Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 9.djvu/210

196 REIGN OF ELIZABETH. [CH. 53. life was forfeited, and lie had been pardoned by Murray, against the advice of those who knew his nature and the effect which generosity would produce upon him. His lands had been escheated and taken possession of, his family were removed from his house, and pictur- esque visions of a desolate wife driven out into the woods to wander shelterless, have served in the eyes of Mary Stuart's admirers to justify the vengeance of a half- maddened husband. But the story rests on legend. Such indeed had been the actual fate of Lady Murray when Mary Stuart was in the flush of her successes after her marriage with Darnley ; but the Castle of Hamilton was large enough to receive the household of so near a kinsman of its chiefs, and Bothwellhaugh was the willing instrument of a crime which had been con- certed between Mary Stuart's followers and the sons of the Duke of Chatelherault. Assassination was an ac- complishment in his family. John Hamilton, a no- torious desperado, who was his brother or near relative, had been employed in France to murder Coligny, and, singularly enough, at that very moment Philip II., who valued such services, had his eye upon him as a person who might be sent to look after so Philip pleasantly put it the Prince of Orange. 1 The cavalier would 1 ' Caras me ha dieho de parte de I encommendado, que siendo muy dif- V. Mag d que mire si seria a proposito ficultosas las ha hecho muy redondes ; cste Cabellero Escoces para enviarle : y creo que con solo ponerle yo en a huscar al Principe de Orange. El dicho Cabellero es tenido por ani- moso mucho, y lia lo mostrado en dos cosas particulares que se le han que fuese a buscarle, sin que enten- diese que es voluntad de V. Magd, lo hara y se arrojaria a cual quien peligro. Pero parece que un hombre