Among the lords who had followed Mary Stuart to Scotland was, as we have
mentioned, a young nobleman named Chatelard, a true type of the nobility
of that time, a nephew of Bayard on his mother's side, a poet and a
knight, talented and courageous, and attached to Marshal Damville, of
whose household he formed one. Thanks to this high position, Chatelard,
throughout her stay in France, paid court to Mary Stuart, who, in the
homage he rendered her in verse, saw nothing more than those poetical
declarations of gallantry customary in that age, and with which she
especially was daily overwhelmed. But it happened that about the time
when Chatelard was most in love with the queen she was obliged to leave
France, as we have said. Then Marshal Damville, who knew nothing of
Chatelard's passion, and who himself, encouraged by Mary's kindness, was
among the candidates to succeed Francis II as husband, set out for
Scotland with the poor exile, taking Chatelard with him, and, not
imagining he would find a rival in him, he made a confidant of him, and
left him with Mary when he was obliged to leave her, charging the young
poet to support with her the interests of his suit. This post as
confidant brought Mary and Chatelard more together; and, as in her
capacity as poet, the queen treated him like a brother, he made bold in
his passion to risk all to obtain another title. Accordingly, one
evening he got into Mary Stuart's room, and hid himself under the bed;
but at the moment when the queen was beginning to undress, a little dog
she had began to yelp so loudly that her women came running at his
barking, and, led by this indication, perceived Chatelard. A woman
easily pardons a crime for which too great love is the excuse: Mary
Stuart was woman before being queen--she pardoned.
But this kindness only increased Chatelard's confidence: he put down the
reprimand he had received to the presence of the queen's women, and
supposed that if she had been alone she would have forgiven him still
more completely; so that, three weeks after, this same scene was
repeated. But this time, Chatelard, discovered in a cupboard, when the
queen was already in bed, was placed under arrest.
The moment was badly chosen: such a scandal, just when the queen was
about to re-marry, was fatal to Mary, let alone to Chatelard. Murray
took the affair in hand, and, thinking that a public trial could alone
save his sister's reputation, he urged the prosecution with such vigour,
that Chatelard, convicted of the crime of lese-majeste, was condemned to
death. Mary entreated her brother that Chatelard might be sent back to
France; but Murray made her see what terrible consequences such a use of
her right of pardon might have, so that Mary was obliged to let justice
take its course: Chatelard was led to execution. Arrived on the
scaffold, which was set up before the queen's palace, Chatelard, who had
declined the services of a priest, had Ronsard's Ode on Death read; and
when the reading, which he followed with evident pleasure, was ended, he
turned--towards the queen's windows, and, having cried out for the last
time, "Adieu, loveliest and most cruel of princesses!" he stretched out
his neck to the executioner, without displaying any repentance or
uttering any complaint. This death made all the more impression upon
Mary, that she did not dare to show her sympathy openly.
Meanwhile there was a rumour that the queen of Scotland was consenting
to a new marriage, and several suitors came forward, sprung from the
principal reigning families of Europe: first, the Archduke Charles,
third son of the Emperor of Germany; then the Duke of Anjou, who
afterwards became Henry III. But to wed a foreign prince was to give up
her claims to the English crown. So Mary refused, and, making a merit of
this to Elizabeth, she cast her eyes on a relation of the latter's,
Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, son of the Earl of Lennox. Elizabeth, who
had nothing plausible to urge against this marriage, since the Queen of
Scotland not only chose an Englishman for husband, but was marrying into
her own family, allowed the Earl of Lennox and his son to go to the
Scotch court, reserving it to herself, if matters appeared to take a
serious turn, to recall them both--a command which they would be
constrained to obey, since all their property was in England.
Darnley was eighteen years of age: he was handsome, well-made, elegant;
he talked in that attractive manner of the young nobles of the French
and English courts that Mary no longer heard since her exile in
Scotland; she let herself be deceived by these appearances, and did not
see that under this brilliant exterior Darnley hid utter insignificance,
dubious courage, and a fickle and churlish character. It is true that he
came to her under the auspices of a man whose influence was as striking
as the risen fortune which gave him the opportunity to exert it. We
refer to David Rizzio.
