The die was now cast; Mary was in Bothwell's fangs, and her ruin was completed. On the 3d of May 1567, he thought it expedient to conduct her, closely guarded, from Dunbar to the Castle of Edinburgh. When they came near the town, he desired his followers to conceal their arms, lest it should be supposed that he was still keeping the Queen an unwilling prisoner. But the truth broke out in spite of his precautions; for at the foot of the Canongate, Mary was about to turn her horse towards Holyrood, upon which Bothwell himself seized the bridle, and conducted her up the High Street to the Castle, which was then in the keeping of Sir James Balfour, who was entirely subservient to Bothwell.[89] He was now resolved that his marriage should be consummated with as little delay as possible, having wrung a consent to it from the unfortunate Queen, by means of which, it is impossible to think without shuddering. In the state to which she was reduced, she had no alternative; she chose the least of two evils, in becoming, with an aching heart, the wife of her ravisher. Yet it would appear, that she did not herself take a single step to advance the matter. Three days after she arrived at the Castle, a person of the name of Thomas Hepburn, (probably a relation of the Hepburn who was engaged with Bothwell in Darnley's murder), was sent to Craig, Knox's colleague in the church of St Giles, to desire that he would proclaim the banns of matrimony betwixt the Queen and Bothwell. But the clergyman refused, because Hepburn brought no authority from the Queen.[90] Neither Mary nor Bothwell were so ignorant as to suppose that any minister would publish banns without receiving a written or personal order; and Hepburn would hardly have been sent on so idle an errand, had not the Queen been still reluctant to surrender herself to one whose person and manners she had never liked, and who was now so odious to her. But not a voice was raised,--not a sword was drawn to protect her,--and what resource was left? In a day or two, the Lord Justice Clerk conveyed a written mandate to Craig; but the preacher, had still some scruples: not thinking such a marriage agreeable to the laws either of God or man, he insisted upon seeing the Queen and Bothwell, before he gave intimation of it. He was admitted to a meeting of the Privy Council, where Bothwell presided, but at which Mary does not seem to have been present. "In the Council," says Craig, "I laid to his charge the law of adultery, the ordinance of the kirk, the law of ravishing, the suspicion of collusion betwixt him and his wife, the sudden divorcement and proclaiming within the space of four days, and lastly, the suspicion of the King's death, which his marriage would confirm; but he answered nothing to my satisfaction."--"Therefore, upon Sunday, after I had declared what they had done, and how they would proceed, whether we would or not, I took heaven and earth to witness, that I abhorred and detested