he was lying, and as, doubtless, in his terror he had merely thrown
himself on his bed wrapped in his dressing-gown and in his slippers, and
as he was found thus, without his slippers, which were flung some paces
away, it was believed that he had been first strangled, then carried
there; but the most probable version was that the murderers simply relied
upon powder--an auxiliary sufficiently powerful in itself for them to
have no fear it would fail them.

Was the queen an accomplice or not? No one has ever known save herself,
Bothwell, and God; but, yes or no, her conduct, imprudent this time as
always, gave the charge her enemies brought against her, if not
substance, at least an appearance of truth. Scarcely had she heard the
news than she gave orders that the body should be brought to her, and,
having had it stretched out upon a bench, she looked at it with more
curiosity than sadness; then the corpse, embalmed, was placed the same
evening, without pomp, by the side of Rizzio's.

Scottish ceremonial prescribes for the widows of kings retirement for
forty days in a room entirely closed to the light of day: on the twelfth
day Mary had the windows opened, and on the fifteenth set out with
Bothwell for Seaton, a country house situated five miles from the
capital, where the French ambassador, Ducroc, went in search of her, and
made her remonstrances which decided her to return to Edinburgh; but
instead of the cheers which usually greeted her coming, she was received
by an icy silence, and a solitary woman in the crowd called out, "God
treat her as she deserves!"

The names of the murderers were no secret to the people. Bothwell having
brought a splendid coat which was too large for him to a tailor, asking
him to remake it to his measure, the man recognised it as having belonged