she was travelling from Linlithgow to Edinburgh, and Mary married him on the 15th May. Mense malum Maio nubere vulgus ait. The nobles almost immediately raised a rebellion, professedly to deliver the queen from the thraldom of Bothwell.  On June 15th she surrendered at Carberry Hill, and the nobles disregarded a pledge of loyalty to the queen given on condition of her abandoning Bothwell, alleging that she was still in correspondence with him.  They now accused her of murdering her husband, and imprisoned her in Lochleven Castle.  The whole affair is wrapped in mystery, but it is impossible to give the Earl of Morton and the other nobles any credit for honesty of purpose.  There can be little doubt that they used Bothwell for their own ends, and, while they represented the murder as the result of a domestic conspiracy between the queen and Bothwell, they afterwards, when quarrelling among themselves, hurled at each other accusations of participation in the plot, and their leader, the Earl of Morton, died on the scaffold as a criminal put to death for the murder of Darnley.  This, of course, does not exclude the hypothesis of Mary’s guilt, and while the view of Hume or of Mr. Froude could not now be seriously advanced in its entirety, it is only right to say that a majority of historians are of opinion that she, at least, connived at the murder.  The question of her implication as a principal in the plot depends upon the authenticity of the documents known as the “Casket Letters”, which purported to be written by the queen to Bothwell, and which the insurgent lords afterwards produced as evidence against her.[77]

Moray had left Scotland in the end of April.  When he returned in the beginning of August he found that the prisoner of Lochleven, to whom he owed his advancement and his earldom, had been forced to sign a deed of abdication, nominating himself as regent for her infant son.  On the 15th August he went to Lochleven and saw his sister, as he had done after the murder of Rizzio, when she was a prisoner in Holyrood.  Till an hour past midnight, Elizabeth’s pensioner preached to the unfortunate princess on righteousness and judgment, leaving her “that night in hope of nothing but of God’s mercy”.  It was merely a threat; Mary’s life was safe, for Elizabeth, roused, for once, to a feeling of generosity, had forbidden Moray to make any attempt on that.  Next morning he graciously accepted the regency and left his sister’s prison with her kisses on his lips.[78]

On the 2nd May, 1568, Mary escaped from Lochleven, and her brother at once prepared a hostile force to meet her.  Her army, composed largely of Protestants, marched towards Dunbarton Castle, where they desired to place the queen for safe keeping.  The regent intercepted her at Langside, and inflicted a complete defeat upon her forces.  Mary was again a fugitive, and her followers strongly urged her to take refuge in France.  But Elizabeth had given her a promise