ce your Majesty says you saw
it; but I would not have believed it, had I seen it with my own eyes."
Was ever a king more cleverly told that he was a liar? The Earl of
Murray, Mary Stuart's bastard brother, and the first of many regents who
ruled Scotland during her son's minority, was the victim of the most
pardonable act of assassination that we know of,--if such a crime be
ever pardonable. Hamilton of Bothwellhaugh was one of those Scotchmen
who joined Mary Stuart after her escape from Loch Leven, and was
condemned to death after her failure, but had his life spared, while his
estate was confiscated. He might have borne this loss of property, but
he became enraged when he heard that his wife had been so treated, when
ejected from what had been her own property before her marriage, as to
go mad and die. The person who misused her had received the estate from
the Earl of Murray; and upon the latter Hamilton resolved to take
vengeance. He carried out his plans, which were very cleverly formed,
with great skill and coolness, and consequently was successful, taking
off his great enemy, and getting off himself. He shot Murray as he was
passing through the town of Linlithgow, stationing himself in a house
that belonged to the Archbishop of St. Andrews, in and around which
everything had been prepared for the killing of one man and the escape
of another. It is beyond all doubt that the Archbishop was a party to
the crime, or Bothwellhaugh could not have had the facilities which
were his for obtaining revenge and striking a great blow for the Queen's
party. The princely House of Hamilton generally approved of the deed.
Let not those, however, who see in the Archbishop's conduct the natural
effect of Catholicism, be in too great hurry to attribute his conduct to
his religious belief; for there were Protestant assassins in Scotland in
those days, and later. Only a few years before, a very eminent Catholic,
Cardinal Beaton, who was Archbishop of St. Andrews, was murdered by
Norman Lesley; and John Knox associated himself with Lesley, and those
by whom he was aided, to hold the castle of St. Andrews against the
Government's forces. The murderers of Rizzio were not Catholics, and
their victim belonged to the old church. Some of Darnley's murderers
were Protestants. In the next century some remarkable cases of Scotch
assassination took place. Montrose stands charged with having attempted
to take the lives of Argyle and Hamilton; but w