Mary, Queen of Scots Read Online Free

that he had spoken with the Englishman, but not of mind to go away with him, and if he had, it had not been without cause, in respect of the manner how he was used, for he had [money] neither to sustain himself nor his servants, and need not to make further discourse thereof, for she knew it as well as he.
    “Then she asked him the purpose of Hiegait. He answered that it was told him. She required how and by whom it was told him. He answered that the Laird of Minto told him that there was a letter presented to her in Craigmillar, made by her own advice and subscribed by certain others, who desired her to subscribe the same, which she refused to do.” Clearly, Darnley was well informed, although the facts had become somewhat garbled in the telling. He assured her that “he would never trust that she, who was his own proper flesh, would do him any evil, and if any other would do it, they should buy it dear, except they took him sleeping, albeit he suspected nobody. So he desired her effectuously that she would bear him company, for she found ever some ado to draw herself from him to her own lodging, and would never remain with him past two hours together at once.”
    It appears Mary was having trouble believing Darnley’s protestations of loyalty and devotion, for he had not satisfactorily explained away the allegations of Walker, but had harped on the conspiracy against himself; she remained “very pensive, whereat he found fault.” Then abruptly, he said he had heard she had brought a litter with her. She told him she intended to take him back to Edinburgh with her but she had understood that he was not able to ride a horse, so she had brought the litter to have him carried “more softly.” Darnley answered “that it was not meet for a sick man to travel that could not sit on a horse, and especially in so cold weather.” Mary told him that she was taking him to convalesce at Craigmillar, “where she might be with him and not far from her son.” He had little choice in the matter, so he told her that he would go, but only on one condition: “that was, that he and she might be together at bed and board as husband and wife, and that she should leave him no more. And if she would promise him it, upon her word, he would go with her where she pleased, without respect of any danger or sickness wherein he was. And if she would not grant him the same, he would not go with her in no wise.”
    Mary replied that it was for that that she had come, “and if she had not been minded thereto, she had not come so far to fetch him, and so she granted his desire, and promised him that it should be as he had spoken, and thereupon gave him her hand and faith of her body that she would love him and use him as her husband.” Then caution overrode her, and she insisted that, “notwithstanding, before they could be together, he must be purged and cleansed of his sickness, which she trusted should be shortly, for she minded to give him the bath at Craigmillar.”
    Darnley said “he would do whatsoever she would he do, and would love all that she loved,” but “she required him in especial whom he loved of the nobility and whom he hated. He answered that he hated no man, and loved all alike well. She asked him how he liked the Lady Reres, and if he were angry with her.” (This seems to have been a later interpolation, inserted after Buchanan’s libel naming Lady Reres as Bothwell’s procuress had become officially received wisdom.) Darnley merely said “he had little mind of such as she was, and wished of God that she might serve her to her honour.”
    Then Mary “desired him that he would keep to himself the promise between him and her, and declare it to nobody, for peradventure the Lords would not think good of their sudden agreement, considering he and they were at some words before.” Darnley said “he knew no cause why they should mislike of it, and desired her that she would not move any of them against him, like as he