Linlithgow from thence she wrote to Bothwell by Paris what she would have him to do about her surprize for before she departed from Edenburg she had Concerted with him that at the Bridge of Almon he should surprize her in her return and carry her whither he pleased as it 't were against her Will the Censure of the Commonalty upon this matter was that she could not altogether conceal her Familiarity with Bothwell nor yet could well want it nor could she openly enjoy it as she desired it without the loss of her Reputation it was too tedious to expect his Divorce from his former Wife and she was willing to consult her Honour which the pretended to have a very great regard unto yet she would provide for her Lust also of which she was very impatient and therefore the Device was thought to be very pretty that Bothwell should redeem the Queen's Infamy with his own great Crime the punishment whereof he did not yet fear at all but there was a deeper reach in the projected design as came afterward to be understood for whereas the People did every where point at and curse the King's Murderers they to provide for their own security by the perswasion as 't is thought of John Lesley Bishop of Ross devised this attempt upon the Queen 'T is the manner in Scotland when the King grants a Pardon for Offences that he that Sues it out expresses his great Offence by name and the rest of his Crimes are added in general Words accordingly the King's Murderers determined to ask Pardon for this surprize of the Queen by Name and then to have added in their â—ardons by way of overplus and all other wicked Facts in which clause they persuaded themselves that the King's Murder would be included because it was not safe for them to name themselves Authors of it in the Pardon neither would it be creditable for the Queen so to grant it neither could it be well added in the grant of Pardon as an Appendix to a lesser Crime another Offence less invidious but liable to the same punishment was to be devised under the shaddow whereof the King's Murder might be disguised and pardoned and no other did occur to their view but this pretended force put upon the Queen whereby her pleasure might be satisfied and Bothwell's security provided for too and therefore he with 600 Horse attended her coming at Almon Bridge and carried her by her own Consent to Dunbar where they had free Converse one with another and a Divorce was made betwixt Bothwell and his former Wife and that in two Courts First She was cited before Judges publickly appointed to decide such Controversies and after that before the Officials or Bishops Courts though they were forbid by a publick Statute to exercise any part of Magistry or to intermeddle with any publick Affair so that Madam Gordon Bothwell's Wife was compelled to Commence a Suit of Divorce in a double Court before the Queen's Judges and what must the Accusation be but that her Husband was Guilty of Adultery which was the only just cause of a Divorce amongst them and this before the Papal Judges who though forbidden by the Law yet were impowered by the Archbishop of St. Andrews to determine the Controversie Her Allegations against him were That before their Marriage he had had too much unlawful or incestuous Familiarity with her Kinswoman The Witnesses and Judges made no delay in the Case for the Suit was commenced prosecuted adjudg'd and ended all in ten days On these emergent Occasions a great many of the honest Nobles met at Sterlin and sent to the Queen desiring to know of her Whether she was kept willingly or against her Will If the latter they would Levy an Army for her Deliverance It was observed she received the Message not without Smiling and answered them that it was true she was brought thither against her Will but was so kindly treated ever since that she had little cause to complain of the former Injury Thus was the Messenger eluded but yet though they made all the haste they could to take off the reflection of the force by a lawful Marriage yet there were two rubs still in the way one was that if she Married while a Prisoner the Marriage might not be accounted good and so easily dissolved and the other difficulty was how to have the usual Ceremonies performed that the Bans should be published three Lord's Days in the publick Congregation of a Marriage intended between James Hepburn and Mary Stuart so that if any one knew a lawful Impediment why they should not be joined together in Matrimony they should then declare the same that so it might be decided in the Church to bring this matter therefore about Bothwell gathers his Friends and Dependants together resolving to bring back the Queen to Edenburg that so under a vain shew of their Liberty he might determine of their Marriage at his pleasure To this end his Companions were all armed but as they were on their Journey a fear seiz'd on some of them lest at one time or other it might turn to their prejudice to detain the Queen as yet a Prisoner and