prevailed. She was hurried to Loch Leven, after two dreadful days of tears
and frenzied threats and entreaties, and was locked up in the Castle on
the little isle, the Castle of her ancestral enemies, the Douglases. There
she awaited her doom, ‘the fiery death.’
IX
_THE EMERGENCE OF THE CASKET LETTERS_
I. First hints of the existence of the letters
The Lords, as we have seen, nominally rose in arms to punish Bothwell
(whom they had acquitted), to protect their infant Prince, and to rescue
Mary, whom they represented as Bothwell’s reluctant captive. Yet their
first success, at Carberry Hill, induced them, not to make Bothwell
prisoner, but to give him facilities of escape. Their second proceeding
was, not to release Mary, but to expose her to the insults of the
populace, and then to immure her, destitute and desperate, in the island
fortress of the Douglases.
These contradictions between their conduct and their avowed intentions
needed excuse. They could not say, ‘We let Bothwell escape because he knew
too much about ourselves: we imprisoned the Queen for the same good
reason.’ They had to protect themselves, first against Elizabeth, who
bitterly resented the idea that subjects might judge princes: next,
against the possible anger of the rulers of France and Spain; next,
against the pity of the mobile populace. There was also a chance that
Moray, who was hastening home from France, might espouse his sister’s
cause, as, indeed, at this moment he professed to do. Finally, in the
changes of things, Mary, or her son, might recover power, and exact
vengeance for the treasonable imprisonment of a Queen.
The Lords, therefore, first excused themselves (as in Lethington’s
discourses with du Croc) by alleging that Mary refused to abandon
Bothwell. This was, no doubt, true, though we cannot accept Lethington’s
word for the details of her passionate behaviour. Her defenders can fall
back on the report of Drury, that she was at this time with child, as she
herself informed Throckmorton, while Nau declares that, in Loch Leven, she
prematurely gave birth to twins. Mary always had a plausible and possible
excuse: in this case she could not dissolve her marriage with Bothwell
without destroying the legitimacy of her expected offspring. Later, in
1569, when she wished her marriage with Bothwell to be annulled, the Lords
refused assent. In the present juncture, of June, 1567, with their Queen a
captive in their hands, the Lords needed some better excuse than her
obstinate adherence to the husband whom they had selected for her. They
needed a reason for their conduct that would have a retro-active effect:
namely, positive proof of her guilt of murder.
No sooner was the proof wanted than it was found. Mary was imprisoned on
June 16: her guilty letters to Bothwell, the Casket Letters, with their
instigations to Darnley’s murder and her own abduction, were secured on
June 20, and were inspected, and entrusted to Morton’s keeping, on June
21. To Morton’s declaration about the discovery and inspection of the
Casket and Letters, we return in chronological order: it was made in
December, 1568, before the English Commissioners who examined Mary’s case.
The Lords were now, with these letters to justify them, in a relatively
secure position. They could, and did, play off France against England:
both of these countries were anxious to secure the person of the baby
Prince, both were obliged to treat with the Lords who had the alliance of
Scotland to bestow. Elizabeth wavered between her desire, as a Queen, to
help a sister Queen, and her anxiety not to break with the dominant
Scottish party. The Lords had hanged a retainer of Bothwell, Blackader,
taken after Carberry, who denied his guilt, and against whom nothing was
proved: but he had a Lennox jury. Two other underlings of Bothwell, his
porter Powrie and his ‘chamber-child’ Dalgleish, were taken and examined,
but their depositions, as reported by the Lords themselves, neither
implicated Mary, nor threw any light on the date at which the idea of an
explosion was conceived. It was then believed to have been projected
before Mary went to bring Darnley from Glasgow. This opinion reflected
itself in what was conceivably the earlier forged draft, never publicly
produced, of the long ‘Glasgow Letter’ (II.) Later information may have
caused that long letter to be modified into its present shape, or, as
probably, induced the Lords to fall back on a partly genuine letter, our
Letter II.
The Lords did by no means make public use, at first, of the Letters which
they had found, and were possibly garbling. We shall later make it clear,
it is a new point, that, on the very day of the reading, the Lords sent
Robert Melville post haste to Elizabeth, doubtless with verbal information
about their discovery. Leaving Edinburgh on June 21, the day of the
discovery, Melville was in London on June 23 or 24, dispatched his
business, and was in Berwick again on June 28. He carried letters for
Moray in France, but, for some reason, perhaps because the letters were
delayed or intercepted, Moray had to be summoned again. Meanwhile the
Lords, otherwise, kept their own counsel.[212] For reasons of policy they
let their good fortune ooze out by degrees.
