good their charge, the persons slandered should be exonerated and set at liberty. A proposal so very unconstitutional could not have been made by Lennox, unless misled by the ardour of his paternal feelings, or instigated by some personal enmity towards Bothwell. If Mary had ventured to throw into prison every one accused in an anonymous bill, there is no saying where the abuse might have ended. The most worthless coward might have thus revenged himself upon those he hated; and law and justice would have degenerated into despotism, or civil anarchy. The Queen, therefore, informed Lennox, that although, as she had already written, she had summoned a Parliament, and should lay the matter of the murder before it, it was never her intention to allow it to sleep in the mean time. Her Lords and Council would of course continue to exert themselves, but her _whole_ nobility could not be assembled till the Parliament met. As to his desire, that the persons named in the placards should be apprehended, there had been so many, and so contrary statements made in these placards, that she knew not to which in particular he alluded; and besides, that she could not find herself justified in throwing any of her subjects into prison upon such authority; but that, if he himself would condescend upon the names of such persons as he thought deserved a trial, she would order that trial to take place immediately. She was anxious that Lennox should take this responsibility upon himself, for she had hitherto been kept much in the dark, and was glad to have the assistance of one almost as desirous as herself to come to the truth. She invited him, therefore, in her letter of the 1st of March, to write to her again immediately, with any other suggestion which might occur to him, because she was determined "not to omit any occasion which might clear the matter." It was the 17th of March before Lennox again addressed the Queen. He thanked her Majesty for her attention to his wishes; he marvelled that the names of the persons upon the placards, against whom the greatest suspicions were entertained, "_had been kept from her Majesty's ears_;" and, as she requested it, he now named them himself, putting the Earl of Bothwell first, and several other inferior persons after him. He did not undertake to be their accuser, confessing that he had no evidence of their guilt; but he said he greatly suspected Bothwell, and hoped "her Majesty, now knowing their names, and being a party, as well and more than he was, although he was the father, would take order in the matter according to the weight of the cause." Mary, who had by this time returned to Edinburgh, wrote to Lennox, the very day after the receipt of his letter, that she had summoned her nobility to come to Edinburgh the first week of April; and that, as soon as they came, the persons named in his letter should "abide and underlie such trial, as by the laws of the realm was usual."--"They being found