Bothwell, meanwhile, after wandering from place to place, now lurking among his vassals, now seeking refuge with his friends, at length fled, with a single ship, towards Norway. Falling in with a vessel of that country, richly laden, he attacked it, but was himself taken, and carried to Norway, where for ten years he languished in captivity; till, by melancholy and despair deprived of reason, unpitied and unassisted, he ended his wretched life in a dungeon. A declaration addressed to the king of Denmark, in which he gives a succinct account of all the transactions in which he was engaged in Scotland, is yet preserved in the library of the king of Sweden. In it he completely exonerates Mary from having the slightest concern in the murder of Darnley; and again, before his death, when confessing his own share in it, he solemnly acquits her of all pre-knowledge of the crime. Mary now, in her distress, found assistance from an unexpected quarter. Her misfortunes, and gentle resignation under them, excited the pity and sympathy of the _little William Douglas_, a boy of fifteen, a son of her jailer; and he resolved to undertake her deliverance. The first attempt failed. The queen had succeeded in leaving the castle in the disguise of a laundress, and was already seated in the boat, to cross the lake, when she betrayed herself by raising her hand. The beauty and extreme whiteness of that hand discovered her at once, and she was carried back to her chamber in tears and bitterness of heart. The next attempt was more successful, and she reached Hamilton in safety. Many nobles of the highest distinction hastened to offer their support, and, in three days after leaving Lochleven, she was at the head of six thousand men, devoted to her cause.