On June 25, Drury, writing from Berwick, reports that ‘the Queen has had a
_box_,’ containing papers about her intrigues with France. ‘It is
promised Drury to have his part of it.’ This rumour of a ‘box’ _may_ refer
to the capture of the Casket.[213] On June 29, Drury again wrote about the
‘box,’ and the MSS. in it, ‘part in cipher deciphered.’ Whether this ‘box’
was the Casket, a false account of its contents being given to Drury, is
uncertain. We hear no more of it, nor of any of Mary’s own papers and
letters to her: no letters to her from Bothwell are reported.
The earliest known decided reference to the Letters is that of the Spanish
Ambassador, de Silva, writing from London on July 12, 1567. He says that
du Croc, the French Ambassador to Mary, has passed through town on his
return from Scotland. The French Ambassador in London, La Forest, reports
to de Silva that Mary’s ‘adversaries assert positively that they know she
had been concerned in the murder of her husband, which was proved by
letters under her own hand, copies of which were in his [whose?]
possession.’[214] Major Martin Hume writes, in his Preface to the
Calendar, ‘The many arguments against their genuineness, founded upon the
long delay in their production, thus disappear.’
It does not necessarily follow, however, that the letters of which du Croc
probably carried copies (unless La Forest merely bragged falsely, to vex
his Spanish fellow diplomatist) were either wholly genuine, or were
identical with the letters later produced. It is by no means certain that
Lethington and Sir James Balfour had not access, before June 21, to the
Casket, which was in Balfour’s keeping, within Edinburgh Castle. Randolph
later wrote (as we have already seen) that the pair had opened a little
‘coffer,’ with a green cloth cover, and taken out the band (which the pair
had signed) for Darnley’s murder.[215] Whether the Casket was thus early
tampered with is uncertain. But, as to du Croc’s copies of the Letters,
the strong point, for the accusers, is, that, when the Letters were
published, in Scots, Latin, and French, four years later, we do not hear
that any holders of du Croc’s copies made any stir, or alleged that the
copies did not tally with those now printed, in 1571-1573, by Mary’s
enemies. This point must be kept steadily in mind, as it is perhaps the
chief objection to the theory which we are about to offer. But, on
November 29, 1568, when Mary’s accusers were gathered in London to attack
her at the Westminster Conference, La Forest’s successor, La Mothe
Fénelon, writes to Charles IX. that they pretend to possess incriminating
letters ‘_escriptes et signées de sa main_;’ written and _signed_ by her
hand. Our _copies_ are certainly not signed, which, in itself, proves
little or nothing, but Mary’s contemporary defenders, Lesley and
Blackwood, urge that there was not even a pretence that the Letters were
signed, and this plea of theirs was not answered.
My point, however, is that though La Forest, according to de Silva, had
copies in July 1567, his successor at the English Court, doubtless well
instructed, knows nothing about them, as far as his despatch shows. But he
does say that the accusers are in search of evidence to prove the Letters
authentic, not forged.[216] He says (November 28) to Catherine de’ Medici,
that he thinks the proofs of Mary’s accusers ‘very slender and extremely
impertinent,’ and he has been consulted by Mary’s Commissioners.[217]
Of course it is possible that La Mothe Fénelon was not made acquainted
with what his predecessor, La Forest, knew: but this course of
secretiveness would not have been judicious. For the rest, the Court of
France was not in the habit of replying to pamphlets, like that which
contained copies of the Letters. It is unlikely that the copies given to
La Forest were destroyed, but we have no hint or trace of them in France.
Conceivably even if they differed (as we are to argue that they perhaps
did) from the Letters later produced, the differences, though proof of
tampering, did not redound to Mary’s glory. At the time when France was
negotiating Alençon’s marriage with Elizabeth, and a Franco-English
alliance (January-July, 1572), in a wild maze of international, personal,
and religious intrigue, while Catherine de’ Medici was wavering between
massacre of the Huguenots and alliance with them, it is far from
inconceivable that La Forest’s copies of the Letters were either
overlooked, or not critically and studiously compared with the copies now
published. To vex Elizabeth by criticism of two sets of copies of Letters
was certainly not then the obvious policy of France: though the published
Letters were thrust on the French statesmen.
The letters of La Mothe Fénelon, and of Charles IX., on the subject of
Buchanan’s ‘Detection,’ contain no hint that they thought the Letters,
therein published, spurious. They only resent their publication against a
crowned Queen.[218] The reader, then, must decide for himself whether La
Forest’s copies, if extant, were likely to be critically scanned and
compared with the published Letters, in 1571, or in the imbroglio of 1572;
and whether it is likely that, if this was done, and if the two copies did
not tally, French statesmen thought that, in the circumstances, when
Elizabeth was to be propitiated, and the Huguenots were not to be
offended, it was worth while to raise a critical question. If any one
thinks that this course of conduct--the critical comparison of La Forest’s
copies with the published copies, and the remonstrance founded on any
discrepancies detected--was the natural inevitable course of French
statecraft, at the juncture--then he must discredit my hypothesis. For my
hypothesis is, that the Letters extant in June and July, 1567, were not
wholly identical with the Letters produced in December, 1568, and later
published. It is hazarded without much confidence, but certain
circumstances suggest that it may possibly be correct.