if there were no other ground for it yet this was enough that they accompanied her in an armed manner when all things were in Peace and Tranquillity upon which scruple they threw away their Arms and so brought her in a seeming more peaceable posture to Edenburg Castle which was then in Bothwell's Power Next day they accompanied her into the City and Courts of Justice where she affirmed before the Judges that she was wholly free and under no restraint at all but as to the publishing of the Marriage in the Church the Reader whose Office it was wholly refused it which was a new Mortification but upon his refusal the Elder Deacons and Ecclesiasticks assembled as not daring to resist and commanded the Reader to publish the Banes according to custom but the man was so bold as plainly to tell them that he himself knew a lawful Impediment and was ready to declare the same to the Queen or to Bothwell when ever they pleased to Command him whereupon he was sent for to the Castle and the Queen remitted him to Bothwell who with all he could do either by fear or favour could not divert him from his Resolution and yet he durst not commit the matter to a Dispute yet on he went to hasten the Marriage and there was none to be found besides the Bishop of Orkney to Celebrate the same it was he alone that preferred Court favour before Truth the rest being utterly against it and producing Reasons why it could not be a lawful Marriage with a Person that had two Wives yet living and had lately confest his own Adultery and had been also Divorced from a third yet though all good Men did loath this way of procedure and that the Commonalty cursed it and even the Earls own Kindred by Letters
seeing his Enemies were unprepared of all things necessary for a Siege That his Fleet also which he had prepared to be an help to him at all adventures might be at hand This advice did indeed seem to be sound and real and had been safe enough in all probability in the event had it not been that the Governour of the Castle being corrupted by the opposite Faction excluded him from admittance And now all things conspire to his ruin for the Lords were now at his heels that he could not possibly retire to the Castle of Edenburg again and the Forces raised by the Earls of Huntley Errol Athol and diverse other Noblemen who stuck to him and which they said amounted to the number of Forty Thousand Men being not yet come up he would not stay for them and so with those Forces he had with him hazards a Battle The Battle was at first very fierce and the first Wing of the Nobâ—es Army gave way but the Annandalians and their Neighbours who inhabite the Western parts of Scotland press hard upon the Kings Forces and with their huge Spears much longer than their Adversaries quickly broke the King's main Body who finding now it was in vain to stand it and being injured with the fall of his Horse retires to a Mill that was not far off from the place of Battle with a design as was thought to get aboard his Ships which were not far off where being taken with a few more he was slain It 's not fully agreed who killed him but pursued he was to the foresaid place by Patrick Grey Sterling Keiry and a Priest whose name was Borthick and who it was said being asked by the King for a Confessor roughly replied That though he was no good Priest yet he was a good Leech and with that stab'd him to the Heart And here you see how contemptible the Majesty of a Prince is that is sullied with degenerous actions and there was this further ignominy affixed to his Death That it was enacted in the next Sessions of Parliament that he Justly suffered and strictly forbidden that any who had bore Arms against him or thier descendants should be upbraided therewith Young he was being about 35 years when he died and of them had Reigned near Twenty Eight in the year of our Lord 1488. The Son who had headed this Army is now advanced to the Father's Throne and known by the name of James the IV. being then about Sixteen years of Age. Wood who Commanded the Ships before mentioned was with great difficulty brought to submit and did afterward this King great Service who it seems had some remorse for his contributing so much to his Fathers Death for in token thereof he wore continually an Iron Chain about his middle all the days of his life made frequent visits to Religious places c. all which methinks seems to have been put upon him by some crafty Priest tho Historians are silent in that particular but he had hardly been warm in his Throne when those Nobles that were of his Father's Party sent their Emissaries to all the parts of the Kingdom and exhort one another not to endure the present state of things That so many brave Men should not suffer such publick paricides who had murdred one King and kept the other in servitude so proudly to illude them and to charge them with being guilty of High-Treason who fought for the King's defence and safety but that they should arrogate to themselves