565-] THE DARNLEY MARRIAGE. 319 With the money sent her from abroad she had con- trived to raise six hundred ' harquebussmen/ whom the half- armed retainers of the lords could not hope to en- gage successfully. Passing Linlithgow and Stirling she swept swiftly round to Glasgow, and cut off the retreat of the Protestants into the western hills. A fight was looked for at Hamilton, where ' a hundred gentlemen of her party determined to set on Murray in the battle, and either slay him or tarry behind lifeless.' l Outnumbered for they had in all but 1300 horse and outmanoauvred by the rapid movements of the Queen, the Protestants fell back on Edinburgh, where they expected the citizens to declare for them. On the last of August, six days after Mary Stuart had left solved and repaired it passeth man's wit to consider. This reverence, for all that he hath to his sovereign, that I am sure there are very few that know this grief; and to have this obloquy and reproach of her re- moved, I believe he would quit his country for all the days of his life.' Randolph to Cecil, October 13 : MS. Ibid. The mystery alluded to was ap- parently the intimacy of Mary Stu- art with Rizzio, which was already so close and confidential as to pro- voke calumny. In the face of Ran- dolph's language it is difficult to say for certain that Mary Stuart had never transgressed the permitted limits of propriety ; yet it is more likely that a person so careless of the opinions of others, and so warm and true in her friendships, should have laid herself open to remark through some indiscretion, than that she should have seriously compro- mised her character. It seems cer- tain that Murray intended to have hanged Rizzio. Paul de Foix asked Elizabeth for an explanation of the Queen of Scots' animosity against her brother :
- Elle s'estant ung peu teue, et
secoue sa teste, me respondit que c'estoit pour ce quo la Royne d'Es- cosse avoit este informee que le Comte de Murray avoit voullu pendre ung Italien nomine David qu'elle aymoit et favorisoit, luy don- nant plus de credit que ses affaires et honneur ne devoient.' Paul de Foix au Roy : TEULET, vol. ii. 1 Randolph to Cecil, September 4 : MS. Rolls House.
