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The arrival of Athol from Scotland with advices from the Countess of Strathearn, that Lady Helen Mar had fled southward to raise an insurrection in favor of Wallace, and that Lord Bothwell had gone to France to move Philip to embrace the same cause, gave Edward so apt an excuse for giving full way to his hatred against the Scottish chief, that he pronounced an order for the immediate and unrestricted execution of his sentence.

Thus, in June 1568, there was in France an uneasy truce between Catholics and Huguenots; in the Netherlands, the struggle between the Prince of Orange and Alva was just commencing; in Britain, the Queen of Scots had just fallen into the power of her sister of England disgraced in the eyes of the world by her marriage with Bothwell, and on almost all hands credited with the murder of Darnley; so that whatever might happen it was certain that no foreign Power would have either the will or the means to intervene on her behalf.

Next day, wherever this letter had been affixed, another placard was found, worded thus: "As it has been proclaimed that those who should make known the king's murderers should have two thousand pounds sterling, I, who have made a strict search, affirm that the authors of the murder are the Earl of Bothwell, James Balfour, the priest of Flisk, David, Chambers, Blackmester, Jean Spens, and the queen herself."

As she gave this information, she hoped that no attainder would fall upon her husband. And to keep the transaction as close as possible, she proposed that the Lord Soulis, who she understood was then at Dumbarton, should take the command of two or three thousand troops, and marching to Bothwell next morning, seize the few hundred armed Scots who were there ready to proceed to the mountains.

"That callant's tongue will rin the head aff his ain shoulders, and waste my gudes to the very grey cloak on my back!" "But you knew Burley," continued Bothwell, still addressing Henry, and regardless of his uncle's interruption, "to be an intercommuned rebel and traitor, and you knew the prohibition to deal with such persons.

"Sir Erick," began the chamberlain, "allow me to introduce Sir James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell, a noble peer, ambassador from Mary Queen of Scots to his Danish majesty." "We thank you for your gracious hospitality, fair sir," said Bothwell, with a profound courtesy; then, turning to Konrad, "And now, brave youth, by whose valour we have been saved, let me thank you."

It was ten days ago, on the battlefield of Carberry Hill, madam, when the infamous Bothwell had the audacity to make a public challenge in which he defied to single combat whomsoever would dare to maintain that he was not innocent of the murder of the king your husband. I made him answer then, I the third, that he was an assassin.

Bothwell and his troopers, in other respects, kept their promise, and were civil. They did not bind their prisoner, but contented themselves with leading his horse between a file of men. They then mounted, and marched off with much mirth and laughter among themselves, leaving the Milnwood family in great confusion.

"Well, beloved," answered Bothwell, "if thou be'st a whig, thou art a stout and a brave one, and so good even to thee Hadst best take thy nag before the Cornet makes the round; for, I promise thee, he has stay'd less suspicious-looking persons."

But it happened that in the passage he came suddenly face to face with the splendid figure of Bothwell, cloaked and hatted, and Bothwell asked him whither he went. The boy told him. "It is nothing," Bothwell said. "They are moving Her Grace's bed in accordance with her wishes."