Papers relating to William, first Earl of Gowrie, and Patrick Ruthven, his fifth and last surviving son

William, Earl of Gowrie, etc. 7
first person to whom Darnley applied to avenge him on the
Italian interloper. He had suffered long from dangerous
illness, he was in such a state of bodily weakness as to be
unable, he says, to walk twice the length of his bedroom, but
he gave a ready ear to the complaints of his injured relative.
He prepared agreements and bonds to secure the performance
of the bloody business with the most punctilious regularity,
and was himself the first — as everybody will recollect — to
enter the Queen's chamber on that dreadful night, startling
her as much by the ghastliness of his sickly countenance as
by the determination of his manner. For all the circum-
stances of that cruel action, historians have relied too much
upon the representations of Mary, and too little upon those
of Lord Ruthven. Even at the present day, the careful col-
lector of Mary's letters (Prince Alexandre Labanoff) has not
disdained to revive the old fable that Rizio was poniarded
in the presence of the Queen. Mary, perhaps, asserted as
much, but the fact is shown to have been otherwise by her
own letters, and by all the other evidence upon the subject.
Lord Ruthven states the matter thus : " And where her
Majestie allegeth that night that Davie was slayen some held
pistoletts to her majesties wombe, some stracke winniardes
so neir her crage, that she felt the coldnes of the iron, with
many other such like sayings, which we take God to record
[he was writing on behalf of himself and all the other leaders
in the enterprise] was never meant nor done, for the said
Davie received never a stracke in her majesty's presence, nor
was not stricken till he was at the farthest door of her
Majesty's utter-chamber, as is before rehersed. Her Majestie
makes all there allegances to drawe the sayde Earle Morton,
Lordes Ruthven and Lyndsaye, and their complices in greater
hatred with other forren princes, and with the nobilitye and
comonaltye of the realme, who hath experience of the con-
trarie, and knowes that there was no evell nient to her
majesties bodye." 1 In another part of his narrative, Lord
1 Caligula, B. ix. fol. 278.