in a gown of cloth of silver; her head, her neck, her shoulders, the rest of her whole body so be-sett with stones, that more in our whole jewel house were not to be found. The Queen herself that day apparreled in colours white & black, no neither jewel or gold about her that day, but the ring that I brought her from (Queen Elizabeth) hanging at her breast, with a lace of black and white about her neck." On 19 September 1564, William Kirkcaldy of Grange wrote that the Royal Secretary, William Maitland, was showing an interest in Mary Fleming: "I doubt not but you understand me by now, that our secretary's wife is near dead, and he a suitor to Mrs Fleming, who is as fit for him, as I am to be Pope!" Marriage to Maitland Mary Fleming married the queen's royal secretary, Sir William Maitland of Lethington, who was many years her senior. The wedding was held at Stirling Castle on 6 January 1566. The following evidence may suggest that the marriage was successful despite rumors that they were unhappy and that Mary wished to murder her husband: The wedding occurred after a three-year courtship that weathered ambivalent relations between Maitland and Mary, Queen of Scots, to whom Mary Fleming was a lady-in-waiting and had been since the age of five. Maitland was so infatuated with Mary Fleming that he wrote to William Cecil about it. The courtship was the talk of both the Scottish and English courts. Mary Fleming and her husband were in Edinburgh Castle in 1573 when it was held by supporters of Mary, queen of Scots against an English army supporting the government of James VI of Scotland. She was captured with her husband when the castle surrendered on 28 May 1573. She was surrendered to Regent Morton and kept a prisoner in Robert Gourlay's House. Her husband was carried out of the castle on a litter because he was unable to stand or walk. He died at Leith on 9 June 1573 before his trial in the custody of William Drury. Mary Fleming wrote to William Cecil on 21 June imploring that the body of her husband, "which when alive has not been spared in her hieness service, may now after his death, receive no shame or ignominy". As a result, Queen Elizabeth asked Regent Morton to spare the body, which