[The following eight letters are the principal contents of the famous Silver Casket (cf. pp. 125 and 132-161). A long and bitter controversy has been waged in connection with the question of their authenticity. Every recorded production of them has been the subject of debate. Their discovery is related on pp. 203-207. Their appearance at York is described in the letter to Queen Elizabeth on pp. 138-143. It is evident that, at York, they were produced in Scots, and there has been considerable controversy as to whether they were there stated to be originals or translations. At Westminster, they were shown to the Commissioners in French. Within a few years after the Westminster Conference, we lose all trace of the original documents. Translations of them into Scots, English, and Latin and French versions, which we now know (at least in the case of some of the Letters) not to have been those produced at Westminster, were published soon after the Conference closed. In 1571, Latin translations of Nos. I., II., and IV. were printed in the Latin edition of Buchanan's "Detectio," and, in the same year, a Scots translation was published in London, containing the sonnets in French and Scots (reprinted in Anderson's "Collections," Vol. II.). Prefixed to each of the Scots versions was the first sentence of each letter, in French (see pp. 194-5). In 1572 another Scots version was published at St. Andrews, and, in 1573, a French translation of the "Detectio" appeared, with the imprimatur "Edinburgh." To it, French versions of all the letters, except No. III., were appended, with a version of the sonnets, varying considerably from that in the Scots "Detection." Research has revealed the existence of English translations of Nos. I. and II. and French versions of Nos. III. and V. in the Record Office; and of English translations and French versions of Nos. IV. and VI. at Hatfield. All these various versions will be found printed, in careful and scholarly fashion, in Appendix C. of Mr. T. F. Henderson's "Casket Letters and Mary Queen of Scots."
The method adopted in the present work has been to print the Scots version of all the letters, with a glossary of unusual words. It is the only complete version, and the published French and Latin letters are probably derived from it. Variations both in these and in such English and French versions of the letters as are at Hatfield or the Record Office, are indicated in notes appended to each letter. Care should be taken to distinguish between these Hatfield or Record Office French versions and the "Published French," i.e. the French of the edition of 1573.
References to the literature of the question will be found in an Appendix. For the guidance of the reader, it may be added that one section of the discussion turns upon the question whether French originals of Nos. I., II., VII., and VIII. ever existed; and the Scots and English have been carefully examined to discover if they bear traces of derivation from a French source.
Of the other contents of the Casket, the Sonnets, and the important clauses of the marriage contracts will be found immediately after the letters.]
The following Scots words, which appear frequently in the text of the letters, may be unknown to English readers:—
