The treasonable views entertained by Murray and his friends, are involved in no such doubt. In these times, the common mode of effecting a change in the government, was to seize the person of the sovereign; and all historians of credit agree in affirming, that Murray was determined on making the experiment. On Sunday, the first of July, 1565, the Queen was to ride with Darnley and a small train of friends from Perth to the seat of Lord Livingston at Callander, the baptism of one of whose children she had promised to attend. Murray knew that it would be necessary for her to pass, in the course of this journey, through several steep and wild passes, where she and her attendants might easily be overpowered. At what precise spot the attack was to be made, or whether that was not left to the chapter of accidents, does not appear. Knox, who was, of course, too staunch a Presbyterian directly to accuse the great lay-head of his church of so treasonable a design, says that the path of Dron (a rugged pass about three miles south of Perth), had been mentioned, whilst Sir James Melville and others, point out the Kirk of Beith, which stood on a solitary piece of ground, between Dumfermline and the Queensferry. But late upon the previous Saturday night, a rumour reached Mary of the contemplated plot. To prevent its execution, she ordered the Earl of Athol and Lord Ruthven, to collect immediately as strong a body of men as possible; and through their exertions, she left Perth next morning at five, accompanied by three hundred horsemen well mounted. Murray was waiting at Loch Leven, Argyle at Castle Campbell, Chatelherault at his house of Kinneil, in the neighbourhood of the Queensferry, and Lord Rothes, who had joined in the conspiracy, at a place called the Parrot Well, not far distant. The Queen, however, to their great disappointment, having passed over the ground on which they intended to intercept her, both much earlier in the day, and much more strongly guarded than they had anticipated, they were obliged to remain quiet; indeed the Earl of Argyle did not come to join Murray, till two hours after Mary had ridden through Kinross.[94]