THE SIX MINOR CASKET LETTERS
If the accusers had authentic evidence in Letters I. and II., they needed no more to prove Mary’s guilt. But the remaining six Letters bear on points which they wished to establish, such as Mary’s attempt to make her brother, Lord Robert, assassinate her husband, and her insistence on her own abduction. There are some difficulties attendant on these Letters. We take them in order. First Letter III. (or VIII.). This Letter, the third in Mr. Henderson’s edition, is the eighth and last in that of Laing. As the Letter, forged or genuine, is probably one of the last in the series, it shall be discussed in its possible historical place.
Letter III (IV)
Of this Letter, fortunately, we possess a copy of the French original.[357] The accusers connected the letter with an obscure intrigue woven while Darnley was at Kirk o’ Field. Lord Robert Stuart, Mary’s half-brother, commendator of Holyrood, is said by Sir James Melville to have warned Darnley of his danger. Darnley repeated this to Mary, but Lord Robert denied the story. The ‘Book of Articles’ alleges that Mary then tried to provoke a fight between her husband and her brother on this point. Buchanan adds that, when Darnley and Lord Robert had their hands on their swords, Mary called in Moray to part them. She hoped that he would ‘get the redder’s stroke,’ and be killed, or, if Darnley fell, that Moray would incur suspicion. As usual Buchanan spoils his own case. If Mary did call in Moray to separate the brawlers, she was obviously innocent, or repented at the last moment. Buchanan’s theory is absurd, but his anecdote, of course, may be false. Lennox, in his MSS., says that Moray was present at the quarrel.[358]
The indications of the plot, in the Letter, are so scanty, that the purpose has to be read into them from the alleged facts which the Letter is intended to prove.[359] I translate the copy of the French original.
‘I watched later up there’ (at Kirk o’ Field?) ‘than I would have done, had it not been to draw out [‘of him,’ in Scots] what this bearer will tell you: that I find the best matter to excuse your affair that could be offered. I have promised him’ (Darnley?) ‘to bring him’ (Lord Robert?) ‘to him’ (Darnley?) ‘to-morrow: if you find it good, put order to it. Now, Sir, I have broken my promise, for you have commanded me not to send or write. Yet I do it not to offend you, and if you knew my dread of giving offence you would not have so many suspicions against me, which, none the less, I cherish, as coming from the thing in the world which I most desire and seek, namely your good grace. Of that my conduct shall assure me, nor shall I ever despair thereof, so long as, according to your promise, you lay bare your heart to me. Otherwise I shall think that my misfortune, and the fair attitude[360] of those’ (Lady Bothwell) ‘who have not the third part of the loyalty and willing obedience that I bear to you, have gained over me the advantage won by the second love of Jason [Creusa or Glauce?] Not that I compare you À un si malheureuse’ (sic) ‘nor myself to one so pitiless [as Medea] however much you make me a little like her in what concerns you; or [but?] to preserve and guard you for her to whom alone you belong, if one can appropriate what one gains by honourably, and loyally, and absolutely loving, as I do and will do all my life, come what pain and misery there may. In memory whereof and of all the ills that you have caused me, be mindful of the place near here’ (Darnley’s chamber?). ‘I do not ask you to keep promise with me to-morrow’ (the Scots has, wrongly, ‘I crave with that ye keepe promise with me the morne,’ which Laing justifies by a false conjectural restoration of the French), ‘but that we meet’ (que nous truvions = que nous nous trouvions ensemble?), ‘and that you do not listen to any suspicion you may have without letting me know. And I ask no more of God than that you may know what is in my heart which is yours, and that He preserve you at least during my life, which shall be dear to me only while my life and I are dear to you. I am going to bed, and wish you good night. Let me know early to-morrow how you fare, for I shall be anxious. And keep good watch if the bird leave his cage, or without his mate. Like the turtle I shall abide alone, to lament the absence, however short it may be. What I cannot do, my letter [would do?] heartily, if it were not that I fear you are asleep. For I did not dare to write before Joseph’ (Joseph Riccio) ‘and bastienne (sic) and Joachim, who only went away when I began.’
