Loch Leven

Oh, I'm sorry.

Loch Leven.

Horthy.

Hello, darling.

That letter which you are holding in your hand would lead me to think it is as a spy, if the ease with which you enter my room without being asked did not make me believe it as a jailer.

Have the goodness, then, to inform me by which of these two names I must call you.' "'Neither by one nor the other, madam, for I am simply your fellow traveler, chief of the escort which is to take you to Loch Leven Castle, your future residence.

And yet scarcely have I arrived here than I shall be obliged to leave you to go and assist the Confederate Lords choose a regent for the kingdom.' "'So,' Mary said, "'it is as a prisoner and not as a queen that I surrender to Lord Kirkcaldy.

It seems to me that things were agreed upon otherwise, but I am glad to see how much time Scotch noblemen need to betray their sworn undertakings.' Your Grace forgets that these engagements were made on one condition, Lindsay answered.

There a little vessel was waiting for her, which set sail directly she was on board, and next day at dawn, she disembarked on the other side of the Firth of Forth in the county of Fife.

Mary halted at Rosyth Castle only just long enough to breakfast and immediately recommenced her journey, for Lord Lindsay had declared that he wished to reach his destination that same evening.

Indeed, as the sun was setting, Mary perceived gilded with his last rays the high towers of Loch Leven Castle, situated on an islet in the midst of the lake of the same name.

No doubt the royal prisoner was already expected at Loch Leven Castle, for on reaching the lakeside, Lord Lindsay's equerry unfurled his banner, which till then had remained in its case, and waved it from right to left, while his master blew a little hunting bugle which he wore hanging from his neck.

She had lost all the sympathies of her people and could never again make herself strong in Scotland.

The lords had hoped to detach her from Bothwell and govern in her name, but when she still clung to her worthless husband she was removed from Edinburgh and confined in Lochleven Castle.

Three days after this, June 20th, a casket belonging, it is said, to Bothwell fell into the hands of the Confederate Lords.

This casket contained letters purporting to be addressed by Mary to Bothwell, which he had kept as a means of securing his influence over her.

Well, so I've had a soft heart in me, so I'll be doing nothing about such matters as pocket-picking or a certain snuff box, nor will anyone else, I think.

But, he leaned forward a little, should anything else happen to be missing when you leave, then you'll be finding the hand of every Cameron and MacDonald all through the great glen and Lochaber, from Loch Leven to Loch Ness, turned against you.

Kelpie showed sharp white teeth in a defiant laugh.

Are you thinking I've never heard threats before? Aye, I'm sure you have, and most unpleasant ones, retorted Alex.

This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.

A Task for Kelpie.

From the Inverlochy Castle, they headed southeast, around the tip of Loch Leven, and into the lands of the stewards of Glencoe.

Now they definitely turned southward.

Events were not slow to prove that this accusation was false.

As we have stated, Mary was much attached to the Prior of St. Andrews, a son of James V and of a noble descendant of the Earls of Mar, who had been very handsome in her youth, and who, in spite of the well-known love for her of James V and the childhood resulted, had nonetheless wedded Lord Douglas of Lochleven, by whom she had had two other sons, the elder named William and the younger George, who were thus half-brothers of the regent.

Now, scarcely had she reascended the throne than Mary had restored to the Prior of St. Andrews the title of Earl of Mar, that of his maternal ancestors, and as that of the Earl of Murray had lacked since the death of the famous Thomas Randolph, Mary, in her sisterly friendship for James Stuart, hastened to add this title to those which she had already bestowed upon him.

But here difficulties and complications arose, for the new Earl of Murray, with his character, was not a man to content himself with a barren title, while the estates which were crown property since the extinction of the male branch of the old earls had been gradually encroached upon by powerful neighbors, among whom was the famous Earl of Huntly, whom we have already mentioned.

As she drew near, Mary began to make out the contours of two great round towers, which flanked the corners and gave it the severe character of a state prison.