David Rizzio, who played such a great part in the life of Mary Stuart,
whose strange favour for him has given her enemies, probably without any
cause, such cruel weapons against her, was the son of a Turin musician
burdened with a numerous family, who, recognising in him a pronounced
musical taste, had him instructed in the first principles of the art. At
the age of fifteen he had left his father's house and had gone on foot
to Nice, where the Duke of Savoy held his court; there he entered the
service of the Duke of Moreto, and this lord having been appointed, some
years afterwards, to the Scottish embassy, Rizzio followed him to
Scotland. As this young man had a very fine voice, and accompanied on
the viol and fiddle songs of which both the airs and the words were of
his own composition, the ambassador spoke of him to Mary, who wished to
see him. Rizzio, full of confidence in himself, and seeing in the
queen's desire a road to success, hastened to obey her command, sang
before her, and pleased her. She begged him then of Moreto, making no
more of it than if she had asked of him a thoroughbred dog or a
well-trained falcon. Moreto presented him to her, delighted at finding
such an opportunity to pay his court; but scarcely was Rizzio in her
service than Mary discovered that music was the least of his gifts, that
he possessed, besides that, education if not profound at least varied, a
supple mind, a lively imagination, gentle ways, and at the same time
much boldness and presumption. He reminded her of those Italian artists
whom she had seen at the French court, and spoke to her the tongue of
Marot and Ronsard, whose most beautiful poems he knew by heart: this was
more than enough to please Mary Stuart. In a short time he became her
favourite, and meanwhile the place of secretary for the French
despatches falling vacant, Rizzio was provided for with it.
Darnley, who wished to succeed at all costs, enlisted Rizzio in his
interests, unconscious that he had no need of this support; and as, on
her side, Mary, who had fallen in love with him at first sight, fearing
some new intrigue of Elizabeth's, hastened on this union so far as the
proprieties permitted, the affair moved forward with wonderful rapidity;
and in the midst of public rejoicing, with the approbation of the
nobility, except for a small minority, with Murray at its head, the
marriage was solemnised under the happiest auspices, 29th July 1565. Two
days before, Darnley and his father, the Earl of Lennox, had received a
command to return to London, and as they had not obeyed it, a week after
the celebration of the marriage they learned that the Countess of
Lennox, the only one of the family remaining in Elizabeth's power, had
been arrested and taken to the Tower. Thus Elizabeth, in spite of her
dissimulation, yielding to that first impulse of violence that she
always had such trouble to overcome, publicly displayed her resentment.
However, Elizabeth was not the woman to be satisfied with useless
vengeance: she soon released the countess, and turned her eyes towards
Murray, the most discontented of the nobles in opposition, who by this
marriage was losing all his personal influence. It was thus easy for
Elizabeth to put arms in his hand. In fact, when he had failed in his
first attempt to seize Darnley, he called to his aid the Duke of
Chatellerault, Glencairn, Argyll, and Rothes, and collecting what
partisans they could, they openly rebelled against the queen. This was
the first ostensible act of that hatred which was afterwards so fatal to
Mary.
The queen, on her side, appealed to her nobles, who in response hastened
to rally to her, so that in a month's time she found herself at the head
of the finest army that ever a king of Scotland had raised. Darnley
assumed the command of this magnificent assembly, mounted on a superb
horse, arrayed in gilded armour; and accompanied by the queen, who, in a
riding habit, with pistols at her saddle-bow, wished to make the
campaign with him, that she might not quit his side for a moment. Both
were young, both were handsome, and they left Edinburgh amidst the
cheers of the people and the army.
Murray and his accomplices did not even try to stand against them, and
the campaign consisted of such rapid and complex marches and
counter-marches, that this rebellion is called the Run-about Raid-that
is to say, the run in every sense of the word. Murray and the rebels
withdrew into England, where Elizabeth, while seeming to condemn their
unlucky attempt, afforded them all the assistance they needed.
Mary returned to Edinburgh delighted at the success of her two first
campaigns, not suspecting that this new good fortune was the last she
would have, and that there her short-lived prosperity would cease.
Indeed, she soon saw that in Darnley she had given herself not a devoted
and very attentive husband, as she had believed, but an imperious and
brutal master, who, no longer having any motive for concealment, showed
himself to her just as he was, a man of disgraceful vices, of which
drunkenness and debauchery was the least. Accordingly, serious
differences were not long in springing up in this royal household.
