78 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH.
buildings often before used as a royal residence, and in one of the apartments of which
the Queen Regent, Mary of Guise, expired only six years previous,
The greatest joy and triumph prevailed in Edinburgh on the announcement of the
birth of an heir to the throne. A public thanksgiving was offered up on the following day
in St Giles’s Church; aud Sir James Melvil posted with the news to the English Court,
with such speed, that he reached London on the fourth day thereafter, and spoiled her
Majesty’s mirth for one night, at least, with the “happy news.’’’
The birth of a son to Darnley produced little change on his licentious course of life.
By his folly he had already alienated from him the intersets and affections of every party;
and the conspirators, who had joined with him in ‘the murder of Rizzio, had already
resolved on his destruction, when he was seized with the small-pox at Glasgow. From
this he was removed to Edinburgh, and lodged in the mansion of the Provost or chief
prebendary of the Collegiate Church of St Mary-in-the-Fields, as a place of good air.
This house stood nearly on the site of the present north-west corner of Drummond Street,
as is ascertained from Gordon’s map of the city in 1647, where the ruins are indicated as
they existed at that period : it is said to have been selected by Sir James Balfour, brother
of the Provost, and “ the most corrupt man of his age,” a as well fitted, from its lonely
situation, for the intended murder.
She spent the evening of the 9th of
February 1567 with him, and only left at eleven o’clock, along with several nobles who
had accompanied her there, to be present at an entertainment at Holyrood House.
The Earl of Bothwell, whose lawless ambition mainly instigated the assassination, had
‘obtained a situation for one of his mehals in the Queen’s service, and by this means he
was able to obtain the keys of the Provost of St Mary’s house, and cause counterfeit
impressions to be taken.s He had been in company with the Queen on the loth, at a
banquet given to her by the Bishop of Argyle, and learning that she must return to Holyrood
that night, he immediately arranged to complete his murderous scheme.
’ Bothwell left the lodgings of the Laird of Ormiston in company with several of his own
servants, who were his sole accomplices, shortly after nine o’clock at night. They passed
down the Blackfriars’ Wynd together, entering the gardens of the Dominican monastery by
a gate in the enclosing wall opposite the foot of the Wynd; and by a road nearly on the
site of what now forms the High School Wynd, they reached the postern in the town wall
which gave admission to the lodging of Darnley. Bothwell joined the Queen, who was
then visiting her husband, while his accomplices were busy arranging the gunpowder in
the room below ; and, after escorting her home to the Palace, he returned to complete his
purpose. It may be further mentioned, as an evidence of the simple manners of the period,
that when Bothwell’s servants returned to his residence, near the Palace, after depositing
the powder in Darnley’P lodging, they saw the Queen,-as one of them afterwards Ptated
in evidence,-on her way back to Holyrood “gangand before them with licht torches as
they came up the Black Frier Wynd.”‘ So that it would appear she walked quietly
home, with her few attendants, through these closes and down the Canongate, at that late
hour, without exciting among the citizens any notice of the presence of royalty.
Here the Queen frequently visited Darnley.
1 Keith, vol. ii. p. 434. ’
a Rubertson’s Hiat., vol. ii. p. 354.
a Laing, vol. ii. p. 296.
4 Pitcairn’s Criminal Triala, vol. i. part ii, p. 493.
