next hurried to Lochleven Castle. Her alleged letters to Bothwell were
betrayed to the Lords (June 21), probably through Sir James Balfour, who
commanded in Edinburgh Castle. Perhaps Murray (who had left for France
before the marriage to Bothwell), perhaps fear of Elizabeth, or human
pity, induced her captors, contrary to the counsel of Lethington, to
spare her life, when she had signed her abdication, while they crowned
her infant son. Murray accepted the Regency; a Parliament in December
established the Kirk; acquitted themselves of rebellion; and announced
that they had proof of Mary's guilt in her own writing. Her romantic
escape from Lochleven (May 2, 1568) gave her but an hour of freedom.
Defeated on her march to Dumbarton Castle in the battle of Langside Hill,
she lost heart and fled to the coast of Galloway; on May 16 crossed the
Solway to Workington in Cumberland; and in a few days was Elizabeth's
prisoner in Carlisle Castle.

Mary had hitherto been a convinced but not a very obedient daughter of
the Church; for example, it appears that she married Darnley before the
arrival of the Pope's dispensation. At this moment Philip of Spain, the
French envoy to Scotland, and the French Court had no faith in her
innocence of Darnley's death; and the Pope said "he knew not which of
these ladies were the better"--Mary or Elizabeth. But from this time,
while a captive in England, Mary was the centre of the hopes of English
Catholics: in miniatures she appears as queen, quartering the English
arms; she might further the ends of Spain, of France, of Rome, of English
rebels, while her existence was a nightmare to the Protestants of
Scotland and a peril to Elizabeth.

After Mary's flight, Murray was, as has been said, Regent for the crowned
baby James. In his council were the sensual, brutal, but vigorous
Morton, with Mar, later himself Regent, a man of milder nature;