Bothwell's more ambitious objects; but if he was, he would still have gone, for his staying could not have prevented their attempted execution; and if they induced a civil war, whosoever lost, he might contrive to be a gainer. He acted selfishly and unpatriotically, but not with that deliberate villany with which he has been charged. CHAPTER V. BOTHWELL'S SEIZURE OF THE QUEEN'S PERSON, AND SUBSEQUENT MARRIAGE TO HER. Every thing appeared now to be going smoothly with Bothwell, and he had only to take one step more to reach the very height of his ambition. Mary's hand and Scotland's crown were the objects he had all along kept steadily in view. The latter was to be obtained only through the medium of the former, and hence his reason for removing Darnley, and willingly submitting to a trial, from which he saw he would come off triumphantly. The question he now anxiously asked himself was, whether it was likely that Mary could be persuaded to accept him as a husband. He was aware, that in the unsettled state of the country, she must feel that, unless married to a person of strength and resolution, she would hardly be able to keep her turbulent subjects in order; and he was of opinion, that it was not improbable she would now cast her eyes upon one of her own nobility, as she could no where else find a king who would be so agreeable to the national prejudices. Yet he had a lurking consciousness, that he himself would not be the object of her choice. She had of late, it was true, given him a considerable share in the administration; but he felt that she had done so, more as a matter of state policy, and to preserve a balance of power between himself and her other ministers, than from any personal regard. The most assiduous attentions which it was in his power to pay her, had failed to kindle in her bosom any warmer sentiment; for though she esteemed him for his fidelity as an officer of state, his manners and habits as a man, were too coarse and dissolute to please one of so much refinement, sensibility and gentleness, as Mary Stuart. Bothwell therefore became secretly convinced that it would be necessary for him to have recourse to fraud, and perhaps to force. Had Mary loved him, their marriage would have been a matter of mutual agreement, and would have taken place whenever circumstances seemed to make it mutually advisable; but as it was, artifice and audacity were to be his weapons; nor were they wielded by an unskilful hand.