Darnley in wedding Mary had not become king, but merely the queen's
husband. To confer on him authority nearly equalling a regent's, it was
necessary that Mary should grant him what was termed the crown
matrimonial--a crown Francis II had worn during his short royalty, and
that Mary, after Darnley's conduct to herself, had not the slightest
intention of bestowing on him. Thus, to whatever entreaties he made, in
whatever form they were wrapped, Mary merely replied with an unvaried
and obstinate refusal. Darnley, amazed at this force of will in a young
queen who had loved him enough to raise him to her, and not believing
that she could find it in herself, sought in her entourage for some
secret and influential adviser who might have inspired her with it. His
suspicions fell on Rizzio.
In reality, to whatever cause Rizzio owed his power (and to even the
most clear-sighted historians this point has always remained obscure),
be it that he ruled as lover, be it that he advised as minister, his
counsels as long as he lived were always given for the greater glory of
the queen. Sprung from so low, he at least wished to show himself
worthy, of having risen so high, and owing everything to Mary, he tried
to repay her with devotion. Thus Darnley was not mistaken, and it was
indeed Rizzio who, in despair at having helped to bring about a union
which he foresaw must become so unfortunate, gave Mary the advice not to
give up any of her power to one who already possessed much more than he
deserved, in possessing her person.
Darnley, like all persons of both weak and violent character,
disbelieved in the persistence of will in others, unless this will was
sustained by an outside influence. He thought that in ridding himself of
Rizzio he could not fail to gain the day, since, as he believed, he
alone was opposing the grant of this great desire of his, the crown
matrimonial. Consequently, as Rizzio was disliked by the nobles in
proportion as his merits had raised him above them, it was easy for
Darnley to organise a conspiracy, and James Douglas of Morton,
chancellor of the kingdom, consented to act as chief.
This is the second time since the beginning of our narrative that we
inscribe this name Douglas, so often pronounced, in Scottish history,
and which at this time, extinct in the elder branch, known as the Black
Douglases, was perpetuated in the younger branch, known as the Red
Douglases. It was an ancient, noble, and powerful family, which, when
the descent in the male line from Robert Bruce had lapsed, disputed the
royal title with the first Stuart, and which since then had constantly
kept alongside the throne, sometimes its support, sometimes its enemy,
envying every great house, for greatness made it uneasy, but above all
envious of the house of Hamilton, which, if not its equal, was at any
rate after itself the next most powerful.
During the whole reign of James V, thanks to the hatred which the king
bore them, the Douglases had not only lost all their influence, but had
also been exiled to England. This hatred was on account of their having
seized the guardianship of the young prince and kept him prisoner till
he was fifteen. Then, with the help of one of his pages, James V had
escaped from Falkland, and had reached Stirling, whose governor was in
his interests. Scarcely was he safe in the castle than he made
proclamation that any Douglas who should approach within a dozen miles
of it would be prosecuted for high treason. This was not all: he
obtained a decree from Parliament, declaring them guilty of felony, and
condemning them to exile; they remained proscribed, then, during the
king's lifetime, and returned to Scotland only upon his death. The
result was that, although they had been recalled about the throne, and
though, thanks to the past influence of Murray, who, one remembers, was
a Douglas on the mother's side, they filled the most important posts
there, they had not forgiven to the daughter the enmity borne them by
the father.
This was why James Douglas, chancellor as he was, and consequently
entrusted with the execution of the laws, put himself at the head of a
conspiracy which had for its aim the violation of all laws; human and
divine.
Douglas's first idea had been to treat Rizzio as the favourites of James
III had been treated at the Bridge of Lauder--that is to say, to make a
show of having a trial and to hang him afterwards. But such a death did
not suffice for Darnley's vengeance; as above everything he wished to
punish the queen in Rizzio's person, he exacted that the murder should
take place in her presence.
Douglas associated with himself Lord Ruthven, an idle and dissolute
sybarite, who under the circumstances promised to push his devotion so
far as to wear a cuirass; then, sure of this important accomplice, he
busied himself with finding other agents.
However, the plot was not woven with such secrecy but that something of
it transpired; and Rizzio received several warnings that he despised.
