They advanced to the convent gardens. Here they left a part of their number, while Bothwell and French Paris passed over the wall, and crept softly into the house. They unlocked the room where they had left the two watchmen with the gunpowder, and found all safe. Men locked up under such circumstances, and on the eve of the perpetration of such a deed, were not likely to sleep at their posts. All things being now ready, they made a slow match of lint, long enough to burn for some little time, and inserting one end of it into the gunpowder, they lighted the other end, and crept stealthily out of the apartment. They passed over the wall into the convent gardens, where they rejoined their companions and awaited the result.
Men choose midnight often for the perpetration of crime, from the facilities afforded by its silence and solitude. This advantage is, however, sometimes well-nigh balanced by the stimulus which its mysterious solemnity brings to the stings of remorse and terror. Bothwell himself felt anxious and agitated. They waited and waited, but it seemed as if their dreadful suspense would never end. Bothwell became desperate. He wanted to get over the wall again and look in at the window, to see if the slow match had not gone out. The rest restrained him. At length the explosion came like a clap of thunder. The flash brightened for an instant over the whole sky, and the report roused the sleeping inhabitants of Edinburgh from their slumbers, throwing the whole city into sudden consternation.
The perpetrators of the deed, finding that their work was done, fled immediately. They tried various plans to avoid the sentinels at the gates of the city, as well as the persons who were beginning to come toward the scene of the explosion. When they reached the palace of Holyrood, they were challenged by the sentinel on duty there. They said that they were friends of Earl Bothwell, bringing dispatches to him from the country. The sentinel asked them if they knew what was the cause of that loud explosion. They said they did not, and passed on.
Bothwell went to his room, called for a drink, undressed himself, and went to bed. Half an hour afterward, messengers came to awaken him, and inform him that the king's house had been blown up with gunpowder, and the king himself killed by the explosion. He rose with an appearance of great astonishment and indignation, and, after conferring with some of the other nobles, concluded to go and communicate the event to the queen. The queen was overwhelmed with astonishment and indignation too.
The destruction of Darnley in such a manner as this, of course produced a vast sensation all over Scotland. Every body was on the alert to discover the authors of the crime. Rewards were offered; proclamations were made. Rumors began to circulate that Bothwell was the criminal. He was accused by anonymous placards put up at night in Edinburgh. Lennox, Darnley's father, demanded his trial; and a trial was ordered. The circumstances of the trial were such, however, and Bothwell's power and desperate recklessness were so great, that Lennox, when the time came, did not appear. He said he had not force enough at his command to come safely into court. There being no testimony offered, Bothwell was acquitted; and he immediately afterward issued his proclamation, offering to fight any man who should intimate, in any way, that he was concerned in the murder of the king. Thus Bothwell established his innocence; at least, no man dared to gainsay it.
Darnley was murdered in February. Bothwell was tried and acquitted in April. Immediately afterward, he took measures for privately making known to the leading nobles that it was his design to marry the queen, and for securing their concurrence in the plan. They concurred; or at least, perhaps for fear of displeasing such a desperado, said what he understood to mean that they concurred. The queen heard the reports of such a design, and said, as ladies often do in similar cases, that she did not know what people meant by such reports; there was no foundation for them whatever.
Toward the end of April, Mary was about returning from the castle of Stirling to Edinburgh with a small escort of troops and attendants. Melville was in her train. Bothwell set out at the head of a force of more than five hundred men to intercept her. Mary lodged one night, on her way, at Linlithgow, the palace where she was born, and the next morning was quietly pursuing her journey, when Bothwell came up at the head of his troops. Resistance was vain. Bothwell advanced to Mary's horse, and, taking the bridle, led her away. A few of her principal followers were taken prisoners too, and the rest were dismissed. Bothwell took his captive across the country by a rapid flight to his castle of Dunbar. The attendants who were taken with her were released, and she remained in the Castle of Dunbar for ten days, entirely in Bothwell's power.
[Illustration: DUNBAR CASTLE-The Residence of Earl Bothwell.]
According to the account which Mary herself gives of what took place during this captivity, she at first reproached Bothwell bitterly for the ungrateful and cruel return he was making for all her kindness to him, by such a deed of violence and wrong, and begged and entreated him to let her go. Bothwell replied that he knew that it was wrong for him to treat his sovereign so rudely, but that he was impelled to it by the circumstances of the case, and by love which he felt for her, which was too strong for him to control. He then entreated her to become his wife; he complained of the bitter hostility which he had always been subject to from his enemies, and that he could have no safeguard from this hostility in time to come but in her favor; and he could not depend upon any assurance of her favor less than her making him her husband. He protested that, if she would do so, he would never ask to share her power, but would be content to be her faithful and devoted servant, as he had always been. It was love, not ambition, he said, that animated him, and he could not and would not be refused. Mary says that she was distressed and agitated beyond measure by the appeals and threats with which Bothwell accompanied his urgent entreaties. She tried every way to plan some mode of escape. Nobody came to her rescue. She was entirely alone, and in Bothwell's power. Bothwell assured her that the leading nobles of her court were in favor of the marriage, and showed her a written agreement signed by them to this effect. At length, wearied and exhausted, she was finally overcome by his urgency, and yielding partly to his persuasions, and partly, as she says, to force, gave herself up to his power.
Mary remained at Dunbar about ten days, during which time Bothwell sued out and obtained a divorce from his wife. His wife, feeling, perhaps, resentment more than grief, sued, at the same time, for a divorce from him. Bothwell then sallied forth from his fastness at Dunbar, and, taking Mary with him, went to Edinburgh, and took up his abode in the castle there, as that fortress was then under his power. Mary soon after appeared in public and stated that she was now entirely free, and that, although Bothwell had done wrong in carrying her away by violence, still he had treated her since in so respectful a manner, that she had pardoned him, and had received him into favor again. A short time after this they were married. The ceremony was performed in a very private and unostentatious manner, and took place in May, about three months after the murder of Darnley.
By some persons Mary's account of the transactions at Dunbar is believed. Others think that the whole affair was all a preconcerted plan, and that the appearance of resistance on her part was only for show, to justify, in some degree, in the eyes of the world, so imprudent and inexcusable a marriage. A great many volumes have been written on the question without making any progress toward a settlement of it. It is one of those cases where, the evidence being complicated, conflicting, and incomplete, the mind is swayed by the feelings, and the readers of the story decide more or less favorably for the unhappy queen, according to the warmth of the interest awakened in their hearts by beauty and misfortune.