dity. Meanwhile she had gained the confidence of her
husband by her persuasion and caresses and no sooner were the guards
withdrawn, than she engaged him to escape with her in the night-time,
and take shelter in Dunbar. Many of her subjects here offered her their
services; and Mary, having collected an army, which the conspirators had
no power to resist, advanced to Edinburgh, and obliged them to fly
into England, where they lived in great poverty and distress. They
made applications, however, to the earl of Bothwell, a new favorite of
Mary's; and that nobleman, desirous of strengthening his party by the
accession of their interest, was able to pacify her resentment; and he
soon after procured them liberty to return into their own country.[*]

The vengeance of the queen of Scots was implacable against her husband
alone, whose person was before disagreeable to her, and who, by his
violation of every tie of gratitude and duty, had now drawn on him her
highest resentment. She engaged him to disown all connections with the
assassins, to deny any concurrence in their crime, even to publish a
proclamation containing a falsehood so notorious to the whole world;[**]
and having thus made him expose himself to universal contempt, and
rendered it impracticable for him ever to acquire the confidence of any
party, she threw him off with disdain and indignation.[***]

* Melvil, p. 75, 76. Keith, p. 334. Knox, p, 398.

** Goodall, vol. i. p. 280. Keith, Append. p. 167.

*** Melvil, p. 66, 67.

As if she had been making an escape from him, she suddenly withdrew
to Allca, a seat of the earl of Marre's; and when Henry followed her
thither, she suddenly returned to Edinburgh and give him every where the
strongest proofs of displeasure, and even of antipathy. She encouraged
her courtiers in their neglect of him; and she was pleased that his mean
equipage and small train of attendants should draw on him the contempt
of the very populace. He was permitted, however, to have apartments
in the Castle of Edinburgh, which Mary had chosen for the place of her
delivery. She there brought forth a son; and as this was very important
news to England, as well as to Scotland, she immediately despatched
Sir James Melvil to carry intelligence of the happy event to Elizabeth.
Melvil tells us, that this princess, the evening of his arrival in
London, had given a ball to her court at Greenwich, and was displaying
all that spirit and alacri