The perpetrators of the deed, finding that their work was done, fled immediately. They tried various plans to avoid the sentinels at the gates of the city, as well as the persons who were beginning to come toward the scene of the explosion. When they reached the palace of Holyrood, they were challenged by the sentinel on duty there. They said that they were friends of Earl Bothwell, bringing dispatches to him from the country. The sentinel asked them if they knew what was the cause of that loud explosion. They said they did not, and passed on. Bothwell went to his room, called for a drink, undressed himself, and went to bed. Half an hour afterward, messengers came to awaken him, and inform him that the king's house had been blown up with gunpowder, and the king himself killed by the explosion. He rose with an appearance of great astonishment and indignation, and, after conferring with some of the other nobles, concluded to go and communicate the event to the queen. The queen was overwhelmed with astonishment and indignation too. The destruction of Darnley in such a manner as this, of course produced a vast sensation all over Scotland. Every body was on the alert to discover the authors of the crime. Rewards were offered; proclamations were made. Rumors began to circulate that Bothwell was the criminal. He was accused by anonymous placards put up at night in Edinburgh. Lennox, Darnley's father, demanded his trial; and a trial was ordered. The circumstances of the trial were such, however, and Bothwell's power and desperate recklessness were so great, that Lennox, when the time came, did not appear. He said he had not _force enough_ at his command to come safely into court. There being no testimony offered, Bothwell was acquitted; and he immediately afterward issued his proclamation, offering to fight any man who should intimate, in any way, that he was concerned in the murder of the king. Thus Bothwell established his innocence; at least, no man dared to gainsay it. Darnley was murdered in February. Bothwell was tried and acquitted in April. Immediately afterward, he took measures for privately making known to the leading nobles that it was his design to marry the queen, and for securing their concurrence in the plan. They concurred; or at least, perhaps for fear of displeasing such a desperado, said what he understood to mean that they concurred. The queen heard the reports of such a design, and said, as ladies often do in similar cases, that she did not know what people meant by such reports; there was no foundation for them whatever.