MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS 163 ment, and consented to the coronation of the young king By another, she ap- pointed Murray to the regency, and vested him with the powers and privileges of the office. Pierced with grief, and bathed in indignant tears, she signed the deed of her own humiliation, and furnished to her adversaries the instrument of her abasement. The people were not generally satisfied with the conduct of Murray, the re- gent, and tfce scattered party of the queen began gradually to reunite. Such was the disposition of the nation when Mary, through the medium of George Doug- las, a youth of eighteen, contrived to escape from prison. She flew on horse- back, at full speed, to Hamilton, where, before a train of great and splendid no- bles, and an army 6,000 strong, she declared that the deeds signed by her during her imprisonment, and the resignation of her crown, were extorted from her by fear. An engagement between her forces and those of Murray took place at Hamilton ; her army was defeated. She stood on a hill and saw all that passed. In confusion and horror she began her flight, and so terrible was the trepidation of her spirits, that she stopped not till she reached the abbey of Dunrenan, in Gal- loway, fully sixty Scottish miles from the field of battle. In the space of eleven days she had beheld herself a prisoner, at the mercy of her greatest enemies ; at the head of a powerful army, with a numerous train of nobles devoted to her ser- vice ; and a fugitive, at the hazard of her life, driven, with a few attendants, to lurk in a corner of her kingdom. Still anxious and agitated in her retreat, she wa^ impelled by her fears to an irretrievable step, fatal to all her future hopes. In vain her attendants, with the lords Herries and Heming, implored her on their knees not to confide in Elizabeth, her resolution was not to be shaken, and to England she fatally resolved to fly. No longer an object of jealousy, but compassion, Mary trusted in the generosity of a sister queen, that she would not take advantage of her calamitous situation. She got into a fisherman's boat, and with about twenty attendants, landed at Workington, in Cumberland, whence, with marks of respect, she was conducted to Carlisle. She addressed, on her arrival in England, a letter to the queen, in which she painted in glowing colors the injuries she had sustained, and implored the sym- pathy and assistance which her present situation so pressingly required. Eliza- beth and her council deliberated upon the course which, in this extraordinary event, it would be proper to pursue ; and at last determined, in spite of justice and humanity, to avail herself of the advantages given her by the confidence of her rival. Mary demanded a personal interview with Elizabeth, but this honor she was told must be denied to her. She had no intention of acknowledging su- periority in the queen of England, who, she expected, would, as a friend, herself receive and examine her defences. But Elizabeth chose to consider herself as umpire between the Scottish queen and her subjects ; and she prepared to ap- point commissioners to hear the pleadings of both parties, and wrote to the Re- gent of Scotland to empower proper persons to appear in his name, and pro- duce what could be alleged in vindication of his proceedings. Mary, who had hitherto relied on the professions of Elizabeth, was by this
