people from the windows and stairs (Sir James Melville, Memoirs, p. 184). On the day following many of the council, irritated by her threats and the discovery that she was already in communication with Bothwell, were for her summary execution, but Morton intervened to have ‘her life spared with provision of securitie to religion’ (Calderwood, ii. 366). For this he was denounced by some as ‘a stayer of justice,’ but his intervention was effectual, and it was at his suggestion that on 12 June she was conveyed to the fortalice of Lochleven, and placed under the charge of his relative, Sir William Douglas, afterwards seventh earl of Morton [q. v.] On 20 June Morton, if his story is to be believed (for the exact version see quotation from copy of his declaration made at Westminster 29 Dec. 1568, in Hist. MSS. Comm. 5th Rep. 309), obtained possession of the celebrated silver casket of Bothwell, containing the bonds which Bothwell had induced the noblemen to sign at different times on his behalf, and various songs and letters of Mary which, if genuine, implicated her beyond the possibility of doubt in the murder of her husband. The receipt granted by the regent to Morton for the casket on 16 Sept. 1568 declared that he ‘had trewlie and honestlie observit and kepit the said box and haill writtis and pecis foirsaidis within the same, without ony alteratioun, augmentatioun, or diminutioun thairof in ony part or portion’ (Reg. Privy Council, i. 641). The question as to the genuineness of the documents cannot, however, be discussed here [see Buchanan, George, 1506–1582, and Mary Queen of Scots]. It must suffice to state that if no casket was discovered Morton most probably was the inventor of the story, and that if the documents in the casket were forged, Morton, whether or not he supplied the forgeries before delivering up the casket to Moray, must share the chief responsibility of the forgery. However that may be, it is worthy of remark that on 26 June, or shortly after the alleged time when the casket was discovered, Bothwell was denounced as the ‘committer’ of the murder ‘with his own hands’ (Calderwood, ii. 367; Diurnal of Occurrents, p. 110). An enterprise of a similar kind is recorded of Morton in a letter of Drury to Cecil, 12 July 1567: ‘Yesterday,’ he says, ‘at two in the morning, the Earl of Morton with a hundred horse and two hundred footmen marched to Fawside House, and got out of the same certain jewels of the queen's;’ and he adds, ‘if it were the coffer she had carried heretofore with her, it is of great value’ (Cal. State Papers, For. Ser. 1566–8, entry 1433).
In the discussions regarding the final disposal of the queen, Morton, probably acting in accordance with instructions from Moray, did not commit himself definitely to any of the first proposals. It was chiefly through his mediation that the demission of the government in favour of the prince and the establishment of a regency under Moray was agreed upon. At the coronation of the infant prince at Stirling, Morton took the oath on his behalf, promising to maintain the protestant religion (Reg. Privy Council, i. 542). He was restored to his office of lord chancellor, and appointed one of the council of regency to carry on the government until the arrival of Moray. With Atholl he accompanied Moray to Lochleven on 15 Aug., and had a conference with the queen previous to her remarkable private interview with Moray. Mary afterwards took leave of Atholl and Morton with the words (doubtless referring to her extraordinary recriminations on the way to Edinburgh), ‘You have had experience of my severity and of the end of it’ (Throckmorton to Elizabeth, 20 Aug. 1567, in Keith, ii. 738), but Morton was one of those specially excepted from her amnesty after her escape from Lochleven (Froude, viii. 313). Morton led the van at the battle of Langside on 13 May 1568, and he was one of the four commissioners who accompanied Moray to York, when, after a very lame public accusation of Mary, the contents of the silver casket were privately exhibited to Norfolk. During the short regency of Moray, Morton was his chief adviser both in his policy towards Mary and in the measures he undertook for the pacification of Scotland. He approved of, if he did not counsel, the apprehension of his old ally Maitland of Lethington, who had now joined the queen's party, and of the influence of whose diplomacy on Elizabeth, Moray and Morton were no doubt greatly in dread. On the day appointed for Maitland's trial for Darnley's murder, Morton lay at Dalkeith with three thousand men, ready to obey the regent's commands should the necessity arise (Calderwood, ii. 506); but according to Sir James Melville the purpose of the regent to ‘pass fordwart’ with the trial was prevented by Kirkaldy of Grange, who ‘desired the like justice to be done upon the Erle of Mortoun, and Mester Archebald Douglas, for he offerit to feicht with Mester Archebald, and Lord Heris offerit to feicht with the Erle of Mortoun that he was upon the consell and airt and part of the kingis mourther’ (Memoirs, 218).
At the funeral of the regent on 14 Feb. Morton assisted in bearing the body to St. Giles's Church. The fact that Moray's death was approved of, if not instigated, by Mary,
