CHAPTER XVI. THE ASSASSINATION OF DAVID RIZZIO. It was on the evening of Saturday the 9th of March 1566,[124] that the conspirators determined to strike the blow, which was either to make or mar them.[125] The retainers of Morton, and the other Lords his accomplices, assembled secretly in the neighbourhood of the Palace, to the number of nearly five hundred. They were all armed, and when it became dark, Morton, who took the command, led them into the interior court of Holyroodhouse, which, in his capacity of Lord High Chancellor of the kingdom, he was able to do, without much difficulty or suspicion. It had been arranged, that he should remain to guard the entry to the palace, whilst Ruthven, with a select party, was to proceed to the Queen's chamber. Patrick Lord Ruthven was exactly the sort of person suited for a deed of cowardice and cruelty, being by nature cursed with dispositions which preferred bigotry to religion, and barbarism to refinement. He was now in the forty-sixth year of his age, and had been for some months confined to a sick-bed, by a dangerous disease.[126] Though scarcely able to walk, he nevertheless undertook to head the assassins. He wore a helmet, and a complete suit of armour concealed under a loose robe.[127] Mary, altogether unsuspicious of the tragedy about to be performed, sat down to supper, as usual, at seven o'clock. There were with her only her illegitimate sister, the Countess of Argyle, her brother the Lord Robert Stuart, and her Foreign Secretary, David Rizzio. Beaton, her Master of the Household, Erskine, an inferior attendant, and one or two other servants of the Privy Chamber, were in waiting at a side-table; or, in the words of Stranguage, "tasting the meat taken from the Queen's table, at the cupboard, as the servants of the Privy Chamber use to do."[128] It is a curious and interesting fact, that notwithstanding all the changes which time has wrought on the Palace of Holyrood, the very cabinet in which Mary supped, on this eventful evening, as well as the adjoining rooms and passages through which the conspirators came, still exist, in nearly the same state in which they were in the year 1566. The principal staircase, in the north-west tower, leads up to the Queen's chamber of presence;--passing through this apartment, a door opens into Mary's bedroom, where her own bed yet stands, although its furniture is now almost in tatters. It was in the small closet or cabinet off her bed-room, containing one window, and only about twelve feet square, that Mary sat at supper on the 9th of March, two hundred and sixty-two years ago. Communicating with Darnley's chamber, immediately beneath, there was, and is, a private passage into Mary's bedroom, by which it could be entered, without previously passing through the presence-chamber. The approach to this passage from the Queen's room is concealed by a piece of wainscot, little more than a yard square, which hangs upon hinges in the wall, and