This Letter is, in most parts, entirely unlike the two Glasgow letters in style. They are simple and direct: this is obscure and affected. As Laing had not the transcript of the original French (a transcript probably erroneous in places) before him, his attempts to reconstruct the French are unsuccessful. He is more happy in noting that the phrase vous m’en dischargeres votre coeur, occurs twice in Mary’s letters to Elizabeth[361] (e.g. August 13, 1568). But to ‘unpack the heart’ is, of course, a natural and usual expression. If Darnley is meant by the bird in the cage, the metaphor is oddly combined with the comparison (a stock one) of Mary to a turtle dove. Possibly the phrase ‘I do not ask that you keep promise with me to-morrow,’ is meant to be understood ‘I do not ask you to keep promise except that we may meet,’ as Laing supposes. But (1) the sense cannot be got out of the French, (2) it does not help the interpretation of the accusers if, after all, Mary is only contriving an excuse for a meeting between herself and Bothwell. The obscure passage about the turtle dove need not be borrowed from Ronsard, as Laing thinks: it is a commonplace. The phrase which I render ‘what I cannot do, my letter [would do] heartily, if it were not that I fear you are asleep,’ the Scots translates ‘This letter will do with ane gude hart, that thing quhilk I cannot do myself gif it be not that I have feir that ze ar in sleiping.’ The French is ‘ce que je ne puis faire ma lettre de bon coeur si ce nestoit que je ay peur que soyes endormy.’ Laing, reconstructing the French, says, ‘Ce que je ne saurois faire moi-mÊme; that is, instigate Lord Robert to commit the murder.’ The end of the phrase he takes ‘in its figurative sense, d’un homme endormi; slow, or negligent.’ Thus we are to understand ‘what I cannot do, my letter would do heartily—that is excite you to instigate my brother to kill my husband, if I were not afraid that you were slow or negligent.’ This is mere nonsense. The writer means, apparently, ‘what I cannot do, my letter would gladly do—that is salute you—if I were not afraid that you are already asleep, the night being so far advanced.’ She is sorry if her letter arrives to disturb his sleep.
It needs much good will, or rather needs much ill will, to regard this Letter as an inducement to Bothwell to make Lord Robert draw on Darnley. Mary, without Bothwell’s help, could have summoned Lord Robert on any pretext, and then set him and Darnley by the ears. The date of Mary’s attempt to end Darnley by her brother’s sword, Buchanan places ‘about three days before the King was slain.’ ‘Cecil’s Journal,’ as we saw, places it on February 8. Darnley was murdered after midnight of February 9. Paris said that, to the best of his memory, he carried letters on the Friday night, the 7th, from Mary, at Kirk o’ Field, to Bothwell. On Saturday, Mary told her attendants of the quarrel between Darnley and Lord Robert. ‘Lord Robert,’ she said, ‘had good means of killing the King at that moment, for there was then nobody in the chamber to part them but herself.’ These are rather suspicious confessions.[362] Moreover, Lennox, in his MSS., says that Moray was present at the incident, and could bear witness at Westminster. The statement of Paris is confused: he carried letters both on Thursday and Friday nights (February 6 and 7), and his declaration about all this affair is involved in contradictions.
According to the confession of Hay of Tala, it was on February 7 that Bothwell arranged the method by gunpowder. When he had just settled that, Mary, ex hypothesi, disturbed him with the letter on the scheme of using Lord Robert and a chance scuffle: an idea suggested to her by what she had extracted, that very night, from Darnley—namely, the warning whispered to him by Lord Robert. She thinks that, if confronted, they will fight, Darnley will fall, and this will serve ‘pour excuser votre affaire,’ as the Letter says. Buchanan adds in his ‘History,’ that Bothwell was present to kill anybody convenient (fol. 350). It was a wildly improbable scheme, especially if Mary, as Buchanan says, called in Moray to stop the quarrel, or share the blame, or be killed by Bothwell.
That the Letter, with some others of the set, is written in an odd, affected style, does not yield an argument either to the attack or the defence. If it is unlikely that Mary practised two opposite kinds of style, it is also unlikely that a forger, or forgers, would venture on attributing to her the practice. To this topic there will be opportunities of returning.
