The lines directed against Lennox and Darnley require neither explanation nor comment. The ambition of the one and the boyish weakness and vanity of the other are well known. In selecting these as the objects of his satirical allusions, the poet has not treated them with greater severity than they deserved, nor, indeed, than they have met with at the hands of both contemporary and subsequent historians. As regards Maxwell, it is not difficult to account for the prominence given to him, nor for the "unconstant fayth and shamefull ways" with which he is reproached. At the outbreak of hostilities he held the office of Warden of the Western Border. The confidence placed in him, however, he betrayed, not only by allowing the insurgents to remain unmolested within the district under his keeping, and actually giving them entertainment, but also by subscribing with them[166] and devoting a thousand pounds, which he had received from England, to the equipment of a troop of horse for service against his sovereign. Mary took his treason so greatly to heart that, in a letter to Beton, Archbishop of Glasgow, she inveighed in terms seldom to be met with in her correspondence against "the traitor Maxwell, who, to his great disgrace, had basely violated his faith to her, and sent his son as his pledge to England, undeterred by the remembrance of the treatment to which his other boy was exposed, of which he had told her himself".[167] After the Queen's bloodless victory over her rebellious nobles, and the retreat of Moray and his associates from their last city of refuge in Scotland, Maxwell, fearful of the consequences of his own treasonable conduct, begged to be allowed to return to his allegiance. Three days after Mary's arrival at Dumfries, he was brought before her by Bothwell and some of the loyal lords who offered to become sureties for his fidelity. He was received with generous kindness by his sovereign, who not only granted him a free pardon, but carried her magnanimity so far as to accept the hospitality of his castle of Lochmaben, where she remained until her return to Edinburgh.