_Mary Queen of Scots and Bothwell's Confession_ (Vol. iv., p.
313.).--ÆGROTUS refers, I presume, to a document which he will find in a
little volume entitled, _Les Affaires du Comte de Bodnée_, published at
Edinburgh by the Bannatyne Club in 1829. The narrative was written in
the old French, at Copenhagen. The original is still preserved in the
Royal Library of the Castle of Drottningholm in Sweden. Bothwell wrote
it on "la vielle des Roys," 1568, and appears to have given it to the
Chevalier de Dauzay, the French ambassador, to be communicated to the
King of Denmark. Dauzay received it on the 13th of January, 1568, and
placed it before the ministers of the King on the 16th of January. M.
Mignet, in his history, throws discredit on this confession, styling it
"a very adroit narrative" (_L'Histoire de Marie Stuart_, vol. i.
appendix H.); though such a self-crimination, at such a time, would seem
to any impartial mind to weigh strongly in favour of the ill-fated young
queen, whose character it tends to exculpate.