Being joined by her friends on shore, the Queen hurried south, and, having crossed the Firth at Queen’s Ferry, reached Lord Seton’s house at Niddry, about midnight. Thence she proceeded to Hamilton, where she remained until the 13th of May collecting her forces. The plan was, to place the Queen in safety in Dunbarton Castle, on the Clyde, and then muster all her forces for the overthrow of the Regent. It is not difficult now to see that her friends made a fatal blunder in not conveying her directly to Dunbarton from Lochleven. In Dunbarton she would be safe, and her followers could take time to properly organize. As it was, those who rallied round her standard during her stay at Hamilton were equal in number to the army under command of the Regent at Glascow. Her two main supports in the North, Lord Ogilvy and the powerful Earl of Huntly, had not yet succeeded in joining her; but the Earls of Argyle, Cassillis, Rothes and Eglinton, Lords Seton, Borthwick, Somerville, Livingstone, Claud Hamilton, Herries, Boyd, Yester, Ross and others, were already at her side. Bravery and chivalry were in her ranks, but organization and efficient generalship were wanting. The fact that, notwithstanding the persistent and ingenious efforts of her enemies to utterly defame her, so many nobles (most of whom were Protestants), hurried to her support as soon as her escape was made known, draws the following remarks from her Protestant biographer, Mr. Hosack-- "That in spite of all the efforts of Moray and his faction, and in spite of all the violence of the preachers, she--the Catholic Queen of Scotland, the daughter of the hated house of Guise, the reputed mortal enemy of their religion--should now, after being maligned as the most abandoned of her sex, find her best friends among her Protestant subjects, appears at first sight inexplicable. A phenomenon so strange admits of only one explanation. If, throughout her reign, she had not loyally kept her promises of security and toleration to her Protestant subjects, they assuredly would not in her hour of need have risked their lives and fortunes in her defence."