The most powerful men in Scotland were his associates in guilt. One of his noble accomplices in the murder rode by his side to the Talbooth. Another accomplice, the Earl of Argyll, hereditary lord-justice, presided at the trial; and the Earl of Caithness, a near connection of Bothwell by marriage, was foreman of the jury. The parliament which met soon after did little, besides passing the Act of Toleration, but enact statutes confirming Maitland, Huntly, Morton, and Murray in their titles and estates. As we have seen, this was precisely the main object sought by these men in the murder of Darnley, an object passed over in silence by most historians, and not understood by others. Their common interest in his death was the strongest bond of union among the noble assassins. If Darnley had lived, he would have prevented the confirmation of these grants; for he had made significant threats on that subject, especially as to the gifts to Murray. Murray and the others wanted the lands and titles. They obtained them. Bothwell had his own designs, and these were insolent in their ambition. He wanted the queen's hand in marriage as a step to the throne. It was but just that his companions should help him as he had aided them. On the evening of the day on which parliament rose, (April 19th,) Both well gave an entertainment at a tavern in Edinburgh to a large party of the nobility. After wine had circulated freely, he laid before his guests a bond for their signatures. This document recited that it was prejudicial to the realm that the queen should remain a widow; and it recommended him, (Bothwell,) a married man, as the fittest husband she could obtain among her subjects. With a solitary exception--the Earl of Eglinton--all the lords present signed this infamous bond, and thereby bound themselves to "further advance and set forward the said marriage," and to risk their lives and goods against all who should seek to hinder or oppose it. It is claimed by Mr. Froude that his special saint, "the noble and stainless Murray," did not sign this bond; but it is now made plain that he did. Meantime calumny had free scope, and no invention was too gross for belief by many, if it but carried with it some injury to Mary's reputation. Thus, she is accused of journeying to Stirling for the express purpose of poisoning her infant son. Poor Marie Antoinette in after years, as we know, was accused of something worse than taking the life of her child. The answer of these two Catholic queens, great in their sufferings, and grand in their resignation, was, in each case, an eloquent burst of nature and queenly dignity. "The natural love," said Mary Stuart, "which the mother bears to her only bairn is sufficient to confound them, and needs no other answer." She afterward added, that all the world knew that the very men who now charged her with this atrocious crime had wronged her son even before his birth; for they would have slain him in her womb, although they