But how rid herself of a husband henceforth odious? How unite herself to the man she loves and whose ambition is not of a kind to stop half way? Here again we need--not to excuse, but to explain Marie Stuart--we need to represent to our minds the morality of that day. A goodly number of the same lords who had taken part in Riccio’s murder, and who were leagued together by deeds and documents, offered themselves to the queen, and, for the purpose of recovering favour, let her see the means of getting rid of a husband who was now so irksome. She answered this overture by merely speaking of a divorce and the difficulty of obtaining it. But these men, little scrupulous, said to her plainly, by the mouth of Lethington, the ablest and most politic of them all: “Madame, give yourself no anxiety; we, the leaders of the nobility, and the heads of your Grace’s Council, will find a way to deliver you from him without prejudice to your son; and though my Lord Murray, here present (the illegitimate brother of Marie Stuart), is little less scrupulous as a Protestant than your Grace is as a Papist, I feel sure that he will look through his fingers, see us act, and say nothing.” The word was spoken; Marie had only to do as her brother did, “look through her fingers,” as the vulgar saying was, and let things go on without taking part in them. She did take a part however; she led into the trap, by a feigned return of tenderness, the unfortunate Darnley, then convalescing from the small-pox. She removed his suspicions without much trouble, and, recovering her empire over him, persuaded him to come in a litter from Glasgow to Kirk-of-Field, at the gates of Edinburgh, where there was a species of parsonage, little suitable for the reception of a king and queen, but very convenient for the crime now to be committed.