Mary’s ignominious entry into Edinburgh, and the treatment to which she was subjected after being taken, not to Holyrood, but to the house of Sir Simon Preston of Craigmillar, did not augur well for the observance of the conditions which Sir William had been authorised to grant on the field of Carberry. Indeed, there never seems to have been a serious thought on the part of any one except the Laird of Grange to keep faith with the unfortunate Queen. He, however, had been thoroughly sincere throughout; and his indignation was therefore great when he learnt that it had been resolved to relegate Mary, as a prisoner for life, to the island fortress in Lochleven. When he protested against the violation of the promise which he had made to the Queen, he was told that on the very night of her return to Edinburgh, Mary had written to Bothwell, and bribed one of her keepers to get her letter conveyed to him, but that the man had handed it over to the Lords. In this letter, it was alleged, she called the Earl her Dear Heart, whom she should never forget nor abandon, though she was obliged to be absent from him for the time; she assured him her only object in sending him away had been to ensure his safety; and she besought him to be comforted and to remain on his guard. Even though he does not appear to have questioned the genuineness of her letter, Kirkcaldy urged that it did not free them from the obligation contracted by them towards the Queen. In spite of it, she had, in actual fact, abandoned the Earl; and that she should give him a few fair words was, he said, no wonder. He expressed his own conviction that ‘if she were discreetly handled, and humbly admonished what inconveniences that man had brought upon her, she would by degrees be brought not only to leave him, but ere long to detest him; and therefore he advised to deal gently with her.’ To Sir William’s earnest remonstrances, the Lords replied that ‘it stood them upon their lives and lands; and that therefore, in the meantime, they behoved to secure her; and when that time came that she should be known to abandon and detest Earl Bothwell, it would be then time to reason upon the matter.’ Their arguments did not, however, satisfy him, and ‘had it not been for the letter, he had instantly left them.’