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After exchanging many desperate blows, each receiving and inflicting several wounds, though of no great consequence, they grappled together as if with the desperate impatience of mortal hate, and Bothwell, seizing his enemy by the shoulder-belt, while the grasp of Balfour was upon his own collar, they came headlong to the ground.

It was agreed that the dispute should be decided by the single combat between Bothwell and Lindsay, but before the duel began Mary's bordermen became disordered, and then she knew that all was lost. Kirkaldy of Grange came from her opponents to parley with her and offer safety for her, but not for Bothwell.

Morton's patience and prudence now gave way entirely, and he was about to make a very angry answer to Bothwell's insolent observations, when the stranger stepped forward. "This is my quarrel," he said, "and in the name of the good cause, I will see it out myself. "With my whole spirit, beloved," answered Bothwell; "yea I will strive with thee, to the downfall of one or both."

The earl of Murray, foreseeing such turbulent times, and being desirous to keep free of these dangerous factions, had some time before desired and obtained Mary's permission to retire into France. Lord Hume was first in arms; and leading a body of eight hundred horse, suddenly environed the queen of Scots and Bothwell, in the Castle of Borthwick.

This tenement, once the manor house of the Earl's Closes, we still retain a slight hold upon; for, in some family arrangements, it had been settled upon Aunt Margaret during the term of her life. Upon this frail tenure depends, in a great measure, the last shadow of the family of Bothwell of Earl's Closes, and their last slight connection with their paternal inheritance.

Great banners were raised with execrable daubs representing the murdered Darnley. The short and dreadful monosyllable which is familiar to us in the pages of the Bible was hurled after her wherever she went. With Bothwell by her side she led a wild and ragged horde of followers against the rebellious nobles, whose forces met her at Carberry Hill.

Bothwell, with his retainer, Colville, continued, with Cecil's connivance, to make desperate plots for seizing James; indeed, Cecil was intriguing with them and other desperadoes even after 1600. Throughout all the Tudor period, from Henry VII. to 1601, England was engaged in a series of conspiracies against the persons of the princes of Scotland.

I am an outdoor man myself, but I have never seen the day when I was a match for Boris Bothwell at feats of strength. Unusually deep in the chest and wide of shoulder, with long, well-packed arms that gave his big, sinewy hands a tremendous grip, he was not in the least muscle-bound.

Henderson, the writer of 1549 whom we have quoted, hopes that the agricultural class may yet live "as substantial commoners, not miserable cottars, charged daily to war and slay their neighbours at their own expense," as under the standards of the unruly Bothwell House.

'The last evening we spent together before he left for China can never be forgotten. We parted on Bothwell Bridge. We had walked from the village without speaking a word, burdened with the sorrow of separation. As we shook hands, he said with intense earnestness, "Paterson, let us keep close to Christ."