1 MARRIAGE OF MARY AND BOTHWELL. 71
dragged through the bed-room to the door of the
presence-chamber, where the conspirators gathered . about him and completed the bloody outrage. So
eager were all to take part in the murder that
they frequently wounded each other, eliciting
greater curses and yells ; and the body of Rizzio,
gashed by fifty-six wounds, was left in a pool of
blood, with the king?s dagger driven to the hilt in
it, in token that he had sanctioned the murder.
After a time the corpse was flung down-stairs,
stripped naked, dragged to the porter?s lodge, and
treated with every indignity.
Darnley and the queen were meanwhile alone
together in the cabinet, into which a lady rushed
to announce that Rizzio was dead, as she had
seen the body. ?Is it so?? said the weeping
queen ; ? then I will study revenge ! ? Then she
swooned, but was roused by the entrance of
Ruthven, who, reeking with blood; staggered into
a chair and called for wine. After receiving
much coarse and unseemly insolence, the queen
exclaimed, ??I trust that God, who beholdeth all
this from the high heavens, will avenge my
wrohgs, and move that which shall be born of me
to root out you and your treacherous posterity ! ?
-a denunciation terribly fulfillkd by the total destruction
of the house of Ruthven in the reign of
her son, James VI.
In the middle of a passage leading from the
quadrangle to the ,chapel is shown a flat square
stone, which is said to mark the grave of Rizzio ;
but it is older than his day, and has probably
served for the tomb of some one else.
The floor at the outer door of Mary?s apartments
presents to this day a dark irregular
stain, called Rizzio?s blood, tlius exciting the ridicule
of those who do not consider the matter.
The floor is of great antiquity here-manifestly
alder than that of the adjacent gallery, laid in the
time of Charles I. ?We know,? says Robert
Chambers,in his ?Book of Days,? ? that the stain has
been shown there since a time long antecedent to
that extreme modern curiosity regarding historical
matters which might have induced an imposture,
for it is alluded to by the son of Evelyn as being
.shown in I 7 a a.?
Joseph Rizzio, who arrived in Scotland soon
after his brother?s murder, was promoted to his
vacant office by the queen, and was publicly named
as one of the abettors of Morton and Bothwell in
the murder of Darnley-in which, with true Italian
instinct, he might readily have had a hand. After
the tragedy at the Kirk of Field in 1567, the body of
Dmley was brought to Holyrood, where Michael
Picauet, the queen?s apothecary, embalmed it, by
her order; the treasurer?s accounts, dated Feb.
Izth, contain entries for ? drogges, spices-colis,
tabbis, hardis, barrelis,? and other matters
tiecessary ? for bowalling of King?s Grace,? who was
interred in the chapel royal at night, in presence
of only the Lord Justice Clerk Bellenden, Sir
James Tracquair, and others.
After Bothwell?s seizure of Mary?s person, at
the head of I,OOO horse, and his production of the
famous bond, signed by the most powerful nobles
in Scotland, recommending him as the most fitting
husband for her-a transaction in which her enemies
affirm she was a willing actor-their marriage ceremony
took place in the great hall of the palace
on the 15th of May, 1567, at four o?clock in the
morning, a singular hour, for which it is difficult to
account, unless it be, that Mary had yielded in
despair at last. There it was performed by the
reformed prelate Adam Bothwell, Bishop of Orkney,
together with Knox?s coadjutor, Craig, according
to the Protestant form, and on the same day:in
private, according to the Catholic ritual. To the
Latter, perhaps, Birrel refers when he says they were
married in the chapel royal. Only five of the
nobles were present, and there were no rejoicings
in Edinburgh, where the people looked on with
grief and gloom j and on the following morning
there was fouiid affixed to the palace gate the
ominous line from Ovid?s Fasti, book v. : ?Mense
malus Maio nubere vuZgus aif.?
The revolt of the nobles, the flight oT Bothwell,
and the surrender of Mary at Carberry to avoid
bloodshed, quickly followed, and the last visit she
paid to her palace of Holyrood was when, under a
strong guard, she was brought thither a prisoner
from the Black Turnpike, on the 18th of June and
ere the citizens could rescue her ; as a preliminary
step to still more violent proceedings, she was
secretly taken from Holyrood at ten at night,
without having even a change of raiment, mounted
on a miserable hack, and compelled to ride at
th;rty miles an hour, escorted by the murderers
Ruthven and Lindsay, who consigned her a prisoner
to the lonely castle of Lochleven, where she signed
the enforced abdication which placed her son upon.
the throne.
Holyrood was one of the favourite residences of
the latter, and the scene of many a treaty and
council during his reign in Scotland,
In the great hall there, on Sunday, the 23rd
of October, he created a great number of earls
with much splendour of ceremony, with a corresponding
number of knights.
Another Earl of Bothwell, the horror of James
VI., now figures in history, eldest son of the
