Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 7.djvu/413

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

1566.] THE DARNLEY MARRIAGE. 393 shall be cut in collops and flung over the walls.' J She was dragged away, and Darnley, whose voice was well known, called out that the Queen was well, that what had been done was done by orders from, himself, and that they might go home. The citizens bore no good will to Rizzio : too familiar with wild scenes to pay much heed to them, they inquired no further, and went back to their homes, leaving eighty of their number to assist Morton in the guard of the palace. Ruthven returned for a moment, but only to call Darnley away and leave the Queen to her rest. The King withdrew, and with him all the other actors in the late tragedy who had remained in the scene of it. The ladies of the Court were forbidden to enter, and Mary Stuart was locked alone into her room amidst the traces of the fray, to seek such repose as she could find. So closed Saturday, the pth of March, at Holyrood. The same night another dark deed was done in Edin- burgh, which passed scarce noticed in the agitation of the murder of Rizzio. Mary of Lorraine the year before her death had a chaplain named Black; he was a lax kind of man, and after being detected in sundry moral improprieties, had been banished to Eng- land, where he held a cure in the English Church near Newcastle. His old habits remained with him : he acknowledged to Lord Bedford one bad instance of se- duction ; but it is to be supposed that he had merit of 1 The speaker is not known. Mary says in her letter to the Arch- bishop of Glasgow, 'The Lords in our face declared that we should b<? cut down.' It was not Ruthven, who was still absent.