Letter IV
This Letter merely concerns somebody’s distrust of a maid of Mary’s. The maid is about to be married, perhaps to Bastian, but there is nothing said that identifies either the girl, or the recipient of the letter. Its tone, however, is that of almost abjectly affectionate submission, and there is a note of a common end, to which the writer and the recipient are working, ce À quoy nous tandons tous deux. If Mary dismisses the maid, she, in revenge, may reveal her scheme. The writer deprecates the suspicions of her correspondent, and all these things mark the epistle as one in this series. As it proves nothing against Mary, beyond affection for somebody, a common aim with him, and fear that the maid may spoil the project, there could be no reason for forging the Letter. A transcript of the original French is in the Record Office.[363] The translators have blundered over an important phrase from ignorance of French.[364]
Letter V
On the night of April 19, 1567, Bothwell obtained the signatures of many nobles to ‘Ainslie’s Band,’ as it is called, a document urging Mary to marry Bothwell.[365] On Monday, April 21, Mary went to Stirling, to see her child. She was suspected of intending to hand him over to Bothwell. If she meant to do this, her purpose was frustrated. On Wednesday, April 23, she went to Linlithgow, and on Thursday, April 24, was seized by Bothwell, near Edinburgh, and carried to Dunbar. This Letter, if genuine, proves her complicity; and is intended to prove it, if forged. On the face of it, the Letter was written at Stirling. Mary regrets Bothwell’s confidence in an unworthy person, Huntly, the brother of his wife. Huntly has visited her, and, instead of bringing news as to how and when the abduction is to managed, has thrown cold water on the plot. He has said that Mary can never marry a married man who abducts her, and that the Lords se dÉdiroient, which the Scots translator renders ‘the Lordis wald unsay themselves, and wald deny that they had said.’ The reference is to their acquiescence in the Ainslie band of April 19. Mary, as usual, displays jealousy of Bothwell, who has ‘two strings to his bow,’ herself and his wedded wife. The Letter implies that, for some reason, Mary and Bothwell had not arranged the details of the abduction before they separated. A transcript of the original French is at Hatfield; the English translation, also at Hatfield, is not from the French, but is a mere Anglicising of the Scots version. Oddly enough the French copy at Hatfield, unlike the rest, is in a Roman hand, such as Mary wrote. The hand resembles that of the copyist of the Casket Sonnets in the Cambridge (Lennox) MSS., and that of Mary Beaton, but it is not Mary Beaton’s hand.
Letter VI
This Letter still deals with the manner of the enlÈvement. Mary is now reconciled to the idea of trusting Huntly.
She advises Bothwell as to his relations with the Lords. The passage follows:—
‘Methinkis that zour services, and the lang amitie, having ye gude will of ye Lordis, do weill deserve ane pardoun, gif above the dewtie of ane subject yow advance yourself, not to constrane me, bot to assure yourself of sic place neir unto me, that uther admonitiounis or forane [foreign] perswasiounis may not let [hinder] me from consenting to that, that ye hope your service sall mak yow ane day to attene; and to be schort, to mak yourself sure of the Lordis and fre to mary; and that ye are constraint for your suretie, and to be abill to serve me faithfully, to use are humbil requeist, joynit to ane importune actioun.
‘And to be schort, excuse yourself, and perswade thame the maist ye can, yat ye ar constranit to mak persute aganis zour enemies.’
Now compare Mary’s excuses for her marriage, and for Bothwell’s conduct, as written in Scots by Lethington, her secretary, in May, 1567, for the Bishop of Dunblane to present to the Court of France.[366] First she tells at much length the tale of Bothwell’s ‘services, and the lang amitie,’ as briefly stated in Letter VI. Later she mentions his ambition, and ‘practising with ye nobillmen secretly to make yame his friendis.’ This answers to ‘having ye gude will of ye Lordis,’ in the Letter. In the document for the French Court, Mary suggests, as one of Bothwell’s motives for her abduction, ‘incidentis quhilk mycht occur to frustrat him of his expectatioun.’ In the Letter he is ‘constrainit for his suretie, to carry her off.’ Finally, in the Memorial for the French Court, it is said that Bothwell ‘ceased never till be persuasionis and importune sute accumpaneit not the less with force,’ he won Mary’s assent. In Letter VI. she advises him to allege that he is obliged ‘to use ane humble requeist joynit to ane importune action.’ Letter VI., in fact, is almost a succinct prÉcis, before the abduction, of the pleas and excuses which Mary made to the French Court after her marriage. Could a forger have accidentally produced this coincidence? One could: according to Sir John Skelton the letter to her ambassador ‘is understood to have been drawn by Maitland.’[367] The letter of excuses to France is a mere expansion of the excuses that, in the Casket Letter which we are considering, Mary advises Bothwell to make to the Lords. Either, then, this Letter is genuine, or the hypothetical forger had seen, and borrowed from, the Memorial addressed in May to the Court of France. This alternative is not really difficult; for Lethington, as secretary, must have seen, and may even (as Skelton suggests) have composed, the Scots letter of excuses carried to France by the Bishop of Dunblane, and Lethington had joined Mary’s enemies before they got possession of the Casket and Letters. Oddly enough, the letter to the ambassador contains a phrase in Scots which Lethington had used in writing to Beaton earlier, Mary ‘could not find ane outgait.’[368] No transcript of the original French, and no English translation, have been found.
