Her flight from Scotland, as the turning-point in Mary's unhappy and
pathetic career, has been here chosen for the moment whence to survey it.

_On Holyrood stairs_; Riccio was murdered on March 9, 1566. Mary's
exclamation when she heard of his death next day, _No more tears_; _I
will think upon a revenge_, is the sufficient explanation,--in a great
degree should be the sufficient justification, with those who still hold
her an accomplice in the death of Darnley and the marriage with
Bothwell,--(considering the then lawless state of Scotland, the
complicity of the leading nobles, the hopelessness of justice)--of her
later conduct whilst Queen.

_The friend_; In Riccio's murder the main determinant was his efficiency
in aiding Mary towards a Roman Catholic reaction, which might have
deprived a large body of powerful nobles of the church lands. The death
of Riccio (Mary's most faithful friend) prevented this: the death of
Darnley became necessary to secure the position gained.

_A brother's hypocrite tears_; Murray, in whose interest Riccio was
murdered, and whose privity to the murder (as afterwards to that of
Darnley) is reasonably, though indirectly, proved, affected to shed tears
on seeing his sister. Next day she learned the details of the plot, and
her half-brother's share in it.

_The flight_; Mary then fled by a secret passage from Holyrood Palace
through the Abbey Church, the royal tombs which had been broken open by
the revolutionary mob of 1559.

_The Castle_; Dunbar.