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Footnotes:
[1] Blackwood’s Magazine, December, 1889.
[2] Bond.
[3] Laing, ii. 284.
[4] See Murdin, p. 57.
[5] Among the mysteries which surround Mary, we should not reckon the colour of her hair! Just after her flight into England, her gaoler, at Carlisle, told Cecil that in Mary Seton the Queen had ‘the finest busker of a woman’s hair to be seen in any country. Yesterday and this day she did set such a curled hair upon the Queen, that was said to be a perewyke, that showed very delicately, and every other day she hath a new device of head dressing that setteth forth a woman gaily well.’ Henceforth Mary varied the colour of her ‘perewykes.’ She had worn them earlier, but she wore them, at least at her first coming into England, for the good reason that, in her flight from Langside, she had her head shaved, probably for purposes of disguise. So we learn from Nau, her secretary. Mary was flying, in fact, as we elsewhere learn, from the fear of the fiery death at the stake, the punishment of husband-murder. Then, and then only, her nerve broke down, like that of James VIII. at Montrose; of Prince Charles after Culloden; of James VII. when he should have ridden with Dundee to the North and headed the clans.
[6] The papers used by Lennox in getting up his indictment against Mary are new materials, which we often have occasion to cite.
[7] Mr. Henderson doubts if Darnley knew French.
[8] M. Jusserand has recently seen the corpse of Bothwell. Appendix A.
[9] Actio, probably by Dr. Wilson, appended to Buchanan’s Detection.
[10] Teulet, ii. p. 176. Edinburgh, June 17, 1567.
[11] See a facsimile in Teulet, ii. 256.
[12] Appendix B. ‘Burning of the Lyon King at Arms.’
[13] The private report is in the Lennox MSS.
[14] See the sketch, coloured, in Bannatyne Miscellany, vol. i. p. 184.
[15] See description by Alesius, about 1550, in Bannatyne Miscellany, i. 185-188.
[16] Information from Father Pollen, S.J.
[17] This gentleman must not be confused with Ormistoun of Ormistoun, in Teviotdale, ‘The Black Laird,’ a retainer of Bothwell.
[18] Riddell, Inquiry into the Law and Practice of the Scottish Peerage, i. 427. Joseph Robertson, Inventories, xcii., xciii. Schiern, Life of Bothwell, p. 53.
[19] Randolph to Cecil, Edinburgh, Sept. 23, 1560. Foreign Calendar, 1560-61, p. 311.
[20] Hay Fleming, Mary Queen of Scots, p. 236, note 32.
[21] Cal. For. Eliz. 1561-62, iv. 531-539.
[22] Knox, Laing’s edition, ii. 322-327. Randolph to Cecil ut supra.
[23] Knox, ii. 347.
[24] Knox, ii. 473.
[25] Hay Fleming, p. 359, note 29.
[26] Knox, ii. 479.
[27] See Cal. For. Eliz. 1565, 306, 312, 314, 319, 320, 327, 340, 341, 347, 351.
[28] Calendar, Bain, ii. 223.
[29] Bain, ii. 213.
[30] Ibid. ii. 242, 243.
[31] Hosack, i. 524.
[32] Cal. For. Eliz. 1564-5, 464.
[33] Bain, ii. 222-223.
[34] Bain, ii. 225. Cal. For. Eliz. 1564-5, 464, 495. Hay Fleming, pp. 380, 381.
[35] Miss Strickland avers that ‘existing documents afford abundant proof, that whenever Darnley and the Queen were together, his name was written by his own hand.’
[36] October 31, 1565. Bain, ii. 232.
[37] Bain, ii. 234.
[38] Randolph to Cecil, Nov. 19, Dec. 1, 1565. Bain, ii. 241, 242.
[39] Bain, ii. 242.
[40] Buchanan, Historia, 1582, fol. 210.
[41] Bain, ii. 247.
[42] The Foreign Calendar cites Randolph up to the place where amantium irÆ is quoted, but omits that. The point is important, if it indicates that Randolph had ceased to believe in Mary’s amour with Riccio. Cf. Bain, ii. 248.
[43] Nau, p. 192.
[44] The subject is discussed, with all the evidence, in Hay Fleming, pp. 379, 380, note 33.
[45] Ruthven’s Narrative. Keith, iii. 260. There are various forms of this Narrative; one is in the Lennox MSS.
[46] Goodall, i. 274.
[47] Bain, ii. 255.
[48] Printed in a scarce volume, Maitland’s Narrative, and in Tytler, iii. 215. 1864.
[49] Bain, ii. 259-261.
[50] Goodall, i. 266-268.
[51] Hosack, ii. 78, note 3.
[52] See Dr. Stewart, A Lost Chapter in the History of Mary Queen of Scots, pp. 93, 94.
[53] This is alleged by Mary, and by Claude Nau, her secretary.
[54] Goodall, i. 264, 265.
[55] Bain, ii. 289.
[56] Cal. For. Eliz. viii. 51.
[57] Bain, ii. 276. Cal. For. Eliz. viii. 52.
[58] Cal. For. Eliz. viii. 62.
[59] Bain ii. 278.
[60] Ibid. ii. 281.
[61] See Joseph Robertson’s Inventories, 112.
[62] Bain, ii. 283.
[63] Melville, pp. 154, 155.
[64] Bain, ii. 288, 289.
[65] Bain, ii. 290.
[66] Bain, ii. 294.
[67] Nau, 20, 22.
[68] Bain, ii. 296.
[69] Detection, 1689, pp. 2, 3.
[70] Cal. For. Eliz. viii. 118.
[71] Stevenson, Selections, pp. 163-165.
