1 5 66. ] THE DARNLE Y MARRIA GE. 197 her brother. His head sent home by Bothwell from the Border, or himself brought back a living prisoner, with the dungeon, the scaffold, and the bloody axe these were the images which a few weeks or days before she had associated with the next appearance in Edinburgh of her father's son. Her feelings had un- dergone no change. He knew some secrets about her which she could not pardon the possessor, and she hated him with the hate of hell ; but the more deep- set passion paled for the moment before a thirst for revenge
- on Rizzio's murderers.
On alighting the Earl was conducted immediately to the Queen's presence. The accomplished actress threw herself sobbing into his arms. ' Oh my brother/ she said as she kissed him, ' if you had been here I should not have been so uncourteously handled.' Murray had ' a free and generous nature.' But a few hours had passed since she had forced the unwilling Lords of the Articles to prepare a Bill of Attainder against him ; but her shame, her seeming helplessness, and the depth of her fall touched him, and he shed tears. The following morning Murray, Ruthven, Morton, and the rest *of the party, met to consider the next step which they should take. Little is known of their deliberations except from the sus- pected source of a letter from Mary Stuart to the Arch- bishop of Glasgow. Some, she said, proposed to keep her a perpetual prisoner, some to put her to death.
