Meanwhile the conspiracy proceeded, and Douglas and Ruthven, having collected their accomplices and taken their measures, came to Darnley to finish the compact.  As the price of the bloody service they rendered the king, they exacted from him a promise to obtain the pardon of Murray and the nobles compromised with him in the affair of the “run in every sense”.  Darnley granted all they asked of him, and a messenger was sent to Murray to inform him of the expedition in preparation, and to invite him to hold himself in readiness to reenter Scotland at the first notice he should receive.  Then, this point settled, they made Darnley sign a paper in which he acknowledged himself the author and chief of the enterprise.  The other assassins were the Earl of Morton, the Earl of Ruthven, George Douglas the bastard of Angus, Lindley, and Andrew, Carew.  The remainder were soldiers, simple murderers’ tools, who did not even know what was afoot.  Darnley reserved it for himself to appoint the time.

Two days after these conditions were agreed upon, Darnley having been notified that the queen was alone with Rizzio, wished to make himself sure of the degree of her favour enjoyed by the minister.  He accordingly went to her apartment by a little door of which he always kept the key upon him; but though the key turned in the lock, the door did not open.  Then Darnley knocked, announcing himself; but such was the contempt into which he had fallen with the queen, that Mary left him outside, although, supposing she had been alone with Rizzio, she would have had time to send him away.  Darnley, driven to extremities by this, summoned Morton, Ruthven, Lennox, Lindley, and Douglas’s bastard, and fixed the assassination of Rizzio for two days later.

They had just completed all the details, and had, distributed the parts that each must play in this bloody tragedy, when suddenly, and at the moment when they least expected it, the door opened and, Mary Stuart appeared on the threshold.

“My lords,” said she, “your holding these secret counsels is useless.  I am informed of your plots, and with God’s help I shall soon apply a remedy”.

With these words, and before the conspirators hid had time to collect themselves, she shut the door again, and vanished like a passing but threatening vision.  All remained thunderstruck.  Morton was the first to find his tongue.

“My lords,” said he, “this is a game of life and death, and the winner will not be the cleverest or the strongest, but the readiest.  If we do not destroy this man, we are lost.  We must strike him down, this very evening, not the day after to-morrow.”

Everyone applauded, even Ruthven, who, still pale and feverish from riotous living, promised not to be behindhand.  The only point changed, on Morton’s suggestion, was that the murder should take place next day; for, in the opinion of all, not less than a day’s interval was needed to collect the minor conspirators, who numbered not less than five hundred.