[72] Cheruel, Marie Stuart et Catherine de MÉdicis, p. 47.
[73] Robertson, Inventories, p. 167.
[74] Bain, ii. 300.
[75] Detection (1689), p. 4.
[76] Bain, ii. 440.
[77] Bannatyne, Journal, p. 238. This transference of disease, as from Archbishop Adamson to a pony, was believed in by the preachers.
[78] Teulet, Papiers d’État, ii. 139-146, 147, 151. See also Keith, ii. 448-459.
[79] Frazer, The Lennox, ii. 350, 351.
[80] Cal. For. Eliz. ix. 354, 355.
[81] Laing, ii. 331, 334.
[82] Nau, p. 35.
[83] Bain, ii. 599, 600.
[84] Bain, ii. 276.
[85] Diurnal, p. 99.
[86] See the evidence in Hay Fleming, 414, note 61.
[87] Cal. For. Eliz. viii. 139. Diurnal, 101.
[88] Teulet, ii. 150.
[89] Laing, ii. 72.
[90] Hay Fleming, 418, 419.
[91] Queen Mary at Jedburgh, p. 23.
[92] Bain, ii. 597-599. Anderson, iv. pt. ii. 186. Keith, iii. 290-294.
[93] Goodall, ii. 359.
[94] Historia, fol. 214.
[95] Keith, iii. 294. Bain, ii. 600.
[96] Laing, ii. 293, 294.
[97] The original MS. has been corrected by Lennox, in the passages within brackets. The italics are my own.
[98] Bain, ii. 516, 517.
[99] De Brienne came to Craigmillar on November 21, 1566, Diurnal.
[100] Nau, p. 33.
[101] Bain, ii. 293, 310.
[102] Melville, p. 172. (1827.)
[103] Crawford, in his deposition against Mary, says that she spoke sharp words of Lennox, at Stirling, to his servant, Robert Cunningham.
[104] Keith, i. xcviii.
[105] Bain, ii. 293. This Rogers it was who, later, informed Cecil that ‘gentlemen of the west country’ had sent to Darnley a chart of the Scilly Isles. If Darnley, among other dreams, thought of a descent on them, as he did on Scarborough, he made no bad choice. Mr. A. E. W. Mason points out to me that the isles ‘commanded the Channel, and all the ships from the north of England,’ which passed between Scilly and the mainland, twenty-five miles off. The harbours being perilous, and only known to the islesmen, a small fleet at Scilly could do great damage, and would only have to run back to be quite safe. Darnley, in his moods, was capable of picturing himself as a pirate chief.
[106] Hay Fleming, p. 415, note 63.
[107] Labanoff, ii.
[108] Labanoff, i. 396-398. Mary to Beaton, Jan. 20, 1567.
[109] Hosack, ii. 580. Crawford’s deposition.
[110] Hosack, i. 534.
[111] Cal. For. Eliz. viii. 163, 164. January 9, 1567.
[112] See Appendix C, ‘The date of Mary’s visit to Glasgow.’
[113] The ‘undermining and’ are words added by Lennox himself to the MS. They are important.
[114] Maitland of Lethington.
[115] Cal. For. Eliz. viii. 167-168.
[116] On July 16, 1583, she wrote from Sheffield to MauvissiÈre, the French Ambassador, bidding him ask the King of France to give Archibald Douglas a pension, ‘because he is a man of good understanding and serviceable where he chooses to serve, as you know.’ She intended to procure his pardon from James (Labanoff, v. 351, 368). She employed him, and he betrayed her.
[117] Laing, ii. 223-236.
[118] Bain, ii. 599, 600.
[119] Registrum de Soltre, p. xxxv, Bannatyne Club, 1861.
[120] Records of the Burgh of Edinburgh, March 14, 1541.
[121] Registrum de Soltre, xxxvii.
[122] Burgh Records, Nov. 5, 1557.
[123] Burgh Records, Feb. 19, 1560, March 12, 1560.
[124] Burgh Records.
[125] Keith, ii. 151, 152. Editor’s note.
[126] Registrum de Soltre, p. xli.
[127] Burgh Records, Feb. 19, March 12, 1560.
[128] Laing, ii. 254.
[129] Lennox MSS.
[130] See Hay Fleming, p. 434.
[131] Lennox’s sources must have been Nelson and the younger Standen, to whom Bothwell gave a horse immediately after the murder. Standen returned to England four months later.
[132] Diurnal, 105, 106.
[133] Keith, i. cii.
[134] Register Privy Council, i. 498.
[135] Melville, p. 174, Bannatyne Club.
[136] Labanoff, vii. 108, 109, Paris. March 16, 1567.
[137] Hosack, i. 536, 537.
[138] Spanish Calendar, i. 635, April 23.
[139] Hosack, i. 534. The ‘Book of Articles,’ of 1568, was obviously written under the impression left by a forged letter of Mary’s, or by the reports of such a letter, as we shall show later. Yet the author cites a Casket Letter as we possess it.
[140] Bain, ii. 393.
[141] This is not, I think, a letter of September 5, but of September 16, but in Foreign Calendar Elizabeth, viii. p. 342, most of the passage quoted by Mr. Hosack is omitted.
[142] Laing, ii. 28.
[143] Cal. For. Eliz. viii. p. 392.
[144] Laing, ii. 256.
[145] Diurnal, 127, 128. Cal. For. Eliz. viii. 393.
[146] Hosack, ii. 245.
[147] This was obvious to Laing. Replying to Goodall’s criticism of verbal coincidences in the confessions, Laing says, ‘as if in any subsequent evidence concerning the same fact, the same words were not often dictated by the same Commissioner, or recorded by the Clerk, from the first deposition which they hold in their hands.’ It does not seem quite a scientific way of taking evidence.
