Holyrood.

Hope tempering at first the rage and chagrin in the hearts of the
lords she had duped, they had sent a messenger to her at Dunbar to
request of her the fulfilment of her promise to sign the document
of their security.

But Mary put off the messenger, and whilst the army she had summoned
was hastily assembling, she used her craft to divide the rebels
against themselves.

To her natural brother, the Earl of Murray, to Argyll, and to all
those who had been exiled for their rebellion at the time of her
marriage - and who knew not where they stood in the present turn of
events, since one of the objects of the murder had been to procure
their reinstatement - she sent an offer of complete pardon, on
condition that they should at once dissociate themselves from those
concerned in the death of the Seigneur Davie.

These terms they accepted thankfully, as well they might. Thereupon,
finding themselves abandoned by all men - even by Darnley in whose
service they had engaged in the murder - Morton, Ruthven, and their
associates scattered and fled.

By the end of that month of March, Morton, Ruthven, Lindsay of the
Byres, George Douglas, and some sixty others were denounced as
rebels with forfeiture of life and goods, while one Thomas Scott,
who had been in command of the guards that had kept Her Majesty
prisoner at Holyrood, was hanged, drawn, and quartered at the
Market Cross.