f gunpowder which shattered to
fragments the building in which he should have slept and perished; and
next morning the bodies of Darnley and a page were found strangled in a
garden adjoining it, whither they had apparently escaped over a wall, to
be despatched by the hands of Bothwell's attendant confederates.

Upon the view which may be taken of Mary's conduct during the next three
months depends the whole debatable question of her character. According
to the professed champions of that character, this conduct was a tissue
of such dastardly imbecility, such heartless irresolution, and such
brainless inconsistency as forever to dispose of her time-honored claim
to the credit of intelligence and courage. It is certain that just three
months and six days after the murder of her husband she became the wife
of her husband's murderer. On February 11th she wrote to the Bishop of
Glasgow, her ambassador in France, a brief letter, of simple eloquence,
announcing her providential escape from a design upon her own as well as
her husband's life. A reward of two thousand pounds was offered by
proclamation for discovery of the murderer. Bothwell and others, his
satellites or the Queen's, were instantly placarded by name as the
criminals. Voices were heard by night in the streets of Edinburgh
calling down judgment on the assassins.

Four days after the discovery of the bodies, Darnley was buried in the
chapel of Holyrood with secrecy as remarkable as the solemnity with
which Rizzio had been interred there less than a year before. On the
Sunday following, Mary left Edinburgh for Seton palace, twelve miles
from the capital, where scandal asserted that she passed the time
merrily in shooting-matches, with Bothwell for her partner, against
Lords Seton and Huntly; other accounts represent Huntly and Bothwell
as left at Holyrood in charge of the infant Prince. Gracefully and
respectfully, with statesmanlike yet feminine dexterity, the demands of
Darnley's father for justice on the murderers of his son were accepted
and eluded by his daughter-in-law. Bothwell, with a troop of fifty men,
rode through Edinburgh defiantly denouncing vengeance on his concealed
accusers. As weeks elapsed without action on the part of the royal
widow, while the cry of blood was up throughout the country, raising
echoes from England and abroad, the murmur of accusation began to rise
against her also. Murray, with his sister's ready permission, withdrew
to France.