had neither dared nor been able to conceal from her Majesty, that he had found Ruthven and all the conspirators assembled together in council in a small closet, and had heard her husband express himself with especial violence and chagrin. Besides, Morton, fearing greatly the foresight and penetration of this man, whom he knew to be entirely opposed to his designs, resolved to accomplish his death, and in so doing comply with the advice which had been given him by the English Court." This is a passage of much interest, and puts in a clear and strong point of view the treasonable designs of this formidable conspiracy. *

* Buchanan alone, of all the Scottish historians, has dared to insinuate the probability of an illicit intercourse having subsisted between Mary and Rizzio; and the calumny is too self-evidently false to merit a moment's notice. Every respectable writer reprobates so disgusting a piece of scandal, however unfavourably inclined towards Mary in other respects. Camden, Castelnau, Robertson, Hume, Tytler, Laing, and Dr Stuart, all of whom think it worth while to advert to the subject in Notes, put the falsehood of Buchanan's assertion beyond the most distant shadow of a doubt. Indeed, it is paying it too great a compliment to advert to it at all.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE ASSASSINATION OF DAVID RIZZIO.

IT was on the evening of Saturday the 9th of March 1566,* that the conspirators determined to strike the blow, which was either to make or mar them. † The retainers of Morton, and the other Lords his accomplices, assembled secretly in the neighbourhood of the Palace, to the number of nearly five hundred. They were all armed, and when it became dark, Morton, who took the command, led them into the interior court of Holyroodhouse, which, in his capacity of Lord High Chancellor of the kingdom, he was able to do, without much difficulty or suspicion. It had been arranged, that he should remain to guard the entry to the palace, whilst Ruthven, with a select

*Miss Benger, oddly enough, says, it was on Saturday the 5th of April; a mistake into which no other historian with whom we are acquainted has fallen.-Miss Benger's Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 233.

The Parliament had met upon the 7th, and Mary had opened it in person, unattended by Darnley, who refused to give it his countenance; but no business of importance had as yet been transacted.

party, was to proceed to the Queen's chamber. Patrick Lord Ruthven was exactly the sort of person suited for a deed of cowardice and cruelty, being by nature cursed with dispositions which preferred bigotry to religion, and barbarism to refinement. He was now in the forty-sixth year of his age, and had been for some months confined to a sick-bed, by a dangerous disease. * Though scarcely able to walk, he nevertheless undertook to head the assassins. He wore a helmet, and a complete suit of armour concealed under a loose robe. †

Mary, altogether unsuspicious of the tragedy about to be performed, sat down to supper, as usual, at seven o'clock. There were with her only her illegitimate sister, the Countess of Argyle, her brother the Lord Robert Stuart, and her Foreign Secretary, David Rizzio. Beaton, her Master of the Household, Erskine, an inferior attendant, and one or two other servants of the Privy Chamber, were in waiting at a sidetable; or, in the words of Stranguage, "tasting the meat taken from the Queen's table, at the cupboard, as the servants of the Privy Chamber use to do." It is a curious and interesting fact, that notwithstanding all the changes which time has wrought on the Palace of Holyrood, the very cabinet in which Mary supped, on this

This disease was "an inflammation of the liver, and a consumption of the kidneys. "-Keith, Appendix, p. 119.

+ Blackwood in Jebb, vol. ii. p. 204.-Goodall, vol. i. p. 252.

Stranguage, p. 33.—Crawford's Memoirs, p. 9.

eventful evening, as well as the adjoining rooms and passages through which the conspirators came, still exist, in nearly the same state in which they were in the year 1566. The principal staircase, in the north-west tower, leads up to the Queen's chamber of presence ;-passing through this apartment, a door opens into Mary's bedroom, where her own bed yet stands, although its furniture is now almost in tatters. It was in the small closet or cabinet off her bed-room, containing one window, and only about twelve feet square, that Mary sat at supper on the 9th of March, two hundred and sixty-two years ago. Communicating with Darnley's chamber, immediately beneath, there was, and is, a private passage into Mary's bedroom, by which it could be entered, without previously passing through the presence-chamber. The approach to this passage from the Queen's room is concealed by a piece of wainscot, little more than a yard square, which hangs upon hinges in the wall, and opens on a trap-stair. It had been originally proposed to seize Rizzio in his own apartment; but this plan was abandoned, for two reasons; first, because it was less certain, since it was often late before Rizzio retired for the night, since he sometimes did not sleep in his own room at all, but in that of another Italian belonging to the Queen's household, named Signor Francis, and since there were back-doors and windows, through which he might have effected his escape; and, second, because it would not have so much intimidated Mary, and would have made it necessary to employ another party to secure her person-the chief object of the conspirators. †

Keith, Appendix, p. 122.

To ascertain whether there was any thing to hinder the execution of their design, Darnley, about eight o'clock, went up the private stairs, and, entering the small room where his wife was supping, sat down familiarly beside her. He found, as he expected, his victim Rizzio in attendance, who, indeed, owing to bad health, and the little estimation in which he was held by the populace, seldom went beyond the precincts of the palace. ‡ He was dressed, this evening, in a loose robe-dechambre of furred damask, with a satin doublet, and a hose of russet velvet; and he wore a rich jewel about his neck, which was never heard of after his death. § The conspirators having allowed sufficient time to elapse, to be satisfied that all was as they wished, followed the King up the private way, which they chose in order to avoid any of the domestics who might have been in the presence-chamber, and given an alarm. They were headed by the Lord Ruthven, and George Douglas, an illegitimate son of the late Earl of Angus, and the bastard brother of Darnley's mother, the Lady Lennox; a person of the most profligate habits, and an apt instrument in the hands of the Earl of Morton. These men, followed by as many of their accomplices as could crowd into the small room where Mary sat, entered abruptly and without leave; whilst the remainder, to the number of nearly two score, collected in her bedroom. Ruthven, with his heavy armour rattling upon his lank and exhausted frame, and looking as grim and

Conæus in Jebb. Vol. ii. p. 25.

§ Robertson's Appendix to vol. i. No. xv.