The queen of Scots, now in the hands of an enraged faction met with such treatment as a sovereign may naturally expect from subjects, who have their future security to provide for, as well as their present animosity to gratify. It is pretended that she behaved with a spirit very little suitable to her condition, avowed her inviolable attachment to Bothwell,[*] and even wrote him a letter, which the lords intercepted, wherein she declared, that she would endure any extremity, nay, resign her dignity and crown itself, rather than relinquish his affections.[**] The malecontents, finding the danger to which they were exposed in case Mary should finally prevail, thought themselves obliged to proceed with rigor against her; and they sent her next day under a guard to the Castle of Lochlevin, situated in a lake of that name. The mistress of the house was mother to the earl of Murray; and as she pretended to have been lawfully married to the late king of Scots, she naturally bore an animosity to Mary, and treated her with the utmost harshness and severity. * Keith, p. 419. ** Melvil, p. 84. Elizabeth, who was fully informed of all those incidents, seemed touched with compassion towards the unfortunate queen; and all her fears and jealousies being now laid asleep, by the consideration of that ruin and infamy in which Mary’s conduct had involved her, she began to reflect on the instability of human affairs, the precarious state of royal grandeur, the danger of encouraging rebellious subjects; and she resolved to employ her authority for alleviating the calamities of her unhappy kinswoman. She sent Sir Nicholas Throgmorton ambassador to Scotland, in order to remonstrate both with Mary and the associated lords; and she gave him instructions, which, though mixed with some lofty pretensions, were full of that good sense which was so natural to her, and of that generosity which the present interesting conjuncture had called forth. She empowered him to declare[*] in her name to Mary, that the late conduct of that princess, so enormous, and in every respect so unjustifiable, had given her the highest offence; and though she felt the movements of pity towards her, she had once determined never to interpose in her affairs, either by advice or assistance, but to abandon her entirely, as a person whose condition was totally desperate, and honor irretrievable. * The reality of this letter appears somewhat disputable; chiefly because Murray and his associates never mentioned it in their accusation of her before Queen Elizabeth’s commissioners.