Mary had taken her station upon a neighbouring eminence to watch the progress of the fight. Her heart beat high with a thousand hopes and fears, for she was either to regain the crown of her forefathers, or to become a fugitive and a wanderer she knew not where. It must have been with emotions of no common kind, that her eye glanced from one part of the field to another;--it must have been with throbbing brow and palpitating heart, that she saw her troops either advance or retreat; and when at length she beheld the goodly array she had led forth in the morning, scattered over the country, and all the Lords who had attended her with pride and loyalty, seeking safety in flight, no wonder if she burst into a passion of tears, and lamented that she had ever been born. But the necessity of the moment fortunately put a check to this overwhelming ebullition of her feelings. With a very small retinue of trusty friends, among whom was the Lord Herries, she was quickly hurried away from the scene of her disasters. She rode off at full speed, taking a southerly direction towards Galloway, because from thence she could secure a passage either by sea or land into England or France. She never stopped or closed her eyes till she reached Dundrennan, an abbey about two miles from Kirkcudbright, and at least sixty from the village of Langside.[148] She remained two days at Dundrennan, and there held several anxious consultations with the few friends, who had either accompanied her in her flight, or who joined her afterwards. Lord Herries, her principal adviser, gave it as his decided opinion, that she ought to sail immediately for France, where she had relations on whose affection she could depend, even though they should not be able to secure her restoration to the throne of Scotland. But Mary could not brook the idea of returning as a fugitive to a country she had left as a Queen; and besides, had she placed herself under the protection of Catholics, she might have exasperated her own subjects, and would certainly have displeased Elizabeth and the people of England. She was disposed also to place some reliance on the assurances of friendship she had lately received from the English Queen. She was well aware of the hollowness of most of Elizabeth's promises; but in her present extremity, she thought that to cross the sea would be to resign her crown forever. After much hesitation, she finally determined on going into England, and desired Herries to write to Elizabeth's Warden at Carlisle, to know whether she might proceed thither. Without waiting for an answer, she rode to the coast on Sunday the 16th of May, and with eighteen or twenty persons in her train, embarked in a fishing-boat, and sailed eighteen miles along the shore, till she came to the small harbour of Workington, in Cumberland. Thence she proceeded to the town of Cockermouth, about twenty-six miles from Carlisle. Lord Scroope, the