6 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Kirk-oCField.
Her Majesty?s presence he should make him suffei
for it Paris then says,he expressed a desire ta
go to bed.
?? NO,? said Bothwell ; 4 6 y ~ ~ must remain with
me. Would you have those two gentlemen, Hay
2nd Hepburn, locked up where they now are ? ?
?Alas !? replied the luckless varlet, who felt
himself in the power of a stronger will. ?? What more
must I do this night? for I have no heart in this
business.? ?Follow me !?J was the stern command
; and at midnight Bothwell left the palace for
his own house, where he substituted for his rich
court dress of black velvet and satin one of plain
stuff, and wrapped himself up in his riding-cloak.
Accompanied by Paris, Powrie, Wilson, and Dalgleish,
he passed down a lane which ran along
the wall of the queen?s south gardens, joining the
foot of the Canongate, where the gate of the outer
court of the palace formerly stood.
Here they were challenged by a sentinel of the
Archer Guard, who demanded, ?Who goes
there ? ? ? Friends,? replied Powrie. ? What
friends ? ? ?? Friends of the Lord Bothwell.?
After being passed out, they proceeded up the dark
Canongate, where they found the Netherbow Port
shut; but Wilson roused the keeper, John Galloway,
by rashly calling to him to open the gate
? for the friends of my Lord Bothwell.? ?? What
do ye out of your beds at this time of night ?I?
asked Gallcway ; but they passed on without replying.
(Depositions in Laing.)
They called at Ormiston?s lodging in the Netherbow;
but the wary laird, deeming that he had
done enough in assisting to convey the powder, declined
to do more, and sent word that he was
from home ; so passing down Todtig?s Wynd, they
crossed the Cowgate, entered the convent gardens,
and waited for Hay and Hepburn near the House
of the Kirk-of-Field. From this point mystery and
obscurity cloud all that followed.
When left alone by the departure of the queen,
a gloomy foreboding of impending peril would seem
to have fallen upon the wretched Damley. He read
a portion of the Scriptures, repeated the 55th Psalm,
and fell asleep, his young page Taylor watching
in the apartment near him. Thomas Nelson,
Edward Simmons, and a boy, lay in the servants?
zpartment, or gallery, next the city wall.
One account has it that it was at this time tha.t
Hay and Hepburn, concealed in the room with the
powder, b> means of their false keys gained access
to the king?s apartment ; that the noise of their entrance
awoke him, and springing from bed in his
shirt and pelisse, he strove to make his escape,
but was knocked down and strangled, his shrieks
?
for mercy being heard by some women in an adjoining
house ; that his page was dispatched in the
same manner, and their bodies flung into the orchard,
where they were found next morning, untouched
by fire or powder, and then the house was
blown up to obliterate all traces of the murder.
This peculiar version of it is based on a dispatch
from the papal nuncio to Cosmo I., and found in
the archives of the Medici by Prince Labanoff,
who communicated it to Mr. Tytler.
Bothwell?s accomplices, on the other hand, when
brought to trial, all more or less emphatically
denied that Darnley was either strangled or assassinated,
and fhm carried into the garden ; Hepburn
expressly declared that he only knew that Darnley
was blown into the air, ?and handled with no
man?s hands that he saw.? Melvil says, on the
morning after the murder, Bothwell ?? came forth
and told me he saw the strangest accident that
ever chanced-to wit, the thunder came out of the
lift (sky) and burnt the king?s house, and himself
found lying at a little distance from the house
under a tree, and willed me to go up and see him,
how there was not a mark nor hurt on aZZ his body.?
(Melvil?s ?? Memoirs,? 1735.)
No doubt rests upon the part played by Bothwell,
however the murder at the Kirk-of-Field was
achieved.
Dalgleish, Powrie,and Wilson,were left at the head
of the convent garden, while French Paris passed
over the wall at the back of the house, and joined
the two assassins, who were locked in the room
where the powder lay. On the arrival of the daring
earl, Hepburn lighted the, match connected
with the train and the powder, and having locked
the doors, they then withdrew to await the event.
Bothwell fretted with impatience as the match
burned slowly for a quarter of an hour ; then, precisely
at two in the morning, it took effect.
The whole house seemed to rise, says Hay of
Tallo, in his deposition. Then, with a noise as of
the bursting of a thunderbolt, the solid masonry
of the house was rent into a thousand fragments ;
scarcely a vestige of it remained, and ?great stones,
of the length of ten feet and breadth of four feet,?
were found blown from it all over the orchard.
Paralysed with fear, Paris fell with his face forward
on the earth ; even Bothwell was appalled,
and said, ? I have been in many important enterprises,
but I never felt as I do now ! ? The whole of
the conspirators nowhurried back to the High Street,
and sought to get out of the city by dropping from
the wall at Leith Wynd, but were forced once more
to rouse t6e porter at the Netherbow. They then
passed down St. Mary?s Wynd and the south back
