A week after Bothwell’s acquittal, a curious deed was accomplished which helps to explain the events that immediately followed. All the influential members except one, who were present at the Parliament held the same day, signed a document known in history as the "Ainslie Tavern Band," by which they engaged to do all in their power to promote a marriage between Bothwell and the Queen. In addition to this, if we accept the testimony of Claude Nau, these nobles sent a deputation to Mary, who represented that, seeing the disturbed condition of the realm, it was necessary that she should marry, and unanimously pressed her to accept Bothwell for husband. Mary refused, and reminded them of the report current about his connection with her late husband’s death. The deputies had a ready reply. Bothwell, they said, had been legally acquitted by the Council; besides (to quote Nau), "they who made the request to her do so for the public good of the realm, and as they were the highest of the nobility, it would be for them to vindicate a marriage brought about by their advice and authority." It is difficult to discover the motives that prompted some of the nobles to sign this objectionable bond. In this, very probably, as in many similar instances, indifferentism, self-interest, or fear of differing from the stronger party, led a number to subscribe. But, if we read the motives of the prime movers in the light of subsequent events, we can discover the old design for Mary’s overthrow carried out under a new form. Even James Anthony Froude, one of the last men in the world from whom we should expect to hear it, suggests that several at least of the nobles appended their names in deliberate treachery to the Queen. But where the treachery? I have already pointed out that the attempts to overthrow Mary’s authority had hitherto failed chiefly because she was beloved by the people. To succeed against her, therefore, it was necessary to bring her into disgrace before the Scottish nation; and how could this be more successfully done than by drawing her into a marriage with the man who was widely believed to be the murderer of her husband, and then rising up in apparent indignation against the union?