The plea advanced in each court was so calculated as to suit the principles which there prevailed; in the archbishop's court, the pretence of consanguinity was employed, because Bothwell was related to his wife in the fourth degree; in the commissariot court, the accusation of adultery was made use of against him.

The parties, too, who applied for the divorce, were different in the different courts: Bothwell was the person who sued in the former; his wife in the latter.

And the suit in both courts was opened, pleaded, examined, and decided, with the utmost precipitation; and a sentence of divorce was pronounced in four days.[*] * Anderson, vol.ii.p.

280.
The divorce being thus obtained, it was thought proper that Mary should be conducted to Edinburgh, and should there appear before the courts of judicature, and should acknowledge herself restored to entire freedom.
This was understood to be contrived in a view of obviating all doubts with regard to the validity of her marriage.

Orders were then given to publish in the church the banns between the queen and the duke of Orkney; for that was the title which he now bore; and Craig, a minister of Edinburgh, was applied to for that purpose.