far from Holyrood, for quiet and rest. One night when Mary was attending a dance given to her servants in Holyrood, an explosion took place at Kirk-O’-Field, and the next morning Darnley and his page were found dead in an adjoining field. The house had been blown up with gunpowder, and although Darnley and the page had escaped from the house, they had been overtaken and murdered. No one knew whether Mary had planned the deed or not; but the servants of the Earl of Bothwell, a bold, profligate noble, were seen near the scene of the tragedy that evening, and a short time after Mary allowed herself to be carried off by Bothwell to one of his castles and there married to him.
The people of Scotland were horrified at the murder and the marriage, and at once her lords rose against her. She was taken prisoner, and forced to give up her crown to her son. A year later she escaped from Loch Leven Castle, and gathered an army, but she was defeated at Langside, in 1568, by Earl Murray. With difficulty Mary escaped into England when she claimed the protection and aid of Elizabeth.
7. Mary in England—What to do with Mary was more than Elizabeth could decide. Mary asked to be restored to her throne, and failing that, to be allowed to go to her mother’s people in France. The Scotch demanded that she should be sent back to be tried for the murder of her husband. Elizabeth knew that it was unsafe to allow her to go to France, and she was unwilling to hand her over to her Scotch subjects, as that would look like encouraging rebellion. So she kept Mary a prisoner in England refusing either to send her back or bring her to trial. For eighteen years was she thus kept until the numerous plots formed against Elizabeth’s life, in the interest of Mary, made it necessary that something should be done. For Mary had not been long in England before the Duke of Norfolk wished to marry her and put her on the throne. This plot was found out in time and Norfolk was warned and sent to the Tower. Then a rebellion broke out in the north, which was put down at the cost of many lives. Then the Pope excommunicated Elizabeth and. released her subjects from their allegiance to her. Parliament answered this by making strict laws against the Roman Catholics; and then another plot was formed to murder Elizabeth, to marry Mary to Norfolk, and through the aid of Spain to make
