A series of unfortunate events threw Mary into the hands of Elizabeth. The former queen, in 1565, married her cousin Lord Darnley, and by that means alienated the affections of her brother and chief minister, the Earl of Moray, as well as of other Protestant lords, who raised a rebellion against her, and were obliged to fly into England. Soon after, the jealousy of Darnley respecting an Italian musician named Rizzio, who acted as French secretary to the queen, united him in a conspiracy with the banished Protestant noblemen for the murder of that humble foreigner, which was effected under very barbarous circumstances, March 9, 1566. Mary, who was delivered in the succeeding June, of her son James, withdrew her affections entirely from her husband, and began to confide chiefly in the Earl of Bothwell, who some months afterwards caused Darnley to be blown up by gunpowder, while he lay in a state of sickness; in which transaction it has always been suspected, but never proved, that the queen had a considerable share. Bothwell soon after forced her, in appearance, into a marriage, which excited so much indignation among her subjects, that the same Protestant lords who had effected the Reformation, and were the friends of Elizabeth, easily obtained the possession of her person, and having deposed her, crowned her infant son as king, under the title of JAMES VI, while the regency was vested in the Earl of Moray. In May 1568, Mary escaped from her prison in Lochleven, and put herself at the head of a body of her partisans, but was defeated by the regent at the battle of Langside, and was then compelled to seek refuge in England. By placing her rival under strict confinement, and extending an effectual protection to the regents Moray, Lennox, Mar, and Morton, who successively governed Scotland, Elizabeth fortified herself in a great degree against the Catholic confederacy. GOVERNMENT OF ELIZABETH.