The woman whom Elizabeth vainly moved Amyas Paulet to murder was publicly decapitated at Fotheringay.

James vowed that he would not accept from Elizabeth "the price of his mother's blood." But despite the fury of his nobles James sat still and took the money, at most some 4000 pounds annually,--when he could get it.
During the next fifteen years the reign of James, and his struggle for freedom from the Kirk, was perturbed by a long series of intrigues of which the details are too obscure and complex for presentation here.

His chief Minister was now John Maitland, a brother of Lethington, and as versatile, unscrupulous, and intelligent as the rest of that House.
Maitland had actually been present, as Lethington's representative, at the tragedy of the Kirk-o'-Field.

He was Protestant, and favoured the party of England.

In the State the chief parties were the Presbyterian nobles, the majority of the gentry or lairds, and the preachers on one side; and the great Catholic families of Huntly, Morton (the title being now held by a Maxwell), Errol, and Crawford on the other.