THE CASKET SONNETS
When the ‘Detection’ of Buchanan was first published, La Mothe FÉnelon, French ambassador in England, writing to Charles IX., described the Sonnets as the worst, or most compromising, of all the evidence. They never allude to Darnley, and must have been written after his death. As is well known, BrantÔme says that such of Mary’s verses as he had seen were entirely unlike the Casket Sonnets, which are ‘too rude and unpolished to be hers.’ Ronsard, he adds, was of the same opinion. Both men had seen verses written hastily by Mary, and still ‘unpolished,’ whether by her, or by Ronsard, who may have aided her, as Voltaire aided Frederick the Great. Both critics were, of course, prejudiced in favour of the beautiful Queen. Both were good judges, but neither had ever seen 160 lines of sonnet sequence written by her under the stress of a great passion, and amidst the toils of travel, of business, of intense anxiety, all in the space of two days, April 21 to April 23.
Plate A
TWO SONNETS FROM THE CAMBRIDGE MS.
The hand somewhat resembles that of Mary in early youth,
and that of Mary Beaton
The copyist is unknown
That the most fervent and hurried sonneteer should write eleven sonnets in such time and circumstances is hard to believe, but we must allow for Mary’s sleepless nights, which she may have beguiled by versifying. It is known that a distinguished historian is occupied with a critical edition of these Sonnets. We may await his decision as to their relations with the few surviving poems of the Queen. My own comparison of these does not convince me that the favoured rhymes are especially characteristic of Mary. The topics of the Casket Sonnets, the author’s inability to remove the suspicions of the jealous Bothwell; her protestations of submission; her record of her sacrifices for him; her rather mean jealousy of Lady Bothwell, are also the frequent topics of the Casket Letters. The very phrases are occasionally the same: so much so as to suggest the suspicion that the Letters may have been modelled on the Sonnets, or the Sonnets on the Letters. If there be anything in this, the Sonnets are probably the real originals. Nothing is less likely than that a forger would think of such a task as forging verses by Mary: nor do we know any one among her enemies who could have produced the verses even if he had the will. To suspect Buchanan is grotesque. On the theory of a literary contest between Mary and Lady Bothwell for Bothwell’s affections, something is to be said in the following chapter. Meanwhile, I am obliged to share the opinion of La Mothe FÉnelon, that, as proof of Mary’s passion for Bothwell, the Sonnets are stronger evidence than the Letters, and much less open to suspicion than some parts of the Letters.