[148] See the Confessions, Laing, ii. 264.
[149] Bain, ii. 312, 313.
[150] Arnott and Pitcairn, Criminal Trials.
[151] Buchanan, History (1582), fol. 215.
[152] Maitland Miscellany, iv. p. 119.
[153] French Foreign Office, Registre de Depesches d’Ecosse, 1560-1562, fol. 112.
[154] Cal. For. Eliz. viii. p. 7, No. 31.
[155] Cal. For. Eliz. viii. 229. Drury would not here add to our confidence by saying that ‘Sir Andrew Ker’ (if of Faldonside) ‘with others were on horseback near to the place for aid to the cruel enterprize if need had been.’ Ker, a pitiless wretch, was conspicuous in the Riccio murder, threatened Mary, and had but lately been pardoned. After Langside, he was kept prisoner, in accordance with Mary’s orders, by Whythaugh. But the Sir Andrew of Drury is another Ker.
[156] Bain ii. 321, 325.
[157] Cal. For. Eliz. viii. 252.
[158] Bain, ii. 394. Cullen is spelled ‘Callan,’ and is described as Bothwell’s ‘chalmer-chiel.’
[159] Bain, ii. 355.
[160] Cal. For. Eliz. viii. 500. Hosack, i. 350, note 2, and Schiern’s Bothwell.
[161] Laing, ii. 269.
[162] Bain, ii. 698.
[163] See Appendix B, ‘The Burning of the Lyon King at Arms.’
[164] Bain, ii. 667, 668.
[165] Laing, i. 256, 257.
[166] Laing, ii. 253.
[167] Murdin, i. 57.
[168] Laing, ii. 286, 287.
[169] Laing, ii. 259.
[170] Laing, ii. 254.
[171] Laing, ii. 267, 268.
[172] Laing, ii. 287.
[173] Anderson, 1, part II., 76, 77.
[174] Nau, Appendix ii. 151, 152. The Jesuits’ evidence was from letters to Archbishop Beaton.
[175] Murdin, p. 57.
[176] In the ‘Book of Articles,’ and in the series of dated events called ‘Cecil’s Journal.’
[177] Hay Fleming, p. 444.
[178] Spanish Calendar, i. 628. For Moray’s dinner party, cf. Bain, ii. 317.
[179] Spanish Calendar, i. 635.
[180] Laing, ii. 244.
[181] Labanoff, ii. 2-4.
[182] Venetian Calendar, vii. 388, 389. There were rumours that Lennox had been blown up with Darnley, and, later, that he was attacked at Glasgow, on February 9, by armed men, and owed his escape to Lord Semple. It is incredible that this fact should be unmentioned, if it occurred, by Lennox and Buchanan.
[183] Hay Fleming, pp. 442-443.
[184] Robertson, Inventories, p. 53.
[185] Anderson, i. 112. Bain, ii. 322.
[186] Keith knew a copy in the Scots College at Paris, attested by Sir James Balfour as ‘the authentick copy of the principall band.’ This copy Sir James sent to Mary, in January, 1581, after Morton’s arrest. The names of laymen are Huntly, Argyll, Morton, Cassilis, Sutherland, Errol, Crawford, Caithness, Rothes, Boyd, Glamis, Ruthven, Semple, Herries, Ogilvy, Fleming. John Read’s memory must have been fallacious. There are eight prelates in Balfour’s band, including Archbishop Hamilton, the Bishop of Orkney, who joined in prosecuting Mary, and Lesley, Bishop of Ross (Keith, ii. 562-569). On the whole subject see a discussion by Mr. Bain and Mr. Hay Fleming, in The Genealogist, 1900-1901. Some copies are dated April 20. See Fraser, The Melvilles, i. 89.
[187] Spanish Calendar, i. 662.
[188] Cal. For. Eliz. viii. 213.
[189] Bain, ii. 323, 324.
[190] Melville, p. 177.
[191] Melville, p. 178.
[192] Drury to Cecil, Cal. For. Eliz. viii. 222.
[193] Cal. For. Eliz. viii. 223-224.
[194] May 6, Drury to Cecil.
[195] Drury to Cecil, May 6. Cal. For. Eliz. viii. 223, 224.
[196] Undated letter in Bannatyne, of 1570-1572.
[197] See Stewart’s Lost Chapter in the History of Queen Mary for the illegalities of the divorce. The best Catholic opinion is agreed on the subject.
[198] Melville, 182. Teulet, ii. 153, 170.
[199] Cal. For. Eliz. viii. 235.
[200] Drury to Cecil, Cal. For. Eliz. viii. 240.
[201] Dates from James Beaton’s letter of June 17. Laing, ii. 106, 115.
[202] Nau, 46-48.
[203] Laing, i. 113. June 17, 1567.
[204] Melville, p. 183.
[205] Teulet, ii. 179.
[206] Teulet, ii. 169, 170. June 17.
[207] Bannatyne’s Memorials, p. 126.
[208] Nau, 50-54.
[209] Laing, ii, 115.
[210] Bannatyne, Journal, 477, 482.
[211] Chalmers, Life of Mary, Queen of Scots (1818), ii. 486, 487, note. I do not understand Randolph to bring these charges merely on the ground of Mary’s word. That he only adds as corroboration, I think, of facts otherwise familiar to him.
