Note 863 — THE PREFACE (continued 3)

In MS. G, is this marginal note, which cannot be attributed to the author:—"The end declared thair words to be trew." Lethington, it is well known, having adhered to the Queen's party, he remained in the Castle of Edinburgh during the whole time of the siege by the English troops in 1573, until its surrender, under promise that the Governor and his associates should be favourably treated. But Queen Elizabeth delivered them up to their implacable enemy the Regent Morton; and Lethington was with Kirkaldy of Grange, and the other prisoners, carried to Leith; but whether it was his own act, to save the disgrace of a public execution, or that of others, he died, "not without suspicion of poison," on the 9th June 1573.