The news of her escape spread like wildfire through the land, and speedily many of the barons and nobility flocked to her with offers of support and service. Before long she had five or six thousand men about her, while the regent, who was at Glasgow, mustered some four thousand. With this force, inferior as it was, he decided on an immediate battle. As the queen advanced from Hamilton towards Dumbarton, where she proposed to take ship for France, she had to pass through a narrow lane leading up to the hill on which the village of Langside stands. Moray posted his main battle on Langside Hill, and stationed his hagbutters or matchlock men along the hedges on both sides of the lane and amongst the cottages of the village. The queen took her station on an eminence half a mile distant and watched the battle which now began. She saw her troops charge up the hill and endeavour to force the passage of the lane. She saw them roll back under the heavy fire of the hagbutters, and then make a second attempt to storm the village. This, too, was unsuccessful, and soon she saw Moray’s pikemen and his Highlanders sweeping down on her friends with the utmost fury. With a cry of anguish she saw them break before the flashing claymores of the yelling Macfarlanes, and betake themselves to headlong flight. All was over, and the miserable queen put spurs to her horse and galloped away. She tried to reach Dumbarton, but she was too late. So hot was the pursuit that she was obliged to gallop for the wilds of the south-west. On and on she rode, and never halted until she reached Sanquhar, where she drank a bowl of milk at a cottage door. Then her wearied horse was urged on again until she reached the remote and lonely Abbey of Dundrennan, on the Solway, sixty miles from the field of battle. On Sunday afternoon, May 16, 1568, she made the fatal mistake of her life. She determined to throw herself upon the generosity of Elizabeth, and no argument of her attendants could make her change her purpose. That reckless decision practically signed her death-warrant. She crossed the Solway and arrived at Workington. The next day she was brought by Richard Lowther to Cockermouth, and thence to Carlisle Castle, where she arrived in great distress and mean attire, and by the instructions of Elizabeth’s council was detained as a prisoner.