Murray, meanwhile, was busily organizing his scheme of rebellion. "Their chief trust," says Randolph, alluding to the Earl and his associates, "next unto God, is the Queen's Majesty, (Elizabeth,) whom they will repose themselves upon; not leaving in the meantime to provide for themselves the best they can." Elizabeth was not backward to give them every encouragement. She wrote letters to the heads of the party; means were taken to win over to their views the General Assembly, which met in June 1565, the members of which, as Randolph says, were "never more constant or more earnest;" and the nobles summoned by Mary to a convention at Perth, were all tampered with. But the great majority at this convention, gave their consent and approbation to the proposed marriage; and Murray, in despair, begged Randolph to inform his mistress, in the name of himself and those who had joined his faction, that they were "grieved to see such extreme folly in their sovereign; that they lamented the state of their country, which tended to utter ruin; and that they feared the nobility would be forced to assemble themselves together, so to provide for the state, that it should not utterly perish." In other words, they had made up their mind to rebellion; at all events, to prevent Darnley from obtaining the crown, and an ascendancy over them,--and probably, if an opportunity should offer, to put Mary in confinement, and rule the country themselves. This was exactly the state of feeling which Elizabeth had long laboured to produce in Scotland. "Some that have already heard," says Randolph, "of my Lady's Grace imprisonment," (meaning the Countess of Lennox), "like very well thereof, and wish both father and son to keep her company. The question hath been asked me, whether, if they were delivered us into Berwick, we would receive them? I answered, that we could not nor would not refuse our own, in what sort soever they came unto us."[92] But as it was felt that a plausible apology would be required for proceeding to these extremities, the Earl of Murray gave out that a conspiracy had been formed to assassinate him at the Convention at Perth. His story was, that there had been a quarrel between one of his own servants and another man, who was supported by retainers of Athol and Lennox, and that it had been arranged that they should renew their dispute at Perth, and that he himself should be slain in the affray, which was expected to ensue. But the evidence of a plot against him rests only upon Murray's own statement and when Mary asked him to transmit in writing a more particular account of it, seeing that he made it his excuse for refusing to come to Court, "it appeared to her Highness and to her Council, that his purgation in that behalf, was not so sufficient as the matter required;" and his excuse was not sustained.[93]