=16. Captivity of the Queen.=--Just a month after her third marriage the Queen was brought back to Edinburgh, to be greeted by the railings of the mob, who now openly accused her as a murderess, and paraded before her eyes a banner, showing the dead body of her husband; her infant son on his knees, as though praying for justice against the murderers of his father, and the words, "Judge and avenge my cause, O Lord," embroidered upon it. From Edinburgh she was taken to a lonely castle built on a small island in the centre of _Loch Leven_. A few days later a casket containing eight letters was produced. These letters, it was said, Bothwell had left behind him in his flight, and they seemed to have been written by Mary to him while Darnley was ill in Glasgow. If she really wrote them, they proved very plainly that she had planned the murder with Bothwell. They are called the "casket letters," from the box or casket in which they were found. The confederate barons acted as if they were really hers. The _Lord Lindsay_ and _Robert Melville_ were sent to her at _Loch Leven_, and she there signed the _demission_ of the government to her son, and desired that Murray should be the first Regent. From that time Mary ceased to be Queen of Scots. Her beauty, talents, and misfortunes have won her much pity and many champions, but it was her own folly and sin that changed the love of her people into hate, and their rejection of her stands out as one of the facts in their history that does most honour to the nation. =17. James VI., 1567-1625. Regency of Murray.=--The infant King who was now to be set up in the room of his mother was crowned and anointed at _Stirling_. By his sponsor _Morton_ he took an oath to uphold the Reformed, or as its supporters called it, the true Church, and to root out all heretics and enemies of the same. Murray was recalled from France, whither he had gone soon after the murder of the King. He made some objection to accepting the regency, and would not do so till he had had an interview with his sister. At last he agreed to take it, to comply with her wishes, as he said. As the country was crying out for vengeance on the murderers of the King, four of Bothwell's creatures who had aided in his crime were hanged at Edinburgh, but no steps were taken to punish the lords who had joined themselves by a bond with Bothwell.