e
castle, but merely a distant relative. As one can imagine, there were
few compliments between Mary and her hosts; and the queen, conducted to
her apartment, which was on the first floor, and of which the windows
overlooked the lake, was soon left with Mary Seyton, the only one of the
four Marys who had been allowed to accompany her.

However, rapid as the interview had been, and short and measured the
words exchanged between the prisoner and her gaolers, Mary had had time,
together with what she knew of them beforehand, to construct for herself
a fairly accurate idea of the new personages who had just mingled in her
history.

Lady Lochleven, wife of Lord William Douglas, of whom we have already
said a few words at the beginning of this history, was a woman of from
fifty-five to sixty years of age, who had been handsome enough in her
youth to fix upon herself the glances of King James V, and who had had a
son by him, who was this same Murray whom we have already seen
figuring so often in Mary's history, and who, although his birth was
illegitimate, had always been treated as a brother by the queen.

Lady Lochleven had had a momentary hope, so great was the king's love
for her, of becoming his wife, which upon the whole was possible, the
family of Mar, from which she was descended, being the equal of the most
ancient and the noblest families in Scotland. But, unluckily, perhaps
slanderously, certain talk which was circulating among the young
noblemen of the time came to James's ears; it was said that together
with her royal lover the beautiful favourite had another, whom she had
chosen, no doubt from curiosity, from the very lowest class. It was
added that this Porterfeld, or Porterfield, was the real father of the
child who had already received the name of James Stuart, and whom the
king was educating as his son at the monastery of St. Andrews. These
rumours, well founded or not, had therefore stopped James V at the
moment when, in gratitude to her who had given him a son, he was on the
point of raising her to the rank of queen; so that, instead of marrying
her himself, he had invited her to choose among the nobles at court; and
as she was very handsome, and the king's favour went with the marriage,
this choice, which fell on Lord William Douglas of Lochleven, did not
meet with any resistance on his part. However, in spite of this direct
protection, that James V preserved for her all his life, Lady Douglas
could nev