Elizabeth removed her prisoner to another castle further from the frontier than Carlisle, in order to place her in a situation where she would be more safe _from her enemies_. It was not convenient to lodge so many of her attendants at these new quarters as in the other fortress, and several were dismissed. Additional obstructions were thrown in the way of her seeing friends and visitors from Scotland. Mary found her situation growing every day more and more helpless and desolate. Elizabeth urged continually upon her the necessity of having the points at issue between herself and Murray examined by a commissioner, artfully putting it on the ground, not of a trial of Mary, but a calling of Murray to account, by Mary, for his usurpation. At last, harassed and worn down, and finding no ray of hope coming to her from any quarter, she consented. Elizabeth constituted such a court, which was to meet at York, a large and ancient city in the north of England. Murray was to appear there in person, with other lords associated with him. Mary appointed commissioners to appear for her; and the two parties went into court, each thinking that it was the other which was accused and on trial. The court assembled, and, after being opened with great parade and ceremony, commenced the investigation of the questions at issue, which led, of course, to endless criminations and recriminations, the ground covering the whole history of Mary's career in Scotland. They went on for some weeks in this hopeless labyrinth, until, at length, Murray produced the famous letters alleged to have been written by Mary to Bothwell before Darnley's murder, as a part of the evidence, and charged Mary, on the strength of this evidence, with having been an abettor in the murder. Elizabeth, finding that the affair was becoming, as in fact she wished it to become, more and more involved, and wishing to get Mary more and more entangled in it, and to draw her still further into her power, ordered the conference, as the court was called, to be adjourned to London. Here things took such a turn that Mary complained that she was herself treated in so unjust a manner, and Murray and his cause were allowed so many unfair advantages, that she could not allow the discussion on her part to continue. The conference was accordingly broken up, each party charging the other with being the cause of the interruption.