Mary’s commissioners, before they gave in their complaint, against her enemies in Scotland, entered a protest, that their appearance in the cause should nowise affect the independence of her crown, or be construed as a mark of subordination to England: the English commissioners received this protest, but with a reserve to the claim of England. The complaint of that princess was next read, and contained a detail of the injuries which she had suffered since her marriage with Bothwell: that her subjects had taken arms against her, on pretence of freeing her from captivity; that when she put herself into their hands, they had committed her to close custody in Lochlevin; had placed her son, an infant, on her throne; had again taken arms against her after her deliverance from prison; had rejected all her proposals for accommodation, had given battle to her troops; and had obliged her, for the safety of her person, to take shelter in England.[*] The earl of Murray, in answer to this complaint, gave a summary and imperfect account of the late transactions: that the earl of Bothwell, the known murderer of the late king, had, a little after committing that crime, seized the person of the queen and led her to Dunbar; that he acquired such influence over her as to gain her consent to marry him, and he had accordingly procured a divorce from his former wife, and had pretended to celebrate his nuptials with the queen; that the scandal of this transaction, the dishonor which it brought on the nation, the danger to which the infant prince was exposed from the attempts of that audacious man, had obliged the nobility to take arms, and oppose his criminal enterprises; that after Mary, in order to save him, had thrown herself into their hands, she still discovered such a violent attachment to him, that they found it necessary, for their own and the public safety, to confine her person during a season, till Bothwell and the other murderers of her husband could be tried and punished for their crimes; and that during this confinement she had voluntarily, without compulsion or violence, merely from disgust at the inquietude and vexations attending power, resigned her crown to her only son, and had appointed the earl of Murray regent during the minority.[**] * Anderson, vol. iv. part ii. p. 52. Goodall, vol. ii. p. 128. Haynes, p. 478. ** Anderson, vol. iv. part ii. p. 64, et seq. Goodall, vol. ii. p. 144.