Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 9.djvu/214

200 REIGN OF ELIZABETH. . 53. which he had just left. He had been hit ( above the navel at the buttoning of the doublet/ ' The ball had passed through him and killed a horse on the other side.' In the confusion the murderer escaped. The clothes upon the rail concealed the smoke, and minutes passed before the window was discovered from which the shot had been fired. Parties of men were on guard in the lane to defend him if he was in danger ; but their help was not required, and in a few hours he him- self had brought the news of his success to Hamilton Castle, where he was received with an ecstasy of ex- ultation. 1 Thence a day or two after he made his way to France, to be employed as the reader has seen, to receive the thanks of Mary Stuart, and to live upon the wages of this and other villanies. 2 The Regent did not at first believe that he was seriously hurt, but on examination of the wound, it was seen that he had but a few hours to live. His friends in their bitter grief reminded him of the advice which he had neglected after Langside. He said calmly that 1 he could never repent of his clemency/ With the same modest quietness with which he had lived he 1 Information anent the Eegent's murdei-, February, 1570: MSS. Scotland. 2 Mary Stuart denied that she had directed the murder, hut she was heartily delighted at it, and she gave Bothwellhaugh a pension. On the 28th of August, 1571, she wrote to the Archbishop of Glasgow : ' Ce que Bothwellhaugh a faist a este sans mon commandment, de quoy je luy s^ay aussy bon gre et meilleur que si j'eusse este du Conseil. J 'attend les memoires que me doi- vent estre envoyez de la reccpte de mon douaire pour faire mon estat, oft je n'oublyeray la pension dudict Bothwellhaugh.' LABANOFF, vol. iii. p. 341.