[212] Mr. Froude has observed that the Lords, ‘uncertain what to do, sent one of their number in haste to Paris, to the Earl of Moray, to inform him of the discovery of the Letters, and to entreat him to return immediately.’ Mr. Hosack says that Mr. Froude owes this circumstance ‘entirely to his imagination.’ This is too severe. The Lords did not send ‘one of their number’ to Moray, but they sent letters which Robert Melville carried as far as London, and, seventeen days later, they did send a man who, if not ‘one of their number,’ was probably Moray’s agent, John Wood (Hosack, i. 352).
[213] Cal. For. Eliz. viii. p. 261.
[214] Spanish Calendar, i. 657.
[215] Cal. For. Eliz. ix. pp. 354, 355.
[216] FÉnelon, DÉpÊches (1838), i. 19, 20.
[217] FÉnelon, i. 22. To this point we shall return.
[218] La Mothe FÉnelon, vii. 275-276.
[219] Cal. Span. i. 659.
[220] Bain, ii. 336.
[221] Bain, ii. 338.
[222] Bain, ii. 339.
[223] Bain, ii. 341.
[224] Melville to Cecil, July 1. Bain, ii. 343.
[225] Bain, ii. 350, 351.
[226] Bain, ii. 322, 360.
[227] Ibid. 358.
[228] Cal. For. Eliz. viii. 297, 298. Keith, ii. 694, 700.
[229] Already, on July 16, Mary had offered verbally, by Robert Melville, to the Lords, to make Moray Regent: or, failing him, to appoint a Council of Regency, ChÂtelherault, Huntly, Argyll, Atholl, Lennox, and, ‘with much ado,’ Morton, Moray, Mar, and Glencairn. But she would not abandon Bothwell, as she was pregnant. Throckmorton does not say that she now promised to sign an abdication. A letter of Mary’s, to Bothwell’s captain in Dunbar, was intercepted, ‘containing matter little to her advantage.’ It never was produced by her prosecutors (Throckmorton, July 18. Bain, ii. 355,356). Robert Melville, visiting her, declined to carry such a letter to Bothwell. See his examination, in Addit. MSS. British Museum, 33531, fol. 119 et seq.
[230] Bain, ii. 367.
[231] Bain, ii. 328.
[232] Ibid. i. 346-348.
[233] Bain, ii. 346.
[234] Ibid. 354. July 16.
[235] Alava to Philip, July 17. Teulet, v. 29.
[236] De Silva, July 26, August 2. Spanish Calendar, i. 662, 665. I have occasionally preferred the Spanish text to Major Hume’s translations. See also Hosack, i. 215, 216.
[237] Froude, iii. 118. 1866.
[238] Lennox MSS.
[239] The words within inverted commas are autograph additions by Lennox himself.
[240] Ogilvy of Boyne, who married his old love, Lady Bothwell, after the death of her second husband, the Earl of Sutherland. See pp. 26, 27, supra.
[241] A Lost Chapter in the History of Mary Stuart.
[242] Throckmorton to Elizabeth, July 18. Bain, ii. 355.
[243] Throckmorton to Elizabeth, July 31, 1567. Bain, ii. 370.
[244] Maitland Miscellany, vol. iv. part i. p. 119.
[245] Teulet, ii. 255, 256.
[246] Labanoff, ii. 106.
[247] Bain, ii. 423.
[248] Ibid. 441, 442.
[249] I do not know where the originals of these five letters now are. They were among the Hamilton Papers, having probably been intercepted by the Hamiltons before they reached Moray, Lethington, Crawford, and the others.
[250] Bain, ii. 514.
[251] Ibid. 523, 524.
[252] For. Eliz. viii. 478, 479. Bain, ii. 426, 427.
[253] Bowton’s confession. Laing, ii. 256, 257.
[254] Cal. For. Eliz. viii. 331.
[255] Cal. For. Eliz. viii. 363.
[256] Moray, Morton, Glencairn, Errol, Buchan, Home, Ruthven, Semple, Glamis, Lindsay, Gray, Graham, Ochiltree (Knox’s father-in-law), Innermeith, the treacherous Bishop of Orkney, Sir James Balfour (deeply involved in the murder), Makgill, Lethington, Erskine of Dun, Wishart of Pitarro, Kirkcaldy of Grange, and others of less note.
[257] Nau, pp. 71-73.
[258] Teulet, ii. 247.
[259] Act in Henderson, 177-185.
[260] Nau, 74, 75.
[261] Goodall, ii. 361. B. M. Titus, c. 12, fol. 157 (olim 175). ‘And gif it beis allegit, yat hir matz wretting producit in pliam?t, sould proiff hir g, culpable. It maybe ansrit yat yÄre is na plane mentione maid in it, be ye quhilk hir hienes may be convict Albeit it wer hir awin hand wreitt, as it is not And als the same is cuttit (cullit?) be yame selfis in sum principall & substantious clausis.’
[262] Sepp, Tagebuch, Munich, 1882.
[263] Bain, ii. 441, 442.
[264] Maitland Club Miscellany, iv. 120, 121.
[265] Teulet, ii. 248.
[266] Bain, ii. 517.
[267] Bain, ii. 434.
[268] Nov. 8, 1571. Murdin, p. 57.
[269] State Trials, i. 978.
