ths in St Giles' kirk.

On the morning of the first appointed day my grandfather went thither; a
vast concourse of the people were assembled, and the worthy minister,
when he rose in the pulpit with the paper in his hand, trembled and was
pale, and for some time unable to speak; at last he read the names and
purpose of marriage aloud, and he paused when he had done so, and an
awful solemnity froze the very spirits of the congregation. He then laid
down the paper on the pulpit, and lifting his hands and raising his
eyes, cried with a vehement sadness of voice,--"Lord God of the pure
heavens, and all ye of the earth that hear me, I protest, as a minister
of the gospel, my abhorrence and detestation of this hideous and
adulterous sin; and I call all the nobility and all of the Queen's
council to remonstrate with her Majesty against a step that must cover
her with infamy for ever and ruin past all remede." Three days did he
thus publish the bans, and thrice in that manner did he boldly proclaim
his protestation; for which he was called before the privy council,
where the guilty Bothwell was sitting; and being charged with having
exceeded the bounds of his commission, he replied with an apostolic
bravery,--

"My commission is from the word of God, good laws, and natural reason,
to all which this proposed marriage is obnoxious. The Earl of Bothwell,
there where he sits, knows that he is an adulterer,--the divorce that he
has procured from his wife has been by collusion,--and he knows likewise
that he has murdered the king and guiltily possessed himself of the
Queen's person."

Yet, notwithstanding, Mr Craig was suffered to depart, even unmolested
by the astonished and overawed Bothwell; but, as I have said, the
marriage was still celebrated; and it was the last great crime of
papistical device that the Lord suffered to see done within the bounds
of Scotland. For the same night letters were sent to the Earl of Murray
from divers of the nobility, entreating him to return forthwith; and my
grandfather, at the incitement of the Earl of Argyle, was secretly sent
by his patron Glencairn to beg the friends of the state and the lawful
prince, the son whom the Queen had born to her murdered husband, to meet
without delay at Stirling.

Accordingly, with the flower of their vassals and retainers, besides
Argyle and Glencairn, came many of the nobles; and having protested
their detestation of the conduct of the Queen, they entered in