When all things were ready prepared for performing this cruel fact ... the Queen, for manners' sake, after supper, goes up to the King's lodging. There being determined to show him all the tokens of reconciled good will, she spent certain hours in his company, with countenance and talk much more familiar than she had used in six or seven months before. At the coming in of Paris, she broke off her talk and prepared to depart. This Paris was a young man born in France, and had lived certain years in the houses of Bothwell and Seton, and afterwards with the Queen. Whereas the other keys of that lodging were in custody of the King's servants, Paris, by feigning certain fond and slender causes, had in keeping the keys which Bothwell kept back, of the back gate and the postern. He was in special trust with Bothwell and the Queen, touching their secret affairs. His coming (as it was before agreed among them) was a watchword that all was ready for the matter. As soon as the Queen saw him, she rose up immediately, and feigning another cause to depart, she said, "Alas! I have much offended toward Sebastian this day, that I came not in a mask to his marriage." This Sebastian was an Avernois {Auvergnois}, a man in great favour with the Queen, for his cunning in music, and his merry jesting, and was married the same day. The King thus left, in manner, alone, in a desolate place, the Queen departs, accompanied with the Earls of Argyle, Huntly, and Cassilis, that attended upon her. After that she was come into her chamber, after midnight, she was in long talk with Bothwell, none being present but the captain of her guard. And when he also withdrew himself, Bothwell was there left alone, without other company, and shortly after retired into his own chamber. He changed his apparel, because he would be unknown of such as met him, and put on a loose cloak, such as the Swartrytters[18] wear, and so went forward through the watch to execute his intended traitorous fact. The whole order of the doing thereof may be easily understood by their confessions who were put to death for it. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [18] German. Black Riders, or heavy cavalry. ------------------------------------------------------------------------