Letter VII
This Letter purports to follow on another, ‘sen my letter writtin,’ and may be of Tuesday, April 22, as Mary reports that Huntly is anxious about what he is to do ‘after to-morrow.’ She speaks of Huntly as ‘your brother-in-law that was,’ whereas Huntly, Bothwell not being divorced, was still his brother-in-law. Huntly is afraid that Mary’s people, and especially the Earl of Sutherland, will die rather than let her be carried off. We do not know, from other sources, that Sutherland was present. Mary implores Bothwell to bring an overpowering force. No transcript of the original French, nor any English translation, is known. Mary must have written two of these letters (and apparently eleven sonnets also) while ill, anxious, and busy, on the 22nd, at Stirling, with the third on the 23rd, either at Stirling or Linlithgow. She could hardly get answers to anything written as late as the 22nd, before Bothwell arrived at Haltoun, near Linlithgow, on the night of April 23.
Letter VIII (III in Henderson)
There are differences of opinion as to the date of this curious Letter, and as to its place in the series. The contemporary transcript, made probably for the Commissioners on December 9, 1568, is in the Record Office. I translate the Letter afresh, since it must be read before any inference as to its date and importance can be drawn.
‘Sir,—If regret for your absence, the pain caused by your forgetfulness, and by fear of the danger which every one predicts to your beloved person, can console me, I leave it to you to judge; considering the ill fortune which my cruel fate and constant trouble have promised me, in the sequel of sorrows and terrors recent and long passed; all which you well know. But, in spite of all, I will not accuse you either of your scant remembrance or scant care, and still less of your broken promise, or of the coldness of your letters, I being so much your own that what pleases you pleases me. And my thoughts are so eagerly subject to yours that I am fain to suppose that whatsoever comes from you arises not from any of the aforesaid causes, but from such as are just and reasonable, and desired by myself. Which is the final order that you have promised me to take for the safety[369] and honourable service of the sole support of my life, for whom alone I wish to preserve it, and without which I desire only instant death. And to show you how humbly I submit me to your commands, I send you, by Paris, in sign of homage, the ornament’ (her hair) ‘of the head, the guide of the other members, thereby signifying that, in investing you with the spoil of what is principal, the rest must be subject to you with the heart’s consent. In place of which heart, since I have already abandoned it to you, I send you a sepulchre, of hard stone, painted black, semÉ with tears and bones.[370] I compare it to my heart, which, like it, is graven into a secure tomb or receptacle of your commands, and specially of your name and memory, which are therein enclosed, like my hair in the ring. Never shall they issue forth till death lets you make a trophy of my bones, even as the ring is full of them’ (i.e. in enamel), ‘in proof that you have made entire conquest of me, and of my heart, to such a point that I leave you my bones in memory of your victory, and of my happy and willing defeat, to be better employed than I deserve. The enamel round the ring is black, to symbolise the constancy of her who sends it. The tears are numberless as are my fears of your displeasure, my tears for your absence, and for my regret not to be yours, to outward view, as I am, without weakness of heart or soul.‘And reasonably so, were my merits greater than those of the most perfect of women, and such as I desire to be. And I shall take pains to imitate such merits, to be worthily employed under your dominion. Receive this then, my only good, in as kind part as with extreme joy I have received your marriage’ (apparently, from what follows, a contract of marriage or a ring of betrothal), ‘which never shall leave my bosom till our bodies are publicly wedded, as a token of all that I hope or desire of happiness in this world. Now fearing, my heart, to weary you as much in the reading as I take pleasure in the writing, I shall end, after kissing your hands, with as great love as I pray God (O thou, the only prop of my life!) to make your life long and happy, and to give me your good grace, the only good thing which I desire, and to which I tend. I have shown what I have learned to this bearer, to whom I remit myself, knowing the credit that you give him, as does she who wishes to be ever your humble and obedient loyal wife, and only lover, who for ever vows wholly to you her heart and body changelessly, as to him whom I make possessor of my heart which, you may be assured, will never change till death, for never shall weal or woe estrange it.’
