Note 870 — THE PREFACE (continued 4)

The name of Chastelard, among other varieties by different writers, occurs as Chatelar, Chastellet, Charterlet, Chatillon. But we cannot well identify him with a person of nearly the same name who had been attached to the household of the Queen Regent in 1555, as appears from this entry in the Treasurer's Accounts, on the 7th January:—"Item, Given to Franschois Chattillihon, kepar of the Quenis Grace chalmer dur, be ane precept and speciale command at his departing to Fransche—1 lb." (£50.)

Chastelard arrived in Scotland in 1561, as one of the suite of M. de Damville. He returned with him to France; but in November 1562, he again visited Scotland as the bearer of letters to the Queen. He remained about the Court until the 12th of February 1562-3, the night when he concealed himself in the Queen's bed-chamber in the Palace of Holyrood. He followed her to Fife, and two days later, he was discovered, as Knox relates, at Burntisland, and being arrested, he was conveyed and tried at St. Andrews, where he was executed on the 22d February 1562-3. No account of his trial has been preserved, the scroll Court-book of Justiciary, from May 1562 to May 1563, being lost. (Pitcairn's Criminal Trials, vol. i. p. 427.)