THE DATE OF MARY’S VISIT TO GLASGOW

The question of the possibility that Letter II. may be authentic turns on dates. If the Lords are right in declaring, in ‘Cecil’s Journal,’ that Mary left Edinburgh on January 21, 1567, and arrived in Glasgow on January 23, then the evidence of the Letter is incompatible with that of Paris, and one or both testimonies must be abandoned. They fare no better if we accept the statement of Drury, writing from Berwick, that Mary entered Glasgow on January 22. It is shown in the text that, if we accept the date as given in Birrel’s ‘Diary,’ and also in the ‘Diurnal of Occurrents’: if we make Mary leave Edinburgh on January 20, and (contrary to Drury and ‘Cecil’s Journal’) make her enter Glasgow on January 21, then the Letter may be brought into harmony with the statement of Paris.

Of course it may be argued that the ‘Diurnal’ and Birrel’s ‘Diary’ coincide in an error of date. The ‘Diary’ of Birrel describes itself as extending from 1532 to 1605. One man cannot have kept a daily note of events for seventy-three years. The ‘Diary,’ in fact, is not a daily record. There is but one entry for 1561, one for 1562, one for 1565, ten for 1566, and twenty-four for 1567; up to Mary’s surrender at Carberry (June 15). The ‘Diurnal,’ for our period, is more copious, and is by a contemporary, though probably he did not always write his remarks on the day of the occurrence noted.

From August 19, 1561, to June 15, 1567, the ‘Diurnal’ and the ‘Diary’ record in common twenty-one events, with date. In seven of these cases they differ, as to date. They differ as to the day of Mary’s departure from Edinburgh to Jedburgh, as to the departure of the ambassadors from Stirling, as to the arrival of Mary with her infant child in Edinburgh (January, 1567), as to the return of Mary and Darnley from Glasgow, as to the day of Darnley’s burial, as to the day of opening Parliament, and as to the attack on Borthwick Castle by the Lords: while the ‘Diurnal’ makes the explosion at Kirk o’ Field occur at 2 A.M. on February 10, but ends the Parliament on April 29, which is absurd. When the dates are correctly known from other sources, and when the ‘Diary’ and the ‘Diurnal’ coincide as to these dates, then, of course, we may accept their authority. But when, as in the case of Mary’s departure from Edinburgh, and arrival in Glasgow, the ‘Diary’ and ‘Diurnal’ oppose ‘Cecil’s Journal,’ and Drury’s version, every reader must estimate the value of their coincidence for himself. If their date, January 20, is correct, then a letter may have been written, and sent, and received, and the facts, so far, are corroborated by Paris’s deposition.

The argument of Chalmers, that Mary was at Edinburgh till January 24, because there are entries as if of her presence there in the Register of Privy Seal, is not valid, as such entries were occasionally made in the absence of the King or Queen.