The absurd affectation of style in this Letter, so different from the plain manner of Letters I. and II., may be a poetical effort by Mary, or may be a forger’s idea of how a queen in love ought to write. In the latter case, to vary the manner so much from that of the earlier Letters, was a bold experiment and a needless.
Mary, to be brief, sends to Bothwell a symbolic mourning ring, enclosing her hair. It is enamelled in black, with tears and bones. Such a ring is given by a girl to her lover, as a parting token, in the Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles (xxvi.), a ring d’or, esmailÉe de larmes noires.[371] She promises always to keep the ‘marriage’ (that is the contract of marriage, or can it be a ring typical of marriage?) in her bosom, till the actual wedding in public. Now she had a sentimental habit of wearing love tokens ‘in her bosom.’ She writes to Norfolk from Coventry (December, 1569), ‘I took the diamant from my Lord Boyd, which I shall keep unseene about my neck till I give it agayn to the owner of it and of me both.’[372]
As to the Contract of Marriage (if Mary wore that in her bosom[373]), two alleged contracts were produced for the prosecution. One was a ‘contract or promise of marriage’ by Mary to Bothwell, in the Italic hand, and in French; the hand was said to be Mary’s own. It was undated, and a memorandum in the ‘Detection’ says, ‘Though some words therein seme to the contrary, yet is on credible groundes supposed to have been made and written by her befoir the death of her husband.’ The document explicitly mentions that ‘God has taken’ Darnley. The document, or jewel, treasured by Mary would, of course, be Bothwell’s solemn promise, or token of promise, the counterpart of hers to him, published in Buchanan.[374]
Now there also existed a contract, said to be in Huntly’s hand, and signed by Mary and Bothwell, of date April 5 (at Seton), 1567. But this contract speaks of the process of divorce ‘intentit’ between Bothwell and his ‘pretensit spouse.’ Now that suit, on April 5, was not yet before the Court (though some documents had been put in), nor did Lady Bothwell move in the case till after Mary’s abduction.
If Mary kept this contract, and if it be correctly dated, then Letter VIII. is not of January-February, but of April, 1567.
If Mary regarded herself as now privately married, this pose would explain the phrase ‘your brother-in-law that was,’ in Letter VIII. But this is stretching possibilities.Mr. Hosack has argued that the Letter just translated was really written to Darnley, between whom and Mary some private preliminary ceremony of marriage was said to have passed. In that case the words par Paris, ‘I send you by Paris, &c.,’ are a forged interpolation, as Paris was not in Mary’s service till January, 1567. The opening sentence about the danger which, as every one thinks, menaces her correspondent, might refer to Darnley. But the tone of remonstrance against indifference, suspicion, and violated promises, is the tone of almost all the Casket Letters, and does not apply to Darnley—before his public marriage.
As to the ‘heart in a ring,’ Mary, as Laing notes, had written to Elizabeth ‘Je vous envoye mon coeur en bague.’ The phrase in the Letter, seul soutien de ma vie, also occurs in one of the Casket Sonnets.
