knew of the plot of his foes to murder her husband is not proved, but
she almost certainly did so, and welcomed the deed when it was done. She
made no pretence of love for him after Rizzio's death, and her husband
repaid her coldness by sulky loutishness and bursts of drunken violence.
Mary's conduct toward Bothwell, too, began to arouse scandal. By
November 1566, matters had reached a crisis, and Mary, at Kelso, said
that unless she was freed from Darnley she would put an end to herself.
She spoke not to deaf ears. Morton, and the rest of Rizzio's slayers and
bitter enemies, were pardoned, and the deadly bond was signed.


_IV.--Dire Infatuation_


On February 9, 1567, as the doomed consort lay sick and sorry outside
Edinburgh at the lone house of Kirk o' Field, he was, done to death by
Bothwell and the foes of the Lennoxes; and Mary Stuart's first true love
affair was ended in tragedy. But already the second was in full blast.
Bothwell had recently married; he was disliked by the Scottish nobles,
and the queen's constant association with him had already brought
discredit upon her. There had been a good political excuse for her union
with Darnley, but Bothwell could bring no support to her cause; for his
creed was doubtful, and he had no friends. Nothing, indeed, but the
infatuation of an amorous woman for a brutally strong man could have so
blinded her to her own great aims as to make her take Bothwell, the
prime mover of Darnley's murder, for her husband.

As soon as the crime was known, all fingers were pointed to Bothwell and
the queen as the murderers, and Protestants everywhere hastened to cast
obloquy upon Mary for it. But for the nobles' jealousy of Bothwell, and