170 REIGN OF ELIZABETH. . 53. wanted them lie must come to fetch them, and Murray, who had a strong force with him, made an effort to punish his insolence. But before Murray came in sight of the castle, his men deserted so fast, that out of eight hundred whom he took with him out of Jedburgh he had but two hundred remaining. It was a symptom too alarming to be neglected. Placing Northumberland on horseback in the middle of a party of troopers, he made straight for Edinburgh, and thence transporting him over the Forth, he sent him to occupy the rooms which Mary Stuart had left vacant in the island tower of Loch- leven . Nothing could have occurred more unfortunate for the Regent's influence ; nothing that he could have done could have given him a stronger and more immediate claim on Elizabeth's support. Not the Border only but all Scotland was shaken. The national pride was touched, 1 and there was a universal cry that, cost what it would, the Earl should not be given up. The liberty was broken which should be free to all banished men.' 1 Even Morton, who was Murray's main stay, declared that his 1570. country was disgraced. 'Between Berwick January. an( j Edinburgh the Regent could not find one man to stand by him,' 2 'and where he had ten mortal enemies before, he had now a hundred.' Along Tweed and Teviot the indignation rose to madness. The hos- pitality of the Border had been consecrated by the prac- tice of two hundred years, 3 and the fugitives at Ferni- 1 Hunsdon to Cecil, December
- MSS. Border.
2 Hunsdon to Cecil, January T I : Ibid. 8 ' Half Scotland is like to rise against the Regent,' "wrote Sadler on
