In the midst of these anxieties, the time for the Queen's delivery drew near. After a short excursion to Stirling and the neighbourhood, in which she was accompanied by Darnley, Murray, Bothwell and others, she returned to Edinburgh, and, by the advice of her Privy Council, went to reside in the Castle, as the place of greatest security, till she should present the country with an heir to the throne. During the months of April and May, she lived there very quietly, amusing herself with her work and her books, and occasionally walking out, for she had no wheeled carriage. She occupied herself, too, in endeavouring to reconcile those of her nobility whom contrary interests and other circumstances had disunited. It cost her no little trouble to prevail upon the two most faithful of her ministers, the Earl of Huntly her Chancellor, and Bothwell her Lord High Admiral, to submit to the returning influence of their old enemy the Earl of Murray. It was especially galling to them, that Murray and Argyle were the only persons, in addition to the King, allowed to reside in the Castle with Mary. But it was her own wish to have her husband and her brothers beside her on the present occasion; and no representations made by Bothwell or Huntly could alter her resolution. Yet these two Earls went the length of assuring the Queen, that Murray had entered into a new conspiracy with Morton, and that they would probably put in ward both herself and her infant, as soon as it was born. Surrounded as Mary was by traitors, she could not know whether this information was true or not; but her returning affection for Murray prevailed over every other consideration.[139]