[270] As to ‘the subtlety of that practice,’ which puzzled Mr. Froude, Laing offers a highly ingenious conjecture. Mary was to do the Scots translations, procured for her by Lethington, into her own French, omitting the compromising portions. Lethington was next ‘privately to substitute or produce the Queen’s transcript instead of the originals, with the omission of those criminal passages, which might then be opposed as interpolated in the translation.’ But in that case ‘some variance of phrase’ by Mary could bring nothing ‘to light,’ for there would be no originals to compare. Lethington, while slipping Mary’s new transcript into the Casket (Laing, i. 145, 146), would, of course, remove the original letters in French, leaving the modified transcript in their place. ‘Variance of phrase’ between an original and a translation could prove nothing. Moreover, if Lethington had access to the French letters, it was not more dangerous for him to destroy them than to substitute a version which Moray, Morton, Buchanan, and all concerned could honestly swear to be false. The Bishop of Ross did, later, manage an ingenious piece of ‘palming’ letters on Cecil, but, in the story of ‘palming’ fresh transcripts into the Casket there is no consistency. Moreover Melville’s word is at least as good as Lesley’s, and Melville denies the truth of Lesley’s confession.
[271] British Museum Addit. MSS. 33531, fol. 119, et seq. The MS. is much injured.
[272] Murdin, pp. 52, 58.
[273] Bain, ii. 524.
[274] Addit. MSS. ut supra.
[275] Goodall, ii. 111.
[276] Bain, ii. 518, 519.
[277] Ibid. 519.
[278] Bain, ii. 524.
[279] Lennox MSS.
[280] Bain, ii. 520, 521.
[281] Goodall, ii. 140.
[282] The production is asserted, Goodall, ii. 87.
[283] Calderwood, iii. 556.
[284] For the Ainslie Band, and the signatories, see Bain, ii. 322, and Hay Fleming, p. 446, note 60, for all the accounts.
[285] Hosack, i. 543.
[286] There are two sets of extracts (Goodall, ii. 148-153): one of them is in the Sadleyr Papers, edited by Sir Walter Scott, and in Haynes, p. 480. This is headed ‘A brief Note of the chief and principal points of the Queen of Scots Letters written to Bothwell for her consent and procurement of the murder of her husband, as far forth as we could by the reading gather.’ The other set is in Scots, ‘Notes drawin furth of the Quenis letters sent to the Erle Bothwell.’ If this were, as Miss Strickland supposed, an abstract made and shown in June-July, it would prove, of course, that Letter II. was then in its present shape, and would destroy my hypothesis. But Cecil endorses it. ‘sent October 29.’ I think it needless to discuss the notion that Lethington and his companions showed only the Scots texts, and vowed that they were in Mary’s handwriting! They could not conceivably go counter, first, to Moray’s statement (June 22, 1568) that the Scots versions were only translations. Nor could they, later, produce the Letters in French, and pretend that both they and the Scots texts were in Mary’s hand. Doubtless they showed the French (though we are not told that they did), but the English Commissioners, odd as it seems, preferred to send to Elizabeth extracts from the Scots.
[287] Bain, ii. 526-528. See also in Hosack, ii. 496-501, with the obliterated lines restored.
[288] Bain, ii. 529-530.
[289] Bain, ii. 533, 534.
[290] Goodall, ii. 162-170. The dates here are difficult. Lesley certainly rode to Bolton, as Knollys says, on October 13, a Wednesday. (See the English Commissioners to Elizabeth. Goodall, ii. 173. York, October 17.) By October 17, Lesley was again at York (Goodall, ii. 174). Therefore I take it that Lesley’s letter to Mary (Bain, ii. 533, 534) is of October 18, or later, and that the ‘Saturday’ when Norfolk and Lethington rode together, and when Lethington probably shook Norfolk’s belief in the authenticity of the Casket Letters, is Saturday, October 16.
[291] Bain, ii. 533, 534.
[292] Ibid. ii. 693.
[293] Bain, ii. 541.
[294] Ibid. ii. 533.
[295] Addit. MSS. ut supra.
[296] His letter is given in full by Hosack, i. 518-522.
[297] Goodall, ii. 179-182.
[298] Bain, ii. 551.
[299] Goodall, ii. 182, 186.
[300] Goodall, ii. No. lxvi. 189.
[301] Anderson, iv. pt. ii. 115-121. Goodall, ii. 203-207.
[302] Teulet, ii. 237.
[303] Anderson, ii. 125-128. Bain, ii. 562, 563.
[304] See Hosack, i. 432, 583. The opinions of the Legists are taken from La Mothe, i. 51, 54. December 15, 1568.
[305] Goodall, ii. 222-227. But compare her letter of Nov. 22, p. 265, supra.
[306] Bain, ii. 565, 566.
[307] Goodall, ii. 229.
[308] In my opinion the book is by George Buchanan, who presents many coincident passages in his Detection. On February 25, 1569, one Bishop, an adherent of Mary’s, said, under examination, that ‘there were sundry books in Latin against her, one or both by Mr. George Buchanan,’ books not yet published (Bain, ii. 624). Can the Book of Articles have been done into Scots out of Buchanan’s Latin?
[309] When Goodall and Laing wrote (1754, 1804) the Minutes of December 7 had not been discovered.
[310] Bain, ii. 569, 570.
[311] Bain, ii. 571-573. (Cf. pp. 254, note 3, and 271, supra.)
[312] See Appendix E, ‘The Translation of the Casket Letters.’
[313] The extant copy is marked as of December viii. That is cancelled, and the date ‘Thursday, December 29’ is given; the real date being December 9. (Bain, ii. 576, 593, 730, 731.) This Declaration was one of the MSS. of Sir Alexander Malet, bought by the British Museum in 1883. The Fifth Report of the Historical MSS. Commission contains a summary, cited by Bresslau, in Kassetenbriefen, pp. 21, 23, 1881. In 1889, Mr. Henderson published a text in his Casket Letters. That of Mr. Bain, ut supra, is more accurate (ii. 730 et seq.). Mr. Henderson substitutes Andrew for the notorious Archibald Douglas, and there are other misreadings in the first edition.
[314] See ‘The Internal Evidence,’ pp. 302-313.