Sir James Melville, among others, tried every means to make him
understand the perils a stranger ran who enjoyed such absolute
confidence in a wild, jealous court like that of Scotland. Rizzio
received these hints as if resolved not to apply them to himself; and
Sir James Melville, satisfied that he had done enough to ease his
conscience, did not insist further. Then a French priest, who had a
reputation as a clever astrologer, got himself admitted to Rizzio, and
warned him that the stars predicted that he was in deadly peril, and
that he should beware of a certain bastard above all. Rizzio replied
that from the day when he had been honoured with his sovereign's
confidence, he had sacrificed in advance his life to his position; that
since that time, however, he had had occasion to notice that in general
the Scotch were ready to threaten but slow to act; that, as to the
bastard referred to, who was doubtless the Earl of Murray, he would take
care that he should never enter Scotland far enough for his sword to
reach him, were it as long as from Dumfries to Edinburgh; which in other
words was as much as to say that Murray should remain exiled in England
for life, since Dumfries was one of the principal frontier towns.
Meanwhile the conspiracy proceeded, and Douglas and Ruthven, having
collected their accomplices and taken their measures, came to Darnley to
finish the compact. As the price of the bloody service they rendered the
king, they exacted from him a promise to obtain the pardon of Murray and
the nobles compromised with him in the affair of the "run in every
sense". Darnley granted all they asked of him, and a messenger was sent
to Murray to inform him of the expedition in preparation, and to invite
him to hold himself in readiness to reenter Scotland at the first notice
he should receive. Then, this point settled, they made Darnley sign a
paper in which he acknowledged himself the author and chief of the
enterprise. The other assassins were the Earl of Morton, the Earl of
Ruthven, George Douglas the bastard of Angus, Lindley, and Andrew Carew.
The remainder were soldiers, simple murderers' tools, who did not even
know what was afoot. Darnley reserved it for himself to appoint the
time.
Two days after these conditions were agreed upon, Darnley having been
notified that the queen was alone with Rizzio, wished to make himself
sure of the degree of her favour enjoyed by the minister. He accordingly
went to her apartment by a little door of which he always kept the key
upon him; but though the key turned in the lock, the door did not open.
Then Darnley knocked, announcing himself; but such was the contempt into
which he had fallen with the queen, that Mary left him outside,
although, supposing she had been alone with Rizzio, she would have had
time to send him away. Darnley, driven to extremities by this, summoned
Morton, Ruthven, Lennox, Lindley, and Douglas's bastard, and fixed the
assassination of Rizzio for two days later.
They had just completed all the details, and had, distributed the parts
that each must play in this bloody tragedy, when suddenly, and at the
moment when they least expected it, the door opened and, Mary Stuart
appeared on the threshold.
"My lords," said she, "your holding these secret counsels is useless. I
am informed of your plots, and with God's help I shall soon apply a
remedy".
With these words, and before the conspirators had time to collect
themselves, she shut the door again, and vanished like a passing but
threatening vision. All remained thunderstruck. Morton was the first to
find his tongue.
"My lords," said he, "this is a game of life and death, and the winner
will not be the cleverest or the strongest, but the readiest. If we do
not destroy this man, we are lost. We must strike him down, this very
evening, not the day after to-morrow."
Everyone applauded, even Ruthven, who, still pale and feverish from
riotous living, promised not to be behindhand. The only point changed,
on Morton's suggestion, was that the murder should take place next day;
for, in the opinion of all, not less than a day's interval was needed to
collect the minor conspirators, who numbered not less than five hundred.
The next day, which was Saturday, March 9th, 1566, Mary Stuart, who had
inherited from her father, James V, a dislike of ceremony and the need
of liberty, had invited to supper with her six persons, Rizzio among the
number. Darnley, informed of this in the morning, immediately gave
notice of it to the conspirators, telling them that he himself would let
them into the palace between six and seven o'clock in the evening. The
conspirators replied that they would be in readiness.
The morning had been dark and stormy, as nearly all the first days of
spring are in Scotland, and towards evening the snow and wind redoubled
in depth and violence. So Mary had remained shut up with Rizzio, and
Darnley, who had gone to the secret door several times, could hear the
sound of instruments and the voice of the favourite, who was singing
those sweet melodies which have come down to our time, and which
Edinburgh people still attribute to him. These songs were for Mary a
reminder of her stay in France, where the artists in the train of the
Medicis had already brought echoes from Italy; but for Darnley they were
an insult, and each time he had withdrawn strengthened in his design.
