Her natural brother, the Earl of Murray, had opposed the marriage,
chiefly upon the grounds that Darnley was a Catholic, and with
Argyll, Chatellerault, Glencairn, and a host of other Protestant
lords, had risen in arms against his sovereign and her consort. But
Mary had chased her rebel brother and his fellows over the border
into England, and by this very action, taken for the sake of her
worthless husband, she sowed the first seeds of discord between
herself and him. It happened that stout service had been rendered
her in this affair by the arrogant border ruffian, the Earl of
Bothwell. Partly to reward him, partly because of the confidence
with which he inspired her, she bestowed upon him the office of
Lieutenant-General of the East, Middle, and West Marches - an office
which Darnley had sought for his father, Lennox. That was the first
and last concerted action of the royal couple. Estrangement grew
thereafter between them, and, in a measure, as it grew so did
Darnley's kingship, hardly established as yet - for the Queen had
still to redeem her pre-nuptial promise to confer upon him the crown
matrimonial - begin to dwindle.

At first it had been "the King and Queen," or "His Majesty and Hers";
but by Christmas - five months after the wedding - Darnley was known
simply as "the Queen's husband," and in all documents the Queen's
name now took precedence of his, whilst coins bearing their two
heads, and the legend "Hen. et Maria," were called in and substituted
by a new coinage relegating him to the second place.

Deeply affronted, and seeking anywhere but in himself and his own
shortcomings the cause of the Queen's now manifest hostility, he
presently conceived that he had found it in the influence exerted
upon her by the Seigneur Davie - that Piedmontese, David Rizzio,