hwell, rose,
they said, to avenge the death of the king, and to draw the son from
hands which had killed the father and which were keeping the mother
captive. As to Murray, he had kept completely in the background during
all the last events; he was in the county of Fife when the king was
assassinated, and three days before the trial of Bothwell he had
asked and obtained from his sister permission to take a journey on the
Continent.

The insurrection took place in such a prompt and instantaneous manner,
that the Confederate lords, whose plan was to surprise and seize both
Mary and Bothwell, thought they would succeed at the first attempt.

The king and queen were at table with Lord Borthwick, who was
entertaining them, when suddenly it was announced that a large body of
armed men was surrounding the castle: Bothwell and Mary suspected that
they were aimed at, and as they had no means of resistance, Bothwell
dressed himself as a squire, Mary as a page, and both immediately taking
horse, escaped by one door just as the Confederates were coming in by
the other. The fugitives withdrew to Dunbar.

There they called together all Bothwell's friends, and made them sign
a kind of treaty by which they undertook to defend the queen and her
husband. In the midst of all this, Murray arrived from France, and
Bothwell offered the document to him as to the others; but Murray
refused to put his signature to it, saying that it was insulting him to
think he need be bound by a written agreement when it was a question
of defending his sister and his queen. This refusal having led to an
altercation between him and Bothwell, Murray, true to his system of
neutrality, withdrew into his earldom, and let affairs follow without
him the fatal decline they had taken.

In the meantime the Confederates, after having failed at Borthwick,
not feeling strong enough to attack Bothwell at Dunbar, marched upon
Edinburgh, where they had an understanding with a man of whom Bothwell
thought himself sure. This man was James Balfour, governor of the
citadel, the same who had presided over the preparation of the mine
which had blown up Darnley, and whom Bothwell had, met on entering the
garden at Kirk of Field. Not only did Balfour deliver Edinburgh Castle
into the hands of the Confederates, but he also gave them a little
silver coffer of which the cipher, an "F" crowned, showed that it
had belonged to Francis II; and in fact it was a gift from her first
husb