[315] Mr. Bain omits December 13; see Goodall, ii. 252.
[316] Bain, ii. 579, 580.
[317] Froude, 1866, iii. 347.
[318] Proceedings of Society for Psychical Research, vol. iii. pp. 282, 283, 294.
[319] See Bain, ii. 581, for Crawford; the matter of this his second deposition, made on December 13, is not given; we know it from the Lennox Papers. The Diurnal avers that Tala, on the scaffold, accused Huntly, Argyll, Lethington, Balfour, and others of signing the band for the murder, ‘whereto the Queen’s grace consented.’ Naturally the Queen’s accusers did not put the confession about Lethington forward, but if Tala publicly accused Mary, why did they omit the circumstance?
[320] Ballad by Tom Truth, in Bain under date of December, 1568.
[321] Goodall, ii. 257-260. Bain, ii. 580, 581.
[322] Froude, viii. 484. Mr. Froude’s page-heading runs: ‘The English nobles pronounce them’ (the Letters) ‘genuine.’ But this, as he shows in the passage cited, they really did not do. They only said that Elizabeth must not see Mary, ‘until some answer had been made first....’ However, Elizabeth would not even let Mary see the Letters; and so no ‘answer’ was possible.
[323] Lingard, vi. 94, note 2 (1855).
[324] Bain, ii. 583.
[325] Another account, by Lesley, but not ‘truly nor fully’ reported, as Cecil notes, is in Groodall, ii. 260, 261. Compare La Mothe FÉnelon, i. 82. Bain, ii. 585.
[326] Hosack, i. 460.
[327] Goodall, ii. 281.
[328] La Mothe, January 20, 30, 1569, i. 133-162.
[329] Goodall, ii. 272, 273.
[330] Goodall, ii. 307-309.
[331] Lesley, like Herries, had no confidence in Mary’s cause. On December 28, 1568, he wrote a curious letter to John Fitzwilliam, at Gray’s Inn. Lesley, Herries, and Kilwinning (a Hamilton) had met Norfolk, Leicester, and Cecil privately. The English showed the Book of Articles, but refused to give a copy, which seems unfair, as Mary could certainly have picked holes in that indictment. Lesley found the Englishmen ‘almost confirmed in favour of our mistress’s adversaries.’ Norfolk and Cecil ‘war sayrest’ (most severe), and Norfolk must either have been dissembling, or must have had his doubts about the authenticity of the Casket Letters shaken by comparing them with Mary’s handwriting. Lesley asks Fitzwilliam to go to their man of law, ‘and bid him put our defences to the presumptions in writ, as was devised before in all events, but we hope for some appointment (compromise), but yet we arm us well.’ Mary, however, would not again stoop to compromise. (Bain, ii. 592, 593.)
[332] Bain, ii. 570.
[333] In the Cambridge MS. of the Scots translations (C) our Letter II. is placed first. This MS. is the earliest.
[334] It is indubitable that ‘Cecil’s Journal’ was supplied by the prosecution, perhaps from Lennox, who had made close inquiries about the dates.
[335] Bresslau, Hist. Taschenbuch, p. 71. Philippson, Revue Historique, Sept., Oct., 1887, p. 31. M. Philippson suggests that Lethington’s name may not have been mentioned in the French, but was inserted (perhaps by Makgill, or other enemy of his, I presume) in the English, to damage the Secretary in the eyes of the English Commissioners.
[336] Hosack, i. 217, 218.
[337] See the letter in Appendix, ‘Casket Letters.’
[338] ‘Yesternicht’ is omitted in the English. See Appendix E, ‘Translation of the Casket Letters.’
[339] The last italicised words are in the English translation, not in the Scots.
[340] Hosack, ii. 24.
[341] Father Pollen kindly lent me collations of this Cambridge MS. translation into Scots, marked by me ‘C.’
[342] See Letter and Crawford’s Deposition in Appendix. Mr. Henderson, in his Casket Letters (second edition, pp. xxvi, xxvii, 82-84), argues that the interdependence of Crawford’s Deposition and of Letter II. ‘does not seem to be absolutely proved.’ Perhaps no other critic doubts it.
[343] Goodall, ii. 246.
[344] The English runs, ‘Indeede that he had found faulte with me....’ Mr. Bain notes ‘a blank left thus’ (Bain, ii. 723).
[345] Lennox MSS.
[346] Mr. Frazer-Tytler, who did not enter into the controversy, supposed that Crawford’s Deposition was the actual written report, made by him to Lennox in January 1567. If so, Letter II. is forged.
[347] Mr. Henderson writes (Casket Letters, second edition, p. xxvi): ‘It must be remembered that while Crawford affirms that he supplied Lennox with notes of the conversation immediately after it took place, he does not state that the notes were again returned to him by Lennox in order to enable him to form his deposition.’ How else could he get them, unless he kept a copy? ‘It is also absurd to suppose that Lennox, on June 11, 1568, should have written to Crawford for notes which he had already in his own possession.’ But Lennox did not do that; he asked, not for Mary’s conversation with Darnley, but for Crawford’s with Mary, which Crawford never says that he wrote down ‘at the time.’ Mr. Henderson goes on to speak of ‘the notes having been lost,’ and ‘these documents had apparently been destroyed’ (p. 84), of which I see no appearance.
