[72] In Buchanan's _Cameleon_, a severe satire, written at the request of his patron the Earl of Murray, when that nobleman quarrelled with Secretary Maitland, we have the following ridiculous account of the secret motives which led to this disastrous northern expedition. "The Queen, by advice of her uncles, devised to destroy the Earl of Murray, thinking him to be a great bridle to refrain her appetites, and impediment to live at liberty of her pleasure; not that he ever used any violence anent her, but that his honesty was so great that she was ashamed to attempt any thing indecent in his presence. She, then, being deliberate to destroy him, by the Earl of Huntly, went to the north and he in her company; and howbeit the treason was opened plainly, and John Gordon lying not far off the town (Aberdeen) with a great power, and the Earl of Murray expressly lodged in a house separate from all other habitation, and his death by divers ways sought,--this Cameleon (Maitland) whether for simpleness or for lack of foresight, or for boldness of courage, I refer to every man's conscience that doth know him, he alone could see no treason, could fear no danger, and could never believe that the Earl of Huntly would take on hand such an enterprise." This statement, while it gives some notion of the dependence to be placed on Buchanan's accuracy when influenced by party feelings, betrays, at the same time, the important secret, that Maitland saw and felt the injustice of Huntly's persecution.--Buchanan's Cameleon, p. 9. [73] Brantome in Jebb, p. 495, & seq.--Chalmers, vol. i. p. 101.--Freebairn, p. 25--and Histoire de Marie Stuart, tom. i. p. 210. Knox, as usual, gives a highly indecorous and malicious account of this affair, his drift being to make his readers believe (though he does not to venture to say so in direct terms) that Mary had first tempted, and then betrayed Chatelard; and that she was anxious to have him despatched secretly, that he might not stain her honour by a public confession. If such were really the fact, it is odd that Chatelard should have been brought to a scaffold, which was surrounded by thousands, and that, even according to Knox himself, he said nothing relating to Mary but what is narrated in the text.--Vide Knox's History, p. 325.