who were violators of all Divine and Humane Laws the title of being defenders of the Honour and Dignity of the Commonwealth and preservers of their Country in whose hands the King himself was not free as being enforced first to take up Arms against his Father and King and having wickedly slain him to prosecute his Father's Friends and such ns engaged in his defence by an unjust and Cruel War that was intollerable When many things of this nature had been bandyed about amongst the Common People Alexander Forbes to excite in them a greater hatred towards the present Administration caused the dead King 's bloody Shirt to be hung up on a long Pole and exposed publickly at Aberdeen and other places where there was great concourse of People This being as it were a publick Edict to stir up all Men to revenge so foul a Deed. Nay many of them who had engaged with them actually in the slaughter finding that all things did not go as they would have it now joyned with these Malecontents And as things were transacted in these parts about Aberdeen much to the new King's prejudice Matthew Stewart Earl of Levins a popular and potent Man in his Country summons all such as he had influence over this side the Forth to come to him and having raised a good body of Men finding he could not make his way over Sterling Bridge which was guarded by the Royalists he hastens towards a Ford not far from the River-head at the foot of Mount Grampias with a design to joyn with his Friends in those parts Now when John Drummond had notice hereof by Alexander Mac Alpin his Tenant and who had joyned the Enemy and found plainly that all things were so careless and secure in the Enemies Camp that they dispearsed themselves up and down as every one pleased and had no Centry nor Scouts and destitute of all Military Order and Discipline he immediately with the Courtiers and a few Voluntiers he had with him sets upon them un-a-wares and in a manner all asleep which was in too many of them continued by Death the rest unarm'd run back headlong from whence they came and many were made Prisoners but some known Friends and Acquaintance were let go they were severe only upon such as wrote or spoke very contumeliously of the Government and so this storm blew over and not long after a Parliament was called wherein past a general Act of Indemnity so that now nothing was expected here but Halcyon Days but a Storm quickly arose which terribly shook not only this but the Kingdom of England also by one Perkin Warbeck's pretending himself to be Richard Duke of York and second Son to King Edward IV. and so to have an undoubted Right to the Crown of England He came over from France into Scotland and possest this King so far with a belief of his Right and the Justice of his Cause that he not only gave him the Lady Margaret the Earl of Huntley's Daughter for a Wife but also raised an Army to defend his Cause which took up some Years of his Reign little enough to his or the Kingdoms Commodity and Advantage At last a Truce for some Years was agreed on between him and the King of England and the Consequence of that was first orders for Perkin of whom you may read at large in my Lord Bacon's History of Henry VII to depart the Realm of Scotland then a Marriage between King James and the Lady Margaret
sollicited the Queen by Letters that she would commit Bothwell to Prison who without doubt was the Author of the King's Murder till a Day might be appointed to bring him to a Tryal that she tho' eluding his desire by many Stratagems yet seeing at last the Examination of so heinous a Fact could not be avoided designed to have it carryed on in this manner The Meeting of the Assembly of the Estates was nigh at hand and she was desirous before that time to have the Matter decided that so Bothwell being absolved by the Votes of the Judges might be further cleared by the â—uâ—â—â—ages of the whole Parliament This hast was the Cause that nothing was carryed in an orderly manner or according to the Ancient Custom in that Judicatory Process for the Accusers as is customary ought to have been cited with their Kindred as Wife Father Mother Son either to appear Personally or else by Proxy within 40 Days for that is the time limitted by the Law but here the Father was only Summoned without Summoning any of his Friends only his own Family which at that time was in a low Estate and reduced but to a few whereas in the mean time Bothwell flew up and down the Town with a great many Troops at his Heels so that the Earl of Lennox thought it not adviseable for him to come into a City full of his Enemies where he had neither Friends nor Vassals to secure him and supposing there was no danger of Life yet there could be no freedom of Debate but Bothwell appeared at the Day appointed and came into the Town-Hall being himself both plaintiff and Defendant too The Judges of the Nobility were called over most of them being Bothwell's Friends and none daring to appear on the other