Loch Leven Castle was the property of Sir William Douglas, whose wife was the mother of the Earl of Murray, the illegitimate son of James V. The Lady Douglas could be supposed to have little sympathy for the legitimate daughter of the king to whom she pretended to have been married. In placing Mary in the hands of such a custodian, the lords who opposed her felt reasonably secure.
Scott gives a wonderfully dramatic picture of the visit of Lord Lindsay, Lord Ruthven, and Sir Robert Melville to the castle, and the method by which they extorted Mary's signature to deeds abdicating the throne in favour of her infant son and creating the Earl of Murray regent, and although the scene is purely fictitious, the facts of history are not distorted. Roland Graeme is represented as unsheathing his sword and discovering a hidden parchment rolled around the blade. It proved to be a secret message from Lord Seyton, advising Mary to yield to the necessity of the situation. The incident is based upon the fact that Sir Robert Melville was sent to accompany the ruffianly Lindsay, and his no less harsh associate Ruthven, to prevent violence to the Queen, and to carry, concealed in the scabbard of his sword, a message from her friends advising submission and carrying the assurance that deeds signed under such compulsion would not be legally binding when she regained her liberty.
The escape of the Queen is told in substantial accordance with the facts, though with a variation of details which the license of the novelist would easily permit. { 270} George Douglas, a younger brother of the lord of Loch Leven, was much impressed by the beauty of the Queen, and captivated by her pleasant manners and fair promises. He devised a plan of escape, but this was discovered and George was expelled from the castle by his brother. Another attempt was more successful. An inmate of the castle, called 'the Little Douglas,' had also felt a sympathy for the Queen. He was a lad of seventeen or eighteen and really played the part which Scott assigned to Roland Graeme. He stole the keys and set the prisoner at liberty in the night. Placing her in a boat, he paused long enough to lock the iron gates of the tower from the outside so that pursuit would be impossible, then, throwing the keys into the lake, rowed his passenger ashore. George Douglas, Lord Seyton, and other friends were waiting to receive her and conveyed her in triumph to Hamilton.