punish the queen in Rizzio's person, he exacted that the murder should
take place in her presence.

Douglas associated with himself Lord Ruthven, an idle and dissolute
sybarite, who under the circumstances promised to push his devotion so
far as to wear a cuirass; then, sure of this important accomplice, he
busied himself with finding other agents.

However, the plot was not woven with such secrecy but that something of
it transpired; and Rizzio received several warnings that he despised.
Sir James Melville, among others, tried every means to make him
understand the perils a stranger ran who enjoyed such absolute confidence
in a wild, jealous court like that of Scotland. Rizzio received these
hints as if resolved not to apply them to himself; and Sir James
Melville, satisfied that he had done enough to ease his conscience, did
not insist further. Then a French priest, who had a reputation as a
clever astrologer, got himself admitted to Rizzio, and warned him that
the stars predicted that he was in deadly peril, and that he should
beware of a certain bastard above all. Rizzio replied that from the day
when he had been honoured with his sovereign's confidence, he had
sacrificed in advance his life to his position; that since that time,
however, he had had occasion to notice that in general the Scotch were
ready to threaten but slow to act; that, as to the bastard referred to,
who was doubtless the Earl of Murray, he would take care that he should
never enter Scotland far enough for his sword to reach him, were it as
long as from Dumfries to Edinburgh; which in other words was as much as
to say that Murray should remain exiled in England for life, since
Dumfries was one of the principal frontier towns.

Meanwhile the conspiracy proceeded, and Douglas and Ruthven, having