Bothwell attempted the desperate enterprize of seizing the person of the king, while residing in his metropolis.  At the dead of night, followed by a band of borderers, he occupied the court of the palace of Holyrood, and began to burst open the doors of the royal apartments.  The nobility, distrustful of each other, and ignorant of the extent of the conspiracy, only endeavoured to make good the defence of their separate lodgings; but darkness and confusion prevented the assailants from profiting by their disunion.  Melville, who was present, gives a lively picture of the scene of disorder, transiently illuminated by the glare of passing torches; while the report of fire arms, the clatter of armour, the din of hammers thundering on the gates, mingled wildly with the war-cry of the borderers, who shouted incessantly, “Justice!  Justice!  A Bothwell!  A Bothwell!” The citizens of Edinburgh at length began to assemble for the defence of their sovereign; and Bothwell was compelled to retreat, which he did without considerable loss.—­Melville, p. 356.  A similar attempt on the person of James, while residing at Faulkland, also misgave; but the credit which Bothwell obtained on the borders, by these bold and desperate enterprizes, was incredible “All Tiviotdale,” says Spottiswoode, “ran after him;” so that he finally obtained his object; and, at Edinburgh, in 1593, he stood before James, an unexpected apparition, with his naked sword in his hand.  “Strike!” said James, with royal dignity—­“Strike, and end thy work!  I will not survive my dishonour.”  But Bothwell with unexpected moderation, only stipulated for remission of his forfeiture, and did not even insist on remaining at court, whence his party was shortly expelled, by the return of the Lord Home, and his other enemies.  Incensed at this reverse, Bothwell levied a body of four hundred cavalry, and attacked the king’s guard in broad day, upon the Borough Moor, near Edinburgh.—­The ready succour of the citizens saved James from falling once more into the hands of his turbulent subject[28].  On a subsequent day, Bothwell met the laird of Cessford, riding near Edinburgh, with whom he fought a single combat, which lasted for two hours[29].  But his credit was now fallen; he retreated to England, whence he was driven by Elizabeth, and then wandered to Spain and Italy, where he subsisted, in indigence and obscurity, on the bread which he earned by apostatizing to the faith of Rome.  So fell this agitator of domestic broils, whose name passed into a proverb, denoting a powerful and turbulent demagogue[30].

[Footnote 28:  Spottiswoode says, the king awaited this charge with firmness; but Birrell avers, that he fled upon the gallop.  The same author, instead of the firm deportment of James, when seized by Bothwell, describes “the king’s majestie as flying down the back stair, with his breeches in his hand, in great fear.”—­Birrell, apud Dalyell, p. 30.  Such is the difference betwixt the narrative of the courtly archbishop, and that of the presbyterian burgess of Edinburgh.]