[136] Melville's Memoirs, p. 193. Keith, p. 442. et seq. [137] Throckmorton's Letter in Keith, p. 444 et seq. [138] What Mark Antony, according to Shakespeare, said of Cæsar, might be, with propriety, applied to the Earl of Murray: "You all did see that, on the Lupercal, I thrice presented him a kingly crown, Which he did thrice refuse.--Was this ambition?" [139] Anderson, vol. ii. p. 251 and 254.--Chalmers, vol. ii. p. 355. [140] Goodall, vol. ii. p. 66.--Anderson, vol. ii. p. 206 et seq. [141] Goodall, vol. ii. p. 299, and Chalmers, vol. i. p. 275 and 278. [142] Jebb, vol. ii. p. 230.--Keith, p. 471--and Chalmers, vol. i. p. 275. [143] Sir William Drury's Letter in Keith, p. 470. [144] Buchanan's Cameleon, p. 13. [145] Jebb, vol. ii. p. 65 and 230.--Keith, p. 471.--Freebairn, p. 152, et seq.--Chalmers, vol. i. p. 277, et seq. The interest taken in Queen Mary by George Douglas, is ascribed by Mackenzie to a motive less pure than the affection of a good subject. His chief characteristic, we are told by that author, was an excessive love of money, and it was by bribing him, he asserts, with the best part of what gold and jewels she had about her, that Mary prevailed upon him to assist her. But this statement does not seem well authenticated. Another story, still more improbable, was told by the Earl of Murray to the English ambassador, Sir William Drury, namely, that Mary had entreated him to allow her to have a husband, and had named George Douglas as the person she would wish to marry. Murray must have fabricated this falsehood, in order to lower the dignity of the Queen; but he surely forgot that the reason assigned in justification of her imprisonment in Loch-Leven, was her alleged determination not to consent to a separation from Bothwell. How then did she happen to wish to marry another? See Sir William Drury's Letter in Keith, p. 469. [146] Keith, p. 472, et seq. [147] Buchanan, Book xix.--Melville's Memoirs, p. 200. et seq.--Keith, p. 477.--Calderwood, Crawfurd, and Holinshed. The accounts which historians give of this battle are so confused and contradictory, that it is almost impossible to furnish any very distinct narrative of it, even by collating them all. Robertson hardly attempts any detail, and the few particulars which he does mention, are in several instances erroneous. [148] Keith, p. 481 and 482.--Anderson, vol. iv. p. 1. [149] Anderson, vol. iv. p. 1. et seq.--Keith, p. 481. [150] Goodall, vol. ii. p. 69. [151] Chalmers, vol. i. p. 283. [152] Goodall, vol. ii. p. 71.