Everyone of any rank in the army received her with such marks of respect as entirely to satisfy her; but it was not so at all with the soldiers and common people.  Hardly had the queen reached the second line, formed by them, than great murmurs arose, and several voices cried, “To the stake, the adulteress!  To the stake, the parricide!” However, Mary bore these outrages stoically enough but a more terrible trial yet was in store for her.  Suddenly she saw rise before her a banner, on which was depicted on one side the king dead and stretched out in the fatal garden, and on the other the young prince kneeling, his hands joined and his eyes raised to heaven, with this inscription, “O Lord! judge and revenge my cause!” Mary reined in her horse abruptly at this sight, and wanted to turn back; but she had scarcely moved a few paces when the accusing banner again blocked her passage.  Wherever she went, she met this dreadful apparition.  For two hours she had incessantly under her eyes the king’s corpse asking vengeance, and the young prince her son praying God to punish the murderers.  At last she could endure it no longer, and, crying out, she threw herself back, having completely lost consciousness, and would have fallen, if someone had not caught hold of her.  In the evening she entered Edinburgh, always preceded by the cruel banner, and she already had rather the air of a prisoner than of a queen; for, not having had a moment during the day to attend to her toilet, her hair was falling in disorder about her shoulders, her face was pale and showed traces of tears; and finally, her clothes were covered with dust and mud.  As she proceeded through the town, the hootings of the people and the curses of the crowd followed her.  At last, half dead with fatigue, worn out with grief, bowed down with shame, she reached the house of the Lord Provost; but scarcely had she got there when the entire population of Edinburgh crowded into the square, with cries that from time to time assumed a tone of terrifying menace.  Several times, then, Mary wished to go to the window, hoping that the sight of her, of which she had so often proved the influence, would disarm this multitude; but each time she saw this banner unfurling itself like a bloody curtain between herself and the people—­a terrible rendering of their feelings.

However, all this hatred was meant still more for Bothwell than for her:  they were pursuing Bothwell in Darnley’s widow.  The curses were for Bothwell:  Bothwell was the adulterer, Bothwell was the murderer, Bothwell was the coward; while Mary was the weak, fascinated woman, who, that same evening, gave afresh proof of her folly.