the King of France and the queen dowager (Catherine del Medici) ceased not through their envoy at Copenhagen, Chevalier de Dantzay, to entreat Frederik by no means to deliver up Bothwell to the Scotch; and Dantzay actually obtained a promise from Frederik that Bothwell should not be delivered up without previous notice being given to the King of France. At this time Dantzay writes to Catherine, 'Bothwell has promised to surrender to King Frederik his claims to the isles of Orkney and Shetland,' and adds, 'For this reason I think that the King of Denmark will not easily deliver him up'
"As long as there seemed to be any chance of Mary being restored to power in Scotland, it appears certain that Frederik was fully determined not to deliver up Bothwell, and even to treat him like a prince. But, although Frederik lay under some obligations to Queen Mary, inasmuch as she had permitted him to levy troops in Scotland for his late wars in Sweden, yet he would not by any positive act interfere for her restoration, lest by so doing he should be regarded as unfaithful to the Protestant cause, which would in those days have been such a stigma on his reign and memory as would be viewed with abhorrence by every Protestant prince. Yet, could Mary be restored by some other agency, he had then only to surrender to the queen her husband, and receive the isles of Orkney and Shetland in return. During the period between 1568 and 1572 Mary's party in Scotland was still so strong that her cause seemed to contemporary politicians by no means hopeless; it was not till the month of August in the latter year that it was considered as totally lost. The St. Bartholomew Massacre in France put an end to every chance which Mary might have had, because her connection with the league—indeed, that she was in some measure the author of it—was strongly suspected by the princes and nations of Europe, which suspicion the letters lately collected by Prince Labanoff have clearly proved was not without foundation. This event had great influence on the fate of Bothwell in Denmark. On the 28th of June, 1573, Dantzay wrote to the King of France, 'Le Roy de Dannemarck auoit jusques à present assez bien entretenu le Conte de Baudouel. Mais depuis peu de jours il l'a faict mettre en un fort mauluaise et estroite prison:' by which he meant the Castle of Drachsholm, in Sealand, where he died about five years later. After the removal of Bothwell to this last prison he seems to have been deprived of all communication beyond the castle walls; and from this period one of the chief reasons for his not being delivered up may have been the promise given through Dantzay to the King of France.
"Owing to the close confinement of Bothwell after his removal to Drachsholm, his history is involved in so great obscurity that even contemporary accounts widely vary as to the date of his decease. Dantzay, in a letter which he wrote to
