40 Craiginillar and its Environs, 



said, Bothwell showed him a bond signed by four or 

 five names, which he assured him were those of Huntly, 

 Argyll, Maitland, and Sir James Balfour. In Birrel's 

 ' Diary' (p. 14) we learn that "on 3d Jan. 1568, John 

 Hay of Talla, zounger, and John Hepburne of Bollone, 

 and ane Powrie, and ane Dalgleish, seruitors to ye 

 Earl of Bothwell, ver hangit and quartred, and their 

 bodies brunt for murther of ye King." The Regent 

 Morton was in June 1581 also tried and executed for 

 the murder of Darnley, fourteen years after the event. 

 Little is known of his trial, but he was found guilty of 

 being "art and part, foreknowledge and concealing of 

 the treasonable and unnatural murder" of the King. 

 The principal evidence produced was the testament of 

 Bothwell, who had died in Denmark in 1578. It is 

 therefore assumed that this deed contained matter im- 

 plicating Morton. We learn further from Pitcairn's 

 ' Criminal Trials ' that John Binning, a servant of 

 Archibald Douglas, was also tried and convicted. 

 Before his death Binning not only confessed that 

 his master was concerned in the plot, but he also 

 accused John Maitland, Abbot of Coldingham, 



