By this time, Bothwell, Balfour and David Chalmers had been denounced as Darnley’s murderers on placards affixed to the Tolbooth. The rumor mill was in overdrive. Everyone was talking about the gunpowder plot and had their own theories. Chalmers, already linked to Balfour and Bothwell in the tight-knit circle around the Court of Session and the Admiralty Court, was unpopular, but there is no proof he was involved in killing Darnley. The cover-up had started: the finger was pointing only at Bothwell and his known associates.
