Having secured some favour among the royal attendants, he came to
Holyroodhouse at night, with his friends the Lairds of Spott and
Nisbet, Mr Archibald Douglas, a natural son of the Regent Morton,
Mr John Colville, and others, to the amount of forty or fifty. They
‘enterit in at a stable-door beside the east gable of the Traitor’s
Tower, whilk was called the Duke’s Stable, within the whilk there was a
trap and ane entress privily made. Having enterit therein, they first
bereft the porter of the keys, and then passed to the chancellor’s
chalmer-door; they dang up the same. He, being foreseen by the cry
of ane boy that there was ane tumult of men in the close, withdrew
himself and some others within his inner chalmer, whilk has ane narrow
entress, at whilk the conspirators strake with fore-hammers and shot
pistolets. There was some shots of muskets shot out again [by which]
some of them were hurt; [so they] for fear to be trappit, passed to the
queen’s chalmer-door, whilk they brak up.’
‘In the meantime, the haill noblemen and gentlemen of his majesty’s
house raise, who thought to have taken the Earl Bothwell and his
complices. The earl fled; yet he returned at the south side of the
abbey, where the said earl and his complices slew his majesty’s
master-stabler, named William Shaw, and ane with him, named Mr Peter
Shaw. But the king’s folk took eight of Bothwell’s faction, and on the
morrow hanged them all without ane assize, betwixt the Girth Cross and
the Abbey-gate.’--_Moy._ _Bir._
[Sidenote: DEC. 28.]
‘The king’s majesty came to Sanct Geill’s Kirk, and there made ane
oration anent the fray made by Bothwell and William Shaw’s slaughter,
his master-stabler.’--_Bir._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1591-2.