to a
Solemn League and Covenant, wherein they rehearsed, as causes for their
confederating against the misrule with which the kingdom was so humbled,
that the Scottish people were abhorred and vilipendit amongst all
Christian nations; declaring that they would never desist till they had
revenged the foul murder of the King, rescued the Queen from her
thraldom to the Earl of Bothwell, and dissolved her ignominious
marriage.

The Queen and her regicide, for he could not be called her husband, were
panic-struck when they heard of this avenging paction. She issued a bold
proclamation, calling on her insulted subjects to take arms in her
defence, and she published manifestoes, all lies. She fled with Bothwell
from Edinburgh to the castle of Borthwick; but scarcely were they within
the gates when the sough of the rising storm obliged him to leave her,
and the same night, in the disguise of man's apparel, the Queen of all
Scotland was seen flying, friendless and bewildered, to her sentenced
paramour.

The covenanting nobles in the meantime were mustering their clans and
their vassals; and the Earls of Morton and Athol having brought the
instrument of the League to Edinburgh, the magistrates and town-council
signed the same, and, taking the oaths, issued instanter orders for the
burghers to prepare themselves with arms and banners, and to man the
city walls. The whole kingdom rung with the sound of warlike
preparations, and the ancient valour of the Scottish heart was blithened
with the hope of erasing the stains that a wicked government had brought
upon the honour of the land.

Meanwhile the regicide and the Queen drew together what forces his power
could command and her promises allure, and they advanced from Dunbar to
Carberry Hill, where they encamped. The army of the Covenanters at the
same time left Edinburgh to meet them. Mary appeared at the head of her
troops; but they felt themselves engaged in a bad cause, and refused to
fight. She exhorted them with all the pith of her eloquence;--she wept,
she implored, she threatened, and she reproached them with cowardice,
but still they stood sullen.

To retreat in the face of an enemy who had already surrounded the hill
on which she stood was impracticable. In this extremity she called with
a voice of despair for Kirkcaldy of Grange, a brave man, whom she saw
at the head of the cavalry by whom she was surrounded, and he having
halted his horse and procured leave from his l