first or Protestant divorce was pronounced, Mary
and Bothwell returned to Edinburgh with every prepared appearance of a
peaceful triumph. Lest her captivity should have been held to invalidate
the late legal proceedings in her name, proclamation was made of
forgiveness accorded by the Queen to her captor in consideration of his
past and future services, and her intention was announced to reward them
by further promotion; and on the same day (May 12th) he was duly created
duke of Orkney and Shetland. The Duke, as a conscientious Protestant,
refused to marry his mistress according to the rites of her Church, and
she, the chosen champion of its cause, agreed to be married to him,
not merely by a Protestant, but by one who before his conversion had
been a Catholic bishop, and therefore should have been more hateful
and contemptible in her eyes than any ordinary heretic, had not
religion as well as policy, faith as well as reason, been absorbed or
superseded by some more mastering passion or emotion. This passion or
emotion, according to those who deny her attachment to Bothwell, was
simply terror--the blind and irrational prostration of an abject spirit
before the cruel force of circumstances and the crafty wickedness of
men. Hitherto, according to all evidence, she had shown herself on
all occasions, as on all subsequent occasions she indisputably
showed herself, the most fearless, the most keen-sighted, the most
ready-witted, the most high-gifted and high-spirited of women; gallant
and generous, skilf