the crafty Morton, forgetting the proclamation they had made only two days before, announcing their intention to rescue the Queen from the bondage in which she was held, only took her from one tyrant to retain her in the hands of many. As the cavalcade proceeded, a banner was displayed in front, on which was represented the King lying dead at the foot of a tree, and the young Prince upon his knees near him, exclaiming--"Judge and revenge my cause, O Lord!" The people shouted with savage exultation, as this ensign was carried past, and turning their eyes on the Queen, who was dissolved in tears, they scrupled not, by the coarse malice of their expressions, to add to the agony of her feelings. When Mary arrived in Edinburgh, and found she was not to be taken to Holyrood House, (from which, indeed, the Lords had previously carried off much of her valuable furniture), she gave up all for lost, and in her despair called upon all who came near her to rescue her from the hands of traitors. But an excitement had just been given to the public mind, which it required some hours of sober reflection to allay. No one interfering in her behalf, she was taken to the Provost's house in the High Street, where she was lodged for the night. The crowd gradually dispersed, and the Lords were left to themselves to arrange their future plan of procedure. Kircaldy of Grange, was the only one among them who was disposed to act honourably. He reminded them that he had been commissioned to assure the Queen of their loyal services, provided she parted from Bothwell, and came over to them,--and as she had fulfilled her part of the agreement, he did not think it right that they should fail in theirs. Influenced by these representations, a division might thus have taken place among themselves, had not Morton fallen on an expedient to silence the scruples of Grange. He produced a letter, which he alleged Mary had just written to Bothwell, and which he had intercepted, in which she was made to declare, that she was resolved never to abandon him, although for a time she might be obliged to yield to circumstances. Kircaldy, possessing all the blunt sincerity of a soldier, and being little given to suspicion, was startled by this letter, and left Morton, in consequence, to take his own way. That the pretended epistle was in truth a mere hasty forgery, is proved to demonstration, by the fact that, important as such a document would have been, it was never afterwards alluded to by the Lords, nor produced in evidence along with the other papers they so laboriously collected to lay before Elizabeth's Commissioners. From this specimen of their honesty, we may guess what reliance is to be placed on the authenticity of writings, subsequently scraped together by men who, on the spur of the moment, executed a forgery so clumsily, that they were unable to avail themselves of it on any future occasion. But Morton's intriguing spirit was again