At the appointed time, the conspirators, who had been given the password
during the day, knocked at the palace gate, and were received there so
much the more easily that Darnley himself, wrapped in a great cloak,
awaited them at the postern by which they were admitted. The five
hundred soldiers immediately stole into an inner courtyard, where they
placed themselves under some sheds, as much to keep themselves from the
cold as that they might not be seen on the snow-covered ground. A
brightly lighted window looked into this courtyard; it was that of the
queen's study: at the first signal given them from this window, the
soldiers were to break in the door and go to the help of the chief
conspirators.
These instructions given, Darnley led Morton, Ruthven, Lennox, Lindley,
Andrew Carew, and Douglas's bastard into the room adjoining the study,
and only separated from it by a tapestry hanging before the door. From
there one could overhear all that was being said, and at a single bound
fall upon the guests.
Darnley left them in this room, enjoining silence; then, giving them as
a signal to enter the moment when they should hear him cry, "To me,
Douglas!" he went round by the secret passage, so that seeing him come
in by his usual door the queen's suspicions might not be roused by his
unlooked-for visit.
Mary was at supper with six persons, having, say de Thou and Melville,
Rizzio seated on her right; while, on the contrary, Carapden assures us
that he was eating standing at a sideboard. The talk was gay and
intimate; for all were giving themselves up to the ease one feels at
being safe and warm, at a hospitable board, while the snow is beating
against the windows and the wind roaring in the chimneys. Suddenly Mary,
surprised that the most profound silence had succeeded to the lively and
animated flow of words among her guests since the beginning of supper,
and suspecting, from their glances, that the cause of their uneasiness
was behind her, turned round and saw Darnley leaning on the back of her
chair. The queen shuddered; for although her husband was smiling when
looking at Rizzio, this smile had assumed such a strange expression that
it was clear that something terrible was about to happen. At the same
moment, Mary heard in the next room a heavy, dragging step draw near the
cabinet, then the tapestry was raised, and Lord Ruthven, in armour of
which he could barely support the weight, pale as a ghost, appeared on
the threshold, and, drawing his sword in silence, leaned upon it.
The queen thought he was delirious.
"What do you want, my lord?" she said to him; "and why do you come to
the palace like this?"
"Ask the king, madam," replied Ruthven in an indistinct voice. "It is
for him to answer."
"Explain, my lord," Mary demanded, turning again towards Darnley; "what
does such a neglect of ordinary propriety mean?"
"It means, madam," returned Darnley, pointing to Rizzio, "that that man
must leave here this very minute."
"That man is mine, my lord," Mary said, rising proudly, "and
consequently takes orders only from me."
"To me, Douglas!" cried Darnley.
At these words, the conspirators, who for some moments had drawn nearer
Ruthven, fearing, so changeable was Darnley's character, lest he had
brought them in vain and would not dare to utter the signal--at these
words, the conspirators rushed into the room with such haste that they
overturned the table. Then David Rizzio, seeing that it was he alone
they wanted, threw himself on his knees behind the queen, seizing the
hem of her robe and crying in Italian, "Giustizia! giustizia!" Indeed,
the queen, true to her character, not allowing herself to be intimidated
by this terrible irruption, placed herself in front of Rizzio and
sheltered him behind her Majesty. But she counted too much on the
respect of a nobility accustomed to struggle hand to hand with its kings
for five centuries. Andrew Carew held a dagger to her breast and
threatened to kill her if she insisted on defending any longer him whose
death was resolved upon. Then Darnley, without consideration for the
queen's pregnancy, seized her round the waist and bore her away from
Rizzio, who remained on his knees pale and trembling, while Douglas's
bastard, confirming the prediction of the astrologer who had warned
Rizzio to beware of a certain bastard, drawing the king's own dagger,
plunged it into the breast of the minister, who fell wounded, but not
dead. Morton immediately took him by the feet and dragged him from the
cabinet into the larger room, leaving on the floor that long track of
blood which is still shown there; then, arrived there, each rushed upon
him as upon a quarry, and set upon the corpse, which they stabbed in
fifty-six places. Meanwhile Darnley held the queen, who, thinking that
all was not over, did not cease crying for mercy. But Ruthven came back,
paler than at first, and at Darnley's inquiry if Rizzio were dead, he
nodded in the affirmative; then, as he could not bear further fatigue in
his convalescent state, he sat down, although the queen, whom Darnley
had at last released, remained standing on the same spot. At this Mary
could not contain herself.
"My lord," cried she, "who has given you permission to sit down in my
presence, and whence comes such insolence?"