[348] Goodall, ii. 246. Maitland Club Miscellany, iv. pt. i. p. 119. It will be observed that while Crawford swears to having written down Darnley’s report for Lennox ‘at the time,’ he says that he ‘caused to be made’ the writing which he handed in to the Commissioners, ‘according to the truth of his knowledge.’ Crawford’s Deposition handed in to the Commissioners, in fact, has been ‘made,’ that is, has been Anglicised from the Scots; this is proved by the draft in the Lennox Papers. This is what Crawford means by saying that he ‘caused it to be made.’ There is a corrected draft of the declaration in the Lennox MSS., but Crawford’s original autograph text, ‘written with his hand’ (in Scots doubtless), was retained by the Lords (Goodall, ii. 88).
[349] The Deposition, in Bain, ii. 313, is given under February, 1567, but this copy of it, being in English, cannot be so early.
[350] Historia, fol. 213. Yet the Lennox dossier represents Darnley as engaged, at this very time, at Stirling, in a bitter and angry quarrel with Mary. He may have been in contradictory moods: Buchanan omits the mood of fury.
[351] Maitland of Lethington, ii. 337.
[352] Mary to Norfolk, Jan. 31, 1570. Labanoff, iii. 19.
[353] Labanoff, iii. 62.
[354] The prosecution is in rather an awkward position as to Bothwell’s action when he returned to Edinburgh, after leaving Mary at Callendar, which we date January 21, and they date January 23. Cecil’s Journal says, ‘January 23 ... Erle Huntly and Bothwell returnit that same nycht to Edynt [Edinburgh] and Bothwell lay in the Town.’ The Book of Articles has ‘Bot boithuell at his cuming to Edinburgh ludgit in the toun, quhair customably he usit to ly at the abbay,’ that is, in Holyrood (Hosack, i. 534). The author of the Book of Articles clearly knew Cecil’s Journal; perhaps he wrote it. Yet he makes Mary stay but one night at Callendar; Cecil’s Journal makes her stay two nights. However, our point is that both sources make Bothwell lie in the town, not at Holyrood, on the night of his return from Callendar. His object, they imply, was to visit Kirk o’ Field privately, being lodged near it and not in his official rooms. But here they are contradicted by Paris, who says that when he brought Mary’s first Glasgow Letter to Bothwell he found him in his chambers at Holyrood (Laing, ii. 282).
[355] Nelson, according to Miss Strickland (Mary Stuart, ii. 178, 1873), left Edinburgh for England, and was detained by Drury for some months at Berwick. For this Miss Strickland cites Drury to Cecil, Berwick, February 15, 1567, a letter which I am unable to find in the MSS. But the lady is more or less correct, since, on February 15, Mary wrote to Robert Melville, in England, charging him, in very kind terms, to do his best for Anthony Standen, Darnley’s friend, who was also going to England (Frazer, The Lennox, ii. 7). A reference to Cal. For. Eliz. viii. 193, No. 1029, shows that a letter of Mary to Drury, asking free passage for Standen and four other Englishmen, is really of March 15, not of February 15. Again, a letter of March 8, 1567, from Killigrew, at Edinburgh, to Cecil, proves that ‘Standen, Welson, and Guyn, that served the late king, intend to return home when they can get passport’ (Bain, ii. 347, No. 479). Now ‘Welson’ is obviously Nelson. On June 16, Drury allowed Standen to go south (Cal. For. Eliz. viii. 252, No. 1305). Nelson, doubtless, also returned to Lennox. It is odd that Lennox, having these two witnesses, should vary so much, in his first indictment, from the accepted accounts of events at Kirk o’ Field. This Anthony Standen is the younger of the two brothers of the same name. The elder was acting for Darnley in France at the time of the murder. He lived to a great age, recounting romances about his adventures.
[356] Mr. Hay Fleming suggests that ‘Jhone a Forret’ may be Forret of that ilk—of Forret near Cairnie. Of him I have no other knowledge.
[357] Hatfield MSS. Calendar, i. 376, 377.
[358] Melville, Memoirs, 173, 174. Hosack’s Mary, i. 536 (The Book of Articles). Anderson, ii. 18, 19 (Detection). Cecil’s Journal, under date Saturday, February 8, has ‘She confronted the King and my lord of Halyrodhouse conforme to hir letter wryttin the nycht before:’ that is, this Letter III.
[359] Mr. Hosack makes an error in averring that no letter as to this intrigue was produced at Westminster or later; that the letter was only shown at York in October, 1568. There and then Moray’s party ‘inferred, upon a letter of her own hand, that there was another meane of a more cleanly conveyance devised to kill the King’ (Goodall, ii. 142; Hosack, i. 409, 410). The letter was that which we are now considering.
[360] The Scots has ‘handling.’ The Cambridge MS. of the Scots translation reads ‘composing of thame,’ from ‘le bien composer de ceux’ in the original French.
[361] Dr. Bresslau notes several such coincidences, but stress cannot be laid on phrases either usual, or such as a forger might know to be favourites of Mary’s.
[362] Laing, ii. 286.
[363] Mary Queen of Scots, vol. ii. No. 63.
[364] ‘Je m’en deferay au hazard de la faire entreprandre:’ the translators, not observing the gender referring to the maid, have blundered.
[365] It appears that they did not officially put in this compromising Ainslie paper. Cecil’s copy had only such a list of signers ‘as John Read might remember.’ His copy says that Mary approved the band on May 14, whereas the Lords allege that she approved before they would sign. Bain, ii. 321, 322. A warrant of approval was shown at York. Bain, ii. 526. Cf. supra, p. 254, note 3.
[366] Labanoff, ii. 32-44.
[367] Maitland of Lethington, ii. 224.
[368] Lethington to Beaton, October 24, 1566; cf. Keith, ii. 542.
[369] ‘The safety,’ ‘la seurete.’ Mr. Henderson’s text has ‘la seincte.’ The texts in his volume are strangely misleading and incorrect, both in the English of Letter II. and in the copies of the original French.