To what known or alleged circumstances in Mary’s relations with Bothwell can this Letter refer? The alternatives are (1) either to her receipt of Bothwell’s answer to Letter II., which Paris (on our scheme of dates) gave to Mary on January 25, at Glasgow; (2) to the moment of her stay at Callendar, where she arrived, with Darnley, on January 27, taking him on January 28 to Linlithgow, whence, on January 29, ‘she wraytt to Bothwell.’ She had learned at Linlithgow, on January 28, by Hob Ormistoun, that Bothwell was on his way from Liddesdale.[375] Or (3) does the letter refer to Monday, April 21, when she was at Stirling till Wednesday, April 23, when she went to Linlithgow, Bothwell being ‘at Haltoun hard by,’ and carrying her off on April 24?[376]
Taking first (1)—we find Mary acknowledging in this letter the receipt of Bothwell’s ‘marriage.’ If this is a contract, did Bothwell send it in the letter which, according to Paris, he wrote on January 24, accompanying it with a diamond? ‘Tell the Queen,’ said Bothwell, ‘that I send her this diamond, which you are to carry, and that if I had my heart I would send it willingly, but I have it not.’ The diamond, a ring probably, might be referred to in Bothwell’s letter as a marriage or betrothal ring (French, union). In return Mary would send her mourning ring; ‘the stone I compare to my heart.’
This looks well, but how could Mary, who, ex hypothesi, had just received a ring, a promise or contract of marriage, and a loving message, complain, as she does, of ‘the coldness of your letters,’ ‘your violated promise,’ ‘your forgetfulness,’ ‘your want of care for me’? Danger to Bothwell, in Liddesdale, she might fear, but these other complaints are absolutely inconsistent with the theory that Bothwell had just sent a letter, a ring, a promise of marriage, and a loving verbal message. We must therefore dismiss hypothesis 1.
(2) Did Mary send this Letter on January 29 from Linlithgow? She had no neglect to complain of there; for, according to her accusers, she was met by Hob Ormistoun, with a letter or message. Paris says this was at Callendar, where she slept on January 27.[377] In that case Bothwell was yet more prompt. Again, Mary had now no fear of danger to Bothwell’s person, as she had just learned that Bothwell had left perilous Liddesdale. Here, once more, there is no room, reason, or ground for her complaints. Again, in the Letter she says that she sends the mourning ring ‘by Paris.’ But, if we are to believe Paris, she did not do so. He gave her Bothwell’s letter, received from Bothwell’s messenger, at Callendar, January 27. She answered it at bedtime, gave it to Paris to be given to Bothwell’s messenger, enclosing a ring, and the messenger carried ring and letter to Bothwell. She could not write, ‘I have sent you by Paris’ the ring, if she did nothing of the sort. Later, according to Paris, she did send him, with the bracelets, from Linlithgow to Edinburgh, where he met Bothwell, just mounting to ride and join Mary and Darnley on their return. The Letter, then, does not fit the circumstances of one written either at Callendar, January 27 (Paris), or at Linlithgow, January 29 (‘Cecil’s Journal’).
(3) That the ring, and the lamentations, were carried, by Paris, from Linlithgow to the neighbouring house of Haltoun, where Bothwell lay, on the night of April 23, the night before he bore Mary off to Dunbar, is not credible. Nothing indicates her receipt of token or contract of marriage at that date. The danger to Bothwell was infinitesimal. He was not neglecting Mary, he was close to her, and only waiting for daylight to carry her off. He wrote in reply, Paris says, and verbally promised to meet her, ‘on the road, at the bridge.’[378]
To a man who was thus doing his best to please her, a man whom she was to meet next day, Mary could not be writing long, affected complaints and lamentations. She would write, if at all, on details of the business on hand. No ring was carried by Paris, according to his own deposition.
Thus the contents of the Letter do not fit into any recorded or alleged juncture in Mary’s relations with Bothwell, after January 21, 1567, when Paris (whom the Letter mentions) first entered her service. Laing places the Letter last in the series, and supposes that the ring and letter were sent from Linlithgow, to Bothwell hard by (at Haltoun), the night before the ‘ravishment.’ But he does not make it plain that the contents of the Letter are really consistent with its supposed occasion.[379] When was Bothwell absent from Mary, cold, forgetful, and in danger, between the return from Glasgow, and the abduction? The Letter does not help the case of the prosecution.
We have exhausted the three conceivable alternatives as to the date, occasion, and circumstances of this Letter. Its contents fit none of these dates and occasions. Mr. Froude adds a fourth alternative. This Letter ‘was written just before the marriage’[380] when Bothwell (whose absence is complained of) was never out of Mary’s company.
There is not, in short, an obvious place for this Letter in the recorded circumstances of Mary’s history, though the lack of obviousness may arise from our ignorance of facts.