"Madam," Ruthven answered, "I act thus not from insolence, but from
weakness; for, to serve your husband, I have just taken more exercise
than my doctors allow". Then turning round to a servant, "Give me a
glass of wine," said he, showing Darnley his bloody dagger before
putting it back in its sheath, "for here is the proof that I have well
earned it". The servant obeyed, and Ruthven drained his glass with as
much calmness as if he had just performed the most innocent act.
"My lord," the queen then said, taking a step towards him, "it may be
that as I am a woman, in spite of my desire and my will, I never find an
opportunity to repay you what you are doing to me; but," she added,
energetically striking her womb with her hand, "he whom I bear there,
and whose life you should have respected, since you respect my Majesty
so little, will one day revenge me for all these insults". Then, with a
gesture at once superb and threatening, she withdrew by Darnley's door,
which she closed behind her.
At that moment a great noise was heard in the queen's room. Huntly,
Athol, and Bothwell, who, we are soon about to see, play such an
important part in the sequel of this history, were supping together in
another hall of the palace, when suddenly they had heard outcries and
the clash of arms, so that they had run with all speed. When Athol, who
came first, without knowing whose it was, struck against the dead body
of Rizzio, which was stretched at the top of the staircase, they
believed, seeing someone assassinated, that the lives of the king and
queen were threatened, and they had drawn their swords to force the door
that Morton was guarding. But directly Darnley understood what was going
on, he darted from the cabinet, followed by Ruthven, and showing himself
to the newcomers--
"My lords," he said, "the persons of the queen and myself are safe, and
nothing has occurred here but by our orders. Withdraw, then; you will
know more about it in time. As to him," he added, holding up Rizzio's
head by the hair, whilst the bastard of Douglas lit up the face with a
torch so that it could be recognised, "you see who it is, and whether it
is worth your while to get into trouble for him".
And in fact, as soon as Huntly, Athol, and Bothwell had recognised the
musician-minister, they sheathed their swords, and, having saluted the
king, went away.
Mary had gone away with a single thought in her heart, vengeance. But
she understood that she could not revenge herself at one and the same
time on her husband and his companions: she set to work, then, with all
the charms of her wit and beauty to detach the King from his
accomplices. It was not a difficult task: when that brutal rage which
often carried Darnley beyond all bounds was spent, he was frightened
himself at the crime he had committed, and while the assassins,
assembled by Murray, were resolving that he should have that greatly
desired crown matrimonial, Darnley, as fickle as he was violent, and as
cowardly as he was cruel, in Mary's very room, before the scarcely dried
blood, made another compact, in which he engaged to deliver up his
accomplices. Indeed, three days after the event that we have just
related, the murderers learned a strange piece of news--that Darnley and
Mary, accompanied by Lord Seyton, had escaped together from Holyrood
Palace. Three days later still, a proclamation appeared, signed by Mary
and dated from Dunbar, which summoned round the queen, in her own name
and the king's, all the Scottish lords and barons, including those who
had been compromised in the affair of the "run in every sense," to whom
she not only granted full and complete pardon, but also restored her
entire confidence. In this way she separated Murray's cause from that of
Morton and the other assassins, who, in their turn, seeing that there
was no longer any safety for them in Scotland, fled to England, where
all the queen's enemies were always certain to find a warm welcome, in
spite of the good relations which reigned in appearance between Mary and
Elizabeth. As to Bothwell, who had wanted to oppose the assassination,
he was appointed Warden of all the Marches of the Kingdom.
Unfortunately for her honour, Mary, always more the woman than the
queen, while, on the contrary, Elizabeth was always more the queen than
the woman, had no sooner regained her power than her first royal act was
to exhume Rizzio, who had been quietly buried on the threshold of the
chapel nearest Holyrood Palace, and to have him removed to the
burial-place of the Scottish kings, compromising herself still more by
the honours she paid him dead than by the favour she had granted him
living.
Such an imprudent demonstration naturally led to fresh quarrels between
Mary and Darnley: these quarrels were the more bitter that, as one can
well understand, the reconciliation between the husband and wife, at
least on the latter's side, had never been anything but a pretence; so
that, feeling herself in a stronger position still on account of her
pregnancy, she restrained herself no longer, and, leaving Darnley, she
went from Dunbar to Edinburgh Castle, where on June 19th, 1566, three
months after the assassination of Rizzio, she gave birth to a son who
afterwards became James VI.