[370] This means a ring in black enamel, with representations of tears and bones, doubtless in white: a fantastic mourning ring. Mary left a diamond in black enamel to Bothwell, in June, 1566.
[371] This coincidence was pointed out to me by Mr. Saintsbury.
[372] By the way, she says to Norfolk, in the same Letter, ‘I am resolvid that weale nor wo shall never remove me from yow, If yow cast me not away.’ Compare the end of this Letter VIII.: ‘Till death nor weal nor woe shall estrange me’ (jusques À la mort ne changera, car mal ni bien oncque ne m’estrangera). Now the forger could not copy a letter not yet written (Labanoff, iii. 5). This conclusion of her epistle is not on the same level as the customary conclusion—the prayer that God will give the recipient long life, and to her—something else. That formula was usual: ‘Je supplie Dieu et de vous donner bonne vie, et longue, et a moy l’eur de votre bonne grasse.’ This formula, found in Mary’s Letters and in the Casket Letters, also occurs in a note from Marguerite de France to the Duchesse de Montmorency (De Maulde, Women of the Renaissance, p. 309). A forger would know, and would insert the stereotyped phrase, if he chose.
[373] On the point of wearing a concealed jewel in her bosom, the curious may consult the anecdote, ‘Queen Mary’s Jewels,’ in the author’s Book of Dreams and Ghosts.
[374] In Laing, ii. 234.
[375] Cecil’s Journal.
[376] Cecil’s Journal.
[377] Laing, ii. 285.
[378] Laing, ii. 289.
[379] Laing, ii. 325, 326. Laing holds that between April 21 and April 23 Mary wrote Letters V. VI. VII. VIII. and Eleven Sonnets to Bothwell: strange literary activity!
[380] Froude, iii. 75, note 1.
[381] Teulet, ii. 169, 170.
[382] Labanoff, iii. 5.
[383] Labanoff, iii. 64.
[384] Spanish Calendar, i. 659.
[385] Bain, ii. 329, 330.
[386] Privy Council Register.
[387] Bain, ii. 336. Sir John Skelton did not observe the coincidence between the opening of the Casket and the ‘sudden dispatch’ of Robert Melville to London. The letter in full is in Maitland of Lethington, ii. 226, 227.
[388] Bain, ii. 339.
[389] Goodall, ii. 342, 343.
[390] Goodall, ii. 388, 389.
[391] Camden, Annals, 143-5. Laing, i. 226.
[392] Laing, ii. 224-240.
[393] Bain, ii. 322.
[394] As to Randolph’s dark hint, Chalmers says, ‘he means their participation in Darnley’s murder’ (ii. 487). But that, from Randolph’s point of view, was no offence against Mary, and Kirkcaldy was not one of Darnley’s murderers.
[395] Cal. For. Eliz. ix. 390.
[396] See Hosack, ii. 217, 218. Bowes to Walsingham, March 25, 1581. Bowes Papers, 174. Ogilvie to Archibald Beaton. Hosack, ii. 550, 551.
[397] Bain, ii. 569.
[398] Robertson Inventories, 124.
[399] Bowes Correspondence, 236.
[400] Bowes, 265.
[401] Goodall, i. 35, 36.
[402] Vol. lxxx. 131, et seq.
[403] Before the Reformation it belonged to the Bishops of Roskilde, and was confiscated from them, Henry VIII.’s fashion.
[404] Bain, ii. 250.
[405] Cal. For. Eliz. viii. 413, 414.
[406] This picture seems to be lost.
[407] Diurnal, p. 134.
[408] Birrel’s Diary, p. 17.
[409] Cot. Lib. Calig. B. ix. fol. 272. Apud Chalmers, i. 441, 442.
[410] Bain, ii. 516.
[411] Diurnal, p. 146.
[412] Bain, ii. 665.
[413] Nau, p. 80.
[414] Chalmers’s date, as to Stewart’s expedition to Denmark, differs from that of Drury.
[415] Such coffers were carefully covered. One had a cover of crimson velvet, with the letter ‘F’ in silver and gold work (Maitland Club, Illustrations of Reigns of Mary and James). Another coffer, with a cover of purple velvet, is described in a tract by M. Luzarche (Tours, 1868).
[416] Nau, p. 48.
[417] Tytler, iv. 324, 1864.
[418] Diurnal, p. 127.
[419] Laing, ii. 293, 294.
[420] Bain, ii. 322.
[421] Laing, ii. 314-318.
[422] Tytler, iv. 323, 1864.
[423] Labanoff, ii. 213.
[424] Bain, ii. 576.
[425] Laing’s efforts to detect French idioms lead him to take ‘all contrary’—as in
‘Mary, Mary,
All contrary,
How does your garden grow?’—
and ‘all goeth ill’ for French too literally translated.
[426] Casket Letters, pp. 82, 83.
[427] ‘He,’ that is, Lennox.
[428] ‘He,’ misread for ‘I.’
[429] The English translator apparently mistook ‘signer’ for ‘saigner.’
[430] ‘They’: Darnley and Lady Bothwell.
[431] ‘I cannot ceis to barbulze’ (Y).
[432] ‘Humanitie’ (C).
[433] His fair promises (C).
[434] ‘Your brother.’ Huntly.
[435] ‘Scriblit.’ Barbulzeit (C).
[436] Cambridge MS. ‘l’acointance.’
[437] Cambridge MS, ‘je’ omitted.
[438] Cambridge MS. ‘Dont de grief doil me vint ceste dolleur.’
[439] Cambridge MS. ‘Per.’
[440] Cambridge MS. ‘honneur.’