side to accept against any one of them only Robert Cunningham one of Lennox's Family put a small stop to the Proceedings for he having liberty to speak openly boldly declared the Process was not according to Law nor Custom Where the Accused Person was so Powerful that he could not be brought to Punishment and the Accuser was absent for fear of his Life therefore whatsoever should be determined there as being against Law and Right was null and void yet they persisted in their Design notwithstanding And the Issue of the whole was that they declared they saw no reason to find Bothwell Guilty yet if any man hereafter should lawfully accuse him they gave a caution that this Judgment should be no hindrance to him and some thought the Verdict was wisely given in by them for the Indictment was conceived in such Words that the severest Judges could ne'er have found Bothwell guilty upon it for it was laid against a Murder committed the 9th of February whereas the King was slain the 10th Thus Bothwell was acquitted of the Fact but not of the Infamy thereof suspicions still increasing upon him and his punishment seemed only to be deferred but any pretence whatsoever though a shameless one seemed good enough to the Queen who made haste to Marry him but as a surplusage to his Absolution there was a Chartel or a Challenge posted on the eminentest part of the Court declaring That though Bothwell was lawfully acquitted of the King's Murder yet to make his Innocency the more appear he was ready to decide the matter in a Duel against any Gentleman or Person of Honour that should dare to lay it to his Charge Next morning there was one who did as manfully post up an answer to this bold Challenge provided the place of Combate were appointed wherein without danger he might declare his Name But I do not find the matter proceeded any further At the same time the Queen was very urgent to hasten the Marriage and yet withall she desired by any means to procure the publick Consent that she might seem to act nothing but by the Suffrage of the Nobles And Bothwell too to credit the Marriage with the colour of the publick Authority devised this Stratagem He invited all the Nobility of the highest Rank that were then in Town as there were divers of them one Night to Supper and when they were Jocund and Merry he desired they would shew that respect to him for the future which they had always done heretofore but at present his only request was that whereas he was a Suiter to the Queen they would subscribe to a Schedule which he had made about that matter and that would be a means to procure him favour with the Queen and respect with all the People The Lords were all amaz'd at so sudden and unexpected a motion and could not dissemble their Sorrow neither yet durst they refuse or deny him whereupon a few that knew the Queen's Mind began first and the rest not foreseeing that there were so great a number of Flatterers there present suspected one another and at last all subscribed but the day after when they had recollected what they had done some of them as ingenuously professed they would never have granted their Consent unless they thought the thing had been acceptable to the Queen for besides that the matter carried no great face of honesty and was prejudicial to the publick too so there was danger if any difference should arise as it came to pass between her and her former Husband between her and Bothwell also and if he were rejected it might be laid in their Dishes that they had betrayed the Queen to a dishonourable Marriage and therefore before they had run too far they resolved to try her Mind and to procure a Writing under her hand to this purport that she did approve of what they had done in reference to her Marriage which Scroul was easily obtained and by a joint Consent of them all delivered to the Earl of Argyle to keep Next day all the Bishops in the Town were called into Court that they might also subscribe this care being over another succeeded which was how the Queen might get her Son into her Power for Bothwell did not think it safe for him to have a young Child brought up who in time might Revenge his Fathers Murder neither was he willing that any other should come between his Children and the Crown whereupon the Queen who could deny him nothing undertook the task her self to bring the Child to Edenburg but when she came to Sterlin the Earl of Mar suspected what was a brewing and therefore shewed her the Prince but would not let him be in her Power The Queen seeing her fraud detected and not able to cope with him by force pretended another cause for her Journey and prepared to return but on the Road either by reason of her overmuch Toll or for Anger that her Designs which the Authors thought craftily laid were unsuccessful she was taken with a sudden illness and was forced to retire to a poor House about four miles from Sterlin where her pain something abating she proceeded on her Journey and came that Night to