The same infatuation and imprudence, which happily is the usual attendant of great crimes, will account for both.

It is proper to observe, that there is not one circumstance of the foregoing narrative, contained in the history, that is taken from Knox, Buchanan, or even Thuanus, or indeed from any suspected authority.] [Footnote 13: NOTE M, p.111.Unless we take this angry accusation, advanced by Queen Mary, to be an argument of Murray's guilt, there remains not the least presumption which should lead us to suspect him to have been anywise an accomplice in the king's murder.

That queen never pretended to give any proof of the charge; and her commissioners affirmed at the time, that they themselves knew of none, though they were ready to maintain its truth by their mistress's orders, and would produce such proof as she should send them.

It is remarkable that, at that time, it was impossible for either her or them to produce any proof; because the conferences before the English commissioners were previously broken off.
It is true, the bishop of Ross, in an angry pamphlet, written by him under a borrowed name, (where it is easy to say any thing,) affirms that Lord Herreis, a few days after the king's death, charged Murray with the guilt, openly to his face, at his own table.

This latter nobleman, as Lesley relates the matter, affirmed, that Murray, riding in Fife with one of his servants, the evening before the commission of that crime, said to him among other talk, "This night, ere morning, the Lord Darnley shall lose his life." See Anderson, vol.i.p.