here is a conflict of evidence as to the facts themselves, or
where the facts admit of more than one interpretation, I have permitted
myself to be selective, and confined myself to a point of view adopted
at the outset.

R. S.

LONDON, August, 1917

CONTENTS

I. THE NIGHT OF HOLYROOD
The Murder of David Rizzio

II. THE NIGHT OF KIRK O' FIELD
The Murder of Darnley

III. THE NIGHT OF BETRAYAL
Antonio Perez and Philip II of Spain

IV. THE NIGHT OF CHARITY
The Case of the Lady Alice Lisle

V. THE NIGHT OF MASSACRE
The Story of the Saint Bartholomew

VI. THE NIGHT OF WITCHCRAFT
Louis XIV and Madame de Montespan

VII. THE NIGHT OF GEMS
The Affaire of the Queen's Necklace

VIII. THE NIGHT OF TERROR
The Drownings at Nantes under Carrier

IX. THE NIGHT OF NUPTIALS
Charles the Bold and Sapphira Danvelt

X. THE NIGHT OF STRANGLERS
Giovanna of Naples and Andreas of Hungary

XI. THE NIGHT OF HATE
The Murder of the Duke of Gandia

XII. THE NIGHT OF ESCAPE
Casanova's Escape from the Piombi

XIII. THE NIGHT OF MASQUERADE
The Assassination of Gustavus III of Sweden

THE HISTORICAL NIGHTS' ENTERTAINMENT

I. THE NIGHT OF HOLYROOD--The Murder of David Rizzio

The tragedy of my Lord Darnley's life lay in the fact that he was a
man born out of his proper station--a clown destined to kingship by the
accident of birth and fortune. By the blood royal flowing in his veins,
he could, failing others, have claimed succession to both the English
and the Scottish thrones, whilst by his marriage with Mary Stuart he
made a definite attempt to possess himself of that of Scotland.

The Queen of Scots, enamoured for a season of the clean-limbed grace and
almost feminine beauty ("ladyfaced," Melville had called him once) of
this "long lad of nineteen" who came a-wooing her, had soon discovered,
in matrimony, his vain, debauched, shiftless, and cowardly nature. She
had married him in July of 1565, and by Michaelmas she had come to know
him for just a lovely husk of a man, empty of heart or brain; and the
knowledge transmuted affection into contempt.

Her natural brother, the Earl of Murray, had opposed the marriage,
chiefly upon the grounds that Darnley was a Catholic,