The following curious anecdote is given by the Lennox MSS. After Mary’s visit to Bothwell at Hermitage (October, 1566) her servants were wondering at her energy. She replied: ‘Troth it was she was a woman, but yet was she more than a woman, in that she could find in her heart to see and behold that which any man durst do, and also could find in her heart to do anything that a man durst do, if her strength would serve her thereto. Which appeared to be true, for that some say she was present at the murder of the King, her husband, in man’s apparel, which apparel she loved oftentimes to be in, in dancing secretly with the King her husband, and going in masks by night through the streets.’ These are examples of the sayings and reports of her servants, which, on June 11, 1568, Lennox urged his friends to collect. This romantic tale proved too great for the belief of Buchanan, if he knew it. But Lethington told Throckmorton in July, 1567, that the Lords had proof against Mary not only in her handwriting, but by ‘sufficient witnesses.’ Doubtless they saw her on the scene in male costume! Naturally they were never produced. If an historical event could be discredited, like a ghost story, by discrepancies in the evidence, we might maintain that Darnley never was murdered at all. The chief varieties of statement are concerned (1) with the nature of his death. Was he (_a_) taken out of the house and strangled, or (_b_) strangled in trying to escape from the house, or (_c_) strangled in the house, and carried outside, or (_d_) destroyed by the explosion and the fall? Next (2), accepting any of the statements which represent Darnley as being strangled (and they are, so far, unanimous at the time of the event), who were the stranglers? Were they (_a_) some of Bothwell’s men, (_b_) men of Balfour’s or Huntly’s, or (_c_) servants of Archbishop Hamilton, as the Lennox faction aver, or (_d_) Douglases under Archibald Douglas? Finally (3) was Kirk o’ Field (_a_) undermined by the murderers, in readiness for the deed, before Darnley’s arrival from Glasgow, or (_b_) was the powder placed in the Queen’s bedroom, under Darnley’s, on the night of the crime; or (_c_) was it then placed in the vaults under the room on the first floor which was occupied by the Queen? The reader will find that each of these theories was in turn adopted by the accusers, and that selections were made, later, by the accusers of Morton, and Archibald Douglas, and Archbishop Hamilton, just as happened to suit the purpose of the several prosecutors at the moment. Moreover it is not certain that the miscreants who blew up the house themselves knew the whole details of the crime.