MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS , [T& the Editor of the
SPECTATOR.] Sin,-May I be allowed, with much respect, to point out a slip in historical accuracy which I read in last week's Spectator, in Mr. John Buchan's review of Mr. Maurice Baring's book, In My End is My Beginning? He there writes, speaking of the personal witchery of the Queen : "Even Ruthven, the slayer of Rizzi°, came under the spell, and at Lochleven threw him- self at her feet at four o'clock in the morning, near her bed, and said he would set her free if she would love him " !
This was not the Ruthven who was the chief actor in Rizzio's murder, for he died at Newcastle, in England, in June, 1566, a year before Mary was taken to Lochleven Castle.
The Ruthven referred to was thus not Patrick, third Lord Ruthven, but „his second son and his successor, William, fourth Lord Ruthven, later created Earl of Gowrie.—I am,
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