To return to the management of the Letters in June-July, 1567. The Lords,
Mary’s enemies, while perpetually protesting their extreme reluctance to
publish Letters to Mary’s discredit, had now sent the rumour of them all
through Europe. Spain, and de Silva, were at that time far from friendly
to Mary. On July 21, 1567, de Silva writes: ‘I mentioned to the Queen
[Elizabeth] that I had been told that the Lords held certain letters
proving that the Queen [Mary] had been cognisant of the murder of her
husband.’ (The Letters, if they prove anything, prove more than that.)
‘She told me it was not true, _although Lethington had acted badly in the
matter_, and if she saw him she would say something that would not be at
all to his taste.’ Thus Elizabeth had heard the story about Letters (from
Robert Melville, as we indicate later?) and--what had she heard about
Lethington?[219] On June 21, the very day of the first inspection of the
Letters, Lethington had written to Cecil.[220] On June 28, Lethington
tells Cecil that, by Robert Melville’s letters, he understands Cecil’s
‘good acceptance of these noblemen’s quarrel’ for punishment of Darnley’s
murder and preservation of the Prince, ‘and her Majesty’s’ (Elizabeth’s)
‘gentle answer by Cecil’s furtherance.’[221] Yet, to de Silva, Elizabeth
presently denounced the ill behaviour of Lethington in the matter, and,
appearing to desire Mary’s safety, she sent Throckmorton to act in her
cause. To the Lords and Lethington, by Robert Melville, she sent a gentle
answer: Melville acting for the Lords. To Mary she averred (June 30) that
Melville ‘used much earnest speech on your behalf’ (probably accusing
Lethington of fraud as to the Letters), ‘yet such is the general report of
you to the contrary ... that we could not be satisfied by him.’[222]
Melville, we must remember, was acting for the Lords, but he is described
as ‘heart and soul Mary’s.’ He carried the Lords’ verbal report of the
Letters--but he also discredited it, blaming Lethington. Why did he not do
so publicly? At the time it was unsafe: later he and Lethington were
allies in the last stand of Mary’s party.
We do not know how much Elizabeth knew, or had been told; or how much she
believed, or what she meant, by her denunciation of Lethington, as regards
his conduct in the affair of the Letters. But we do know that, on June 30,
the Lords gave the lie, as in later proclamations they repeatedly did, to
their own story that they had learned the whole secret of Mary’s guilt on
June 21. On June 30, they issued, under Mary’s name, and under her signet,
a summons against Bothwell, for Darnley’s murder, and ‘for taking the
Queen’s most noble person by force to her Castle of Dunbar, detaining her,
_and for fear of her life making her promise to marry him_.’[223] The
Lords of Council in Edinburgh, at this time, were Morton (confessedly
privy to the murder, and confessedly banded with Bothwell to enable him to
marry Mary), Lethington, a signer of the band for Darnley’s murder;
Balfour, who knew all; Atholl, Home, James Makgill, and the Justice Clerk,
Bellenden--who had been in trouble for Riccio’s murder.[224] The same men,
several guilty, were spreading _privately_ the rumour of Mary’s wicked
Letters: and, at the same hour, were _publicly_ absolving her, in their
summons to Bothwell. As late as July 14, they spoke to Throckmorton of
Mary, ‘with respect and reverence,’ while alleging that ‘for the Lord
Bothwell she would leave her kingdom and dignity to live as a simple
damsel with him.’ Who can believe one word that such men spoke?
