or any such thing privately by himself, she appointed all things in that kind should be sealed with a seal which she gave her secretary, David Rizzio, in keeping with express order not to put the seal to any paper unless it be first signed with her own hand’ (Memoirs, p. 74). In any case Morton was bound by ties of blood to stand by Darnley in his feud. The main executors of the conspiracy were the relatives of Darnley, offended at the loss of his influence; behind them was Maitland of Lethington, who, exasperated at his fall from power, was probably the real contriver of the conspiracy in the form that it assumed; and in addition to him all the protestant leaders, including probably even Knox, were involved, while it was also perfectly understood that the English government would preserve an attitude of benevolent neutrality. The death of Riccio was, with the tacit sanction of the English government, intended to be the mere preliminary to a revolution by which the queen was virtually to be deprived of her sovereignty, the real authority being transferred to Moray, with Darnley as nominal sovereign.
The conspirators contrived to make it appear that they acted at the instigation of Darnley. With that object Darnley's uncle, George Douglas, after setting Darnley's jealousy aflame, undertook, on his giving his sanction and assistance in seizing Riccio, and consenting to the recall of Moray and the banished lords, that his fellow-conspirators would engage to secure him the crown matrimonial. With the connivance of Darnley and the aid of Lord Ruthven, the Earls of Morton and Lindsay, accompanied by a band of armed followers, contrived to gain access to Mary's supper-chamber in Holyrood Palace on Saturday evening, 9 March 1565–6. Thence they dragged Riccio to an antechamber, and, in spite of the original purpose of the leaders to have subjected him to a kind of trial, furiously fell upon him with their daggers, inflicting on him in their murderous rage no fewer than fifty-six wounds. His mutilated corpse was then thrown out of the window into the courtyard, whence it was carried into the porter's lodge. Here the body was placed upon a chest until preparations could be made for its burial, an arrangement which caused the porter's assistant to thus moralise: ‘This has been his destiny; for upon this chest was his first bed when he entered into the place, and now here he lieth again, a very ingrate and misknown knave.’ The body was at first buried before the door of the abbey; but the queen, when she returned to Edinburgh in power after her escape to Dunbar, ordered it to be taken up, and, according to Buchanan, caused it to be placed in the royal tomb, and almost ‘into the arms of Queen Magdalene.’ This is corroborated by Drury, who says that the corpse ‘was laid in the tomb where the queen's father lies;’ but adds that, to ‘avoid such speech as has passed,’ it was finally decided to ‘place it in another part of the church’ (Cal. State Papers, For. Ser. 1566–8, Nos. 289, 297). Possibly the body was placed only temporarily in the royal tomb until a grave could be prepared for it. The supposed grave in the chapel royal is still pointed out. An engraving of Riccio playing a lute, from a painting executed in 1564, is prefixed to ‘Particulars of the Life of David Riccio,’ London, 1815. An anonymous portrait was lent by Mr. Keith Stewart Mackenzie to the first loan exhibition at South Kensington (No. 317).
Riccio's place as French secretary to the queen was given to his brother Joseph, who, a youth of eighteen years of age, arrived in Scotland shortly after David's death in the suite of Mauvissière, the French ambassador (Randolph to Cecil, 25 April 1566, in Cal. State Papers, For. Ser. 1566–8, No. 305). It would appear that in January 1566–7 Joseph Riccio had been guilty of some indiscretion, of which he wished to lay the blame on one Joseph Lutyni, then in England on the way to France. The precise nature of his misconduct it is impossible to determine (see the correspondence in appendix to Tytler's Hist. of Scotland). Lutyni was apprehended in England at the instance of Mary, and ultimately sent to Scotland, but before his arrival the murder of Darnley had taken place, and Joseph Riccio, denounced as one of the actual murderers, had been permitted to escape to France.
[Labanoff's Lettres de Marie Stuart; Melville's Memoirs (Bannatyne Club); Knox's Works; Buchanan's History; Ruthven's Narrative of Riccio's Murder; Lord Herries's Memoirs (Abbotsford Club); Cal. State Papers, For. Ser. during reign of Elizabeth, Venetian, 1558–80, and Spanish, 1558–67; Notice of Riccio by Laing in appendix to Knox's History; see also under Mary Queen of Scots.]
RICE ap THOMAS (1449–1525), supporter of Henry VII. [See Rhys.]
RICE, EDMUND IGNATIUS (1762–1844), founder of the Roman catholic institute known as the ‘Irish Christian Brothers,’ and the pioneer of primary education in Ireland, was born on 1 June 1762 at Westcourt, near the town of Callan, co. Kilkenny. He was the third son of Robert Rice and his wife, Margaret Tierney. His father, besides
