He {the King} went to Glasgow, where he was seized with the small-pox.
He sent several times for the Queen, who was very ill, having been
injured by a fall from her horse at Seton. At last she went, stayed with
him, and attended him on his return to Edinburgh.... On his return to
Edinburgh, the King lodged in a small house outside the town, which he
had chosen in the report of James Balfour and some others. This was
against the Queen's wishes, who was anxious to take him to Craigmillar,
for he could not stay in Holyrood Palace lest he should give infection
to the Prince. On his own account, too, he did not wish any one to see
him in his present condition.... While he was in this house, the King
was often visited by the Queen, with whom he was now perfectly
reconciled. He promised to give her much information of the utmost
importance to the life and quiet of both of them.... He warned her more
particularly to be on her guard against Lethington, who, he said, was
planning the ruin of the one by the means of the other.... That very
night, as her Majesty was about to leave the King, she met Paris, Lord
Bothwell's _valet-de-chambre_, and noticing that his face was all
blackened with gunpowder, she exclaimed in the hearing of many of the
lords, just as she was mounting her horse, "Jesu, Paris, how begrimed
you are!" At this he turned very red.
On the 10th of February 1567, about three or four o'clock in the
morning, a match was put to the train of gunpowder, which had been
placed under the King's house. It was afterwards made public that this
had been done by the command and device of the Earls of Bothwell and
Morton, James Balfour, and some others, who always afterwards pretended
to be most diligent in searching out the murder which they themselves
had committed. Morton had secretly returned from England, to which he
had been banished.
_THE ORIGIN OF THE CRIME_
This crime was the result of a bond into which they had entered. It was
written by Alexander Hay, at that time one of the clerks of the Council,
and signed by the Earls of Moray, Huntly, Bothwell, and Morton, by
Lethington, James Balfour, and others, who had combined for this
purpose. They protested that they were acting for the public good of the
realm, pretending that they were freeing the Queen from the bondage and
misery into which she had been reduced by the King's behaviour.... He
was but deceiving the Queen, whom they often blamed for so faithfully
having come to a good understanding with her husband; and they told her
that he was putting a knife not only to their throats but to her own.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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