Bothwell, after the deed was ended that he went for, returned, and as if he had been ignorant of all that was done, he gat him to bed. The Queen, in the meantime, in great expectation of the success, how finely she played her part (as she thought) it is marvell to tell; for she not once stirred at the noise of the fall of the house, which shook the whole town, nor at the fearful outcries that followed, and confused cries of the people (for I think there happened her not any new thing unlooked for) till Bothwell, feigning himself afraid, rose again out of his bed, and came to her with the Earls of Argyle, Huntly, and Athole, and with the wives of the Earls of Mar and Athole, and with the Secretary. There, while the monstrous chance was in telling, while every one wondered at the thing, that the King's lodging was even from the very foundation blown up in the air, and the King himself slain; in this amazedness and confused fear of all sorts of persons, only that same heroical heart of the Queen maintained itself, so far from casting herself down into base lamentations and tears, unbeseeming the royal name, blood, and estate, that she matched, or rather far surmounted all credit of the constancy of any in former times. This also proceeded of the same nobility of courage, that she sent out the most part of them that were then about her, to inquire out the manner of the doing, and commanded the soldiers that watched to follow, and she herself settled her to rest, with a countenance so quiet, and mind so untroubled, that she sweetly slept till the next day at noon. But lest she should appear void of all naturalness at the death of her husband, by little and little, at length she kept her close, and proclaimed a mourning not long to endure. _MARY ON THE MURDER_ Mary's Description of the Murder. _Queen Mary to the Archbishop of Glasgow_, February 11 [10?], 1567. _Keith's History_, vol. i. p. 101. _A PLOT AGAINST BOTH KING AND QUEEN_