14/21 Many Douglases, many of the Lothian gentry, were in the plot. Murray was to arrive from England as soon as Riccio had been slain and Mary had been seized. On March 9 Morton and his company occupied Holyrood, going up the great staircase about eight at night; while Darnley and Ruthven, a dying man, entered the queen's supper- room by a privy stair. Morton's men burst in, Riccio was dragged forth, and died under forty daggers. Bothwell, Atholl, and Huntly, partisans of Mary, escaped from the palace; with them Mary managed to communicate on the morrow, when she also held talk with Murray, who had returned with the other exiles. |