Stuart dynasty

MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS. 159
The Associated Lords, when deserted by the King
Consort, had taken the earliest opportunity to reveal
that the doomed youth had been lately guilty of
treachery towards the Queen herself. On realising
this she had desired nothing more than to retire
to France, and leave tbe affairs of the kingdom
to the various factions who had resolved to make
government dependent on their ambitions and in-
trigues. Had not the hostility of the Queen-mother,
Catherine de Medici, proved insuperable, it seems
probable that Mary would at this time have fled the
kingdom.*
The rejoicings were general throughout the realm
when at length a Prince was born on June 19, 1566,
and for a time the Queen's domestic happiness seems
to have returned.
This epoch marks a portentous crisis in the Stuart
fortunes.
Such was the general distrust and suspicion
abroad | that the Privy Council declined to allow
the Queen to remain at Holyrood during her con-
finement, but entrusted their Sovereign to the care
of the Earl of Mar, governor of that then impene-
trable stronghold, Edinburgh Castle.
Of the joyful event which occurred on June 19,
1566, we have various accounts, but most valuable of
all that of Darnley himself, written from the actual
scene. And this because such was the King Consort's
state of mind, that men feared lest jealousy and
* Hosack's ' Mary Queen of Scots and her accusers,' vol. i. p. 150.
t Burton's ' History of Scotland,' vol. iv. p. 160.