All these preparations had been made, one imagines, because Murray was to spend the following day in Linlithgow.  But, secret as they were, they were to be rendered useless, for the regent’s friends warned him that it would not be safe for him to pass through the town, which belonged almost wholly to the Hamiltons, and advised him to go by it.  However, Murray was courageous, and, accustomed not to give way before a real danger, he did nothing but laugh at a peril which he looked upon as imaginary, and boldly followed his first plan, which was not to go out of his way.  Consequently, as the street into which the Archbishop of St. Andrews’ balcony looked was on his road, he entered upon it, not going rapidly and preceded by guards who would open up a passage for him, as his friends still counselled, but advancing at a foot’s pace, delayed as he was by the great crowd which was blocking up the streets to see him.  Arrived in front of the balcony, as if chance had been in tune with the murderer, the crush became so great that Murray was obliged to halt for a moment:  this rest gave Bothwellhaugh time to adjust himself for a steady shot.  He leaned his arquebuse on the balcony, and, having taken aim with the necessary leisure and coolness, fired.  Bothwellhaugh had put such a charge into the arquebuse, that the ball, having passed through the regent’s heart, killed the horse of a gentleman on his right.  Murray fell directly, saying, “My God!  I am killed.”

As they had seen from which window the shot was fired, the persons in the regent’s train had immediately thrown themselves against the great door of the house which looked on to the street, and had smashed it in; but they only arrived in time to see Bothwellhaugh fly through the little garden gate on the horse he had got ready:  they immediately remounted the horses they had left in the street, and, passing through the house, pursued him.  Bothwellhaugh had a good horse and the lead of his enemies; and yet, four of them, pistol in hand, were so well mounted that they were beginning to gain upon him.  Then Bothwellhaugh; seeing that whip and spur were not enough, drew his dagger and used it to goad on his horse.  His horse, under this terrible stimulus, acquired fresh vigour, and, leaping a gully eighteen feet deep, put between his master and his pursuers a barrier which they dared not cross.

The murderer sought an asylum in France, where he retired under the protection of the Guises.  There, as the bold stroke he had attempted had acquired him a great reputation, some days before the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, they made him overtures to assassinate Admiral Coligny.  But Bothwellhaugh indignantly repulsed these proposals, saying that he was the avenger of abuses and not an assassin, and that those who had to complain of the admiral had only to come and ask him how he had done, and to do as he.

As to Murray, he died the night following his wound, leaving the regency to the Earl of Lennox, the father of Darnley:  on learning the news of his death, Elizabeth wrote that she had lost her best friend.