But behind the men and the time are the Preachers of Righteousness, grim, indeed, as their Geneva gowns, not gentle and easily entreated, crying out on the Murderess, Adulteress, Idolatress, to be led to block or stake, but yet bold to rebuke Bothwell when he had cowed all the nobles of the land. The future was with these men, with the smaller barons or lairds, and with sober burgesses, like the discreet author of the ‘Diurnal of Occurrents,’ and with honest hinds, like Michael Hunter, whom Ormistoun slew in cold blood. The social and religious cataclysm withdrew its waves: a new Creed grew into the hearts of the people: intercourse with England slowly abated the ruffianism of the Lords: slowly the Law extended to the Border: swiftly the bonds of feudal duty were broken: but not in Mary’s time.
One strange feature of the age we must not forget: the universal belief in sorcery. Mary and Moray (she declares) both believed that Ruthven had given her a ring of baneful magical properties. Foes and friends alike alleged that Bothwell had bewitched Mary ‘by unleasom means,’ philtres, ‘sweet waters,’ magic. The preachers, when Mary fled, urged Moray to burn witches, and the cliffs of St. Andrews flared with the flames wherein they perished. The Lyon King at Arms, as has been said, died by fire, apparently for confessed dealings with a wizard, who foretold the events of the year, and for treasure hunting with the divining rod. A Napier of Merchistoun did foretell Mary’s escape (according to Nau); this man, _ayant réputation de grand magicien_, may have been the soothsayer: his son sought for hidden treasure by divination. Buchanan tells how a dying gentleman beheld Darnley’s fate in a clairvoyant vision: and how a dim shapeless thing smote and awoke, successively, four Atholl men in Edinburgh, on the night of the crime of Kirk o’ Field. Old rhyming prophecies were circulated and believed. Knox himself was credited with winning his sixteen-year-old bride by witchcraft, as Bothwell won Mary. Men listened to his reports of his own ‘premonitions.’
When Huntly, one of the band for Darnley’s murder, died, his death was strange. He had hunted, and taken three hares and a fox, after dinner he played football, fell into a fit, and expired, crying ‘never a word save one, looking up broad with his eyes, and that word was this, “Look, Look, Look!”’ Unlike the dying murderer of Riccio, Ruthven, he perhaps did not behold the Angel Choir. His coffers were locked up in a chamber, with candles burning. Next day a rough fellow, banished by Lochinvar, and received by Huntly, fell into unconsciousness for twenty-four hours, and on waking, cried ‘_Cauld, cauld, cauld!_’ John Hamilton, opening one of the dead Earl’s coffers, fell down with the same exclamation. Men carried him away, and, returning, found a third man fallen senseless on the coffer. ‘All wrought as the Earl of Huntly wrought in the death thraw.’ The chamber was haunted by strange sounds: the word went about that the Earl was rising again. Says Knox’s secretary, Bannatyne, who tells this tale, ‘I maun praise the Lord my God, and bless his holy name for ever, when I behold the five that was in the conspiracy, not only of the King’s [Darnley’s] and the second Regent’s murder, but also of the first Regent’s murder. Four is past with small provision, to wit, Lethington, Argyll, Bothwell, and last of all Huntly. I hope in God the fifth [Morton] shall die more perfectly, and declare his life’s deeds with his own mouth, making his repentance at the gallows foot.’ Part of his life’s deeds Morton did declare on his dying day.