A clump of ancient trees enclosed by a high wall or rather a rampart rose at its north front and seemed vegetation in stone and completed the general effect of this gloomy abode while on the contrary the eye wandering from it and passing from islands to islands lost itself in the west in the north and in the south in the vast plain of kinross or stopped southwards at the jagged summits of ben lomond whose farthest slopes died down the shores of the lake three persons awaited mary at the castle door lady douglas william douglas her son and a child of twelve who was called little douglas and who was neither a son nor a brother of the inhabitants of the castle but merely a distant relative as one can imagine there were few compliments between mary and her hosts and the queen conducted to her apartment which was on the first floor and of which the windows overlooked the lake was soon left with mary seton the only one of the poor marys who had been allowed to accompany her however rapid as the interview had been and short and measured the words exchanged between the prisoner and her jailers mary had had time together with what she knew of them beforehand to construct for herself a fairly accurate idea of the new personages who had just mingled in her history lady lockleven wife of lord william douglas of whom we have already said a few words at the beginning of this history was a woman of from fifty-five to sixty years of age who had been handsome enough in her youth to fix upon herself the glances of king james the fifth and who had had a son by him who was this same murray whom we have already seen figuring so often in mary's history and who although his birth was illegitimate had always been treated as a brother by the queen lady lockleven had had a momentary hope so great was the king's love for her of becoming his wife which upon the whole was possible the family of mar from which she was descended being the equal of the most ancient and the noblest families in scotland but unluckily perhaps slanderously certain talk which was circulating among the young noblemen of the time came to james's ears it was said that together with her royal lover the beautiful favorite had another whom she had chosen no doubt from curiosity from the very lowest class it was added that this porterfeld or porterfield was the real father of the child who had already received the name of james stewart and whom the king was educating as his son at the monastery of st andrews these rumors well founded or not had therefore stopped james the fifth at the moment when in gratitude to her who had given him a son he was on the point of raising her to the rank of queen so that instead of marrying her himself he had invited her to choose among the nobles at court and as she was very handsome and the king's favor went with the marriage this choice which fell on lord william douglas of lockleven did not meet with any resistance on his part however in spite of this direct protection that james the fifth preserved for her all his life lady douglas could never forget that she had fingered higher fortune moreover she had a hatred for the one who according to herself had usurped her place and poor mary had naturally inherited the profound animosity that lady douglas bore to her mother which had already come to light in the few words that the two women had exchanged besides in aging whether from repentance for her errors or from hypocrisy lady douglas had become a prude and a pre-erratan so that at this time she united with the natural acrimony of her character all the stiffness of the new religion she had adopted william douglas who was the eldest son of lord lockleven on his mother's side half-brother of murray was a man of from thirty-five to thirty-six years of age athletic with hard and strongly pronounced features red-haired like all the younger branch and who had inherited that paternal hatred that for a century the douglases cherished against the stewarts and which was shown by so many plots rebellions and assassinations according as fortune had favored or deserted murray william douglas had seen the rays of the paternal star drawn near or away from him he had then felt that he was living in another's life and was devoted body and soul to him who was his cause of greatness or of abasement mary's fall which must necessarily raise murray was thus a source of joy for him and the confederate lords could not have chosen better than in confiding the safekeeping of their prisoner to the instinctive spite of lady douglas and to the intelligent hatred of her son as to little douglas he was as we have said a child of twelve for some months an orphan whom the locklevens had taken charge of and whom they made by the bread they had given him by all sorts of harshness the result was that the child proud and spiteful as a douglas and knowing although his fortune was inferior that his birth was equal to his proud relatives had little by little changed his early gratitude into lasting and profound hatred for one used to say that among the douglases there was an age for loving but that there was none for hating it results that feeling his weakness and isolation the child was self-contained with strength beyond his years and humble and submissive in appearance only awaited the moment when a grown-up young man he could leave lockleven and perhaps avenge himself for the proud protection of those who dwelt there but the feelings that we have just expressed did not extend to all members of the family as much as from the bottom of his heart the little douglas detested william and his mother so much he loved george the second of lady lockleven's sons of whom we have not yet spoken Because, being away from the castle when the queen arrived, we have not yet found an opportunity to present him to our readers.

George, who at this time might have been about twenty-five or twenty-six years old, was the second son of Lord Lochleven.

But by a singular chance that his mother's adventurous youth had caused Sir William to interpret amiss, this second son had none of the characteristic features of the Douglases' full cheeks, high color, large ears, and red hair.

In February fifteen sixty-seven, she married James Hepburn, Fourth Earl of Bothwell, an act seen by many as an attempt to regain power after Darnley's fall.

This marriage alienated much of Scotland and contributed to the rebellion that eventually forced Mary into prison at Lochleven.

The event also highlighted broader tensions between Catholic and Protestant factions.

Rizzio's removal weakened the Queen's support base among those who had viewed him as a counterbalance against religious reformists.

The two armies met at Carberry Hill on June 15th, and Mary surrendered without a battle while Bothwell rode away.

Five weeks later, imprisoned at Loch Leven, she was forced to abdicate in favor of her one-year-old son, who would later become James I of England in 1603.

In June 1567, Bothwell's servant George Doglish was arrested, and with him surfaced a silver casket said to contain letters and sonnets from Mary to Bothwell.

If genuine, the casket letters put the queen inside the plot, and Moray's government used them against her before English commissioners in 1568.

The river Dee, famed in song and story, runs close to hand.

This northland is more mountainous and stern than Ayr or Dumfries, the land of Bobby Burns, and as instinct with the tradition of the fighting Jacobite times as the border country, the land of Scott, or Loch Levin with its memories of Queen Mary.

Princess Ina reveled in the stirring past as she breathed the strong air of the Cairngorms, growing physically strong and sturdy, innocent of the destiny which was to shape her life and make her a mother of kings.

One winter, Princess Henry of Battenberg went to Egypt, taking with her her four children.

They travelled all night, crossed the river forth, and arrived in the morning at the castle of Loch Laven.

The castle of Lochleven is on a small island in the middle of the loch.

It is nearly north from Edinburgh.

The castle buildings covered, at that time, about one half of the island, the water coming up to the walls on three sides.