They assured Throckmorton that du Croc ‘carried with him matter little to
the Queen’s’ (Mary’s) ‘advantage:’ possibly, though not certainly, an
allusion to his copies of the Letters of her whom they spoke of ‘with
respect and reverence,’ and promised ‘to restore to her estate’--if she
would abandon Bothwell.[225]
‘I never saw greater confusion among men,’ says Throckmorton, ‘for often
they change their opinions.’ They were engaged in ‘continual preaching and
common prayer.’ On July 21, they assured Elizabeth that Mary was forced to
be Bothwell’s wife ‘by fear and other unlawful means,’ and that he kept
his former wife in his house, and would not have allowed Mary to live with
him for half a year. Yet Mary was so infatuated that, after her surrender,
‘he offered to give up realm and all, so she might enjoy him.’ This
formula, we shall see later, the Lords placed thrice in Mary’s mouth,
first in a reported letter of January, 1567 (never produced), next in a
letter of Kirkcaldy to Cecil (April 20), and now (July 21).[226]
At this time of Throckmorton’s mission, Lethington posed to him thus. ‘Do
you not see that it does not lie in my power to do that I would fainest
do, which is to save the Queen, my mistress, in estate, person, and in
honour?’ He declared that the preachers, the populace, and the chief
nobles wished to take Mary’s life.[227] Lethington thus drove his bargain
with Throckmorton. ‘If Elizabeth interferes,’ he said in sum, ‘Mary dies,
despite my poor efforts, and Elizabeth loses the Scottish Alliance.’ But
Throckmorton believed that Lethington really laboured to secure Mary’s
life and honour. His true object was to keep her immured. Randolph, as we
saw, accuses him to his face of advising Mary’s execution, or
assassination. By his present course with Throckmorton he kept Elizabeth’s
favour: he gave himself out as Mary’s friend.
The Lords at last made up their minds. On July 25, Lindsay was sent to
Loch Leven to extort Mary’s abdication, consent to the coronation of her
son, and appointment of Moray, or failing him, other nobles, to the
Regency. ‘If they cannot by fair means induce the Queen to their purpose,
they mean to charge her with tyranny for breach of those statutes which
were enacted in her absence. Secondly they mean to charge her with
incontinence with Bothwell, and others. Thirdly, they mean to charge her
with the murder of her husband, _whereof they say they have proof by the
testimony of her own handwriting_, which they have recovered, as also by
sufficient _witnesses_.’ The witnesses were dropped. Probably they were
ready to swear that Mary was at the murder in male costume, as in a legend
of the Lennox Papers! Lethington brought this news to Throckmorton between
ten and eleven at night.[228] It was the friendly Lethington who told
Throckmorton about the guilty Letters.
The Lords had, at last, decided to make use of the Letters attributed to
Mary, and of the ‘witnesses,’ and by these, or other modes of coercion,
they extorted her assent (valueless, so Throckmorton and Robert Melville
let her know, because she was a prisoner) to their proposals.[229] Despite
their knowledge of the Letters, the Lords, in proclamations, continued to
aver that Bothwell had ravished her by fear, force, and other unlawful
means, the very means of coercing Mary which they themselves were
employing. The brutality, hypocrisy, and low vacillating cunning of the
Lords, must not blind us to the fact that they certainly, since late in
June, held new cards, genuine or packed.
It is undeniable that the first notices of the Letters, by de Silva, prove
that the Lords, about the date assigned by Morton, did actually possess
themselves of useful documents. Their vacillations as to how and when they
would play these cards are easily explained. Their first care was to
prejudice the Courts of France, Spain, and Elizabeth against Mary by
circulating the tale of their discovery. If they had published the papers
at once, they might then have proceeded to try and to execute, perhaps (as
the Highland seeress predicted) to _burn_ Mary. The preachers urged them
to severity, but some of them were too politic to proceed to extremes,
which might bring in Elizabeth and France as avengers. But, if Mary was to
be spared in life, to publish the Letters at once would ruin their value
as an ‘awe-bond.’ They could only be used as a means of coercing Mary,
while they were unknown to the world at large. If the worst was known,
Mary would face it boldly. Only while the worst was not generally known
could the Letters be used to ‘blackmail’ her. Whether the Letters were, in
fact, employed to extort Mary’s abdication is uncertain. She was advised,
as we said, by Throckmorton and Robert Melville, that her signature, while
a captive, was legally invalid, so she signed the deeds of abdication,
regency, and permission to crown her son. For the moment, till Moray
arrived, and a Parliament was held, the Lords needed no more. Throckmorton
believed that he had saved Mary’s life: and Robert Melville plainly told
Elizabeth so.[230]
Thus it is clear that the Lords held documents, genuine, or forged, or in
part authentic, in part falsified. Their evasive use of the papers, their
self-contradictions in their proclamations, do not disprove this fact. But
were the documents those which they finally published? This question, on
which we may have new light to throw, demands a separate investigation.
X
_THE CASKET LETTERS_
II. A POSSIBLY FORGED LETTER
Were the documents in the possession of the Lords, after June 21, those
which they later exhibited before Elizabeth’s Commissioners at Westminster
(December, 1568)? Here we reach perhaps the most critical point in the
whole inquiry. A Letter to Bothwell, attributed to Mary, was apparently in
the hands of the Lords (1567-1568), a Letter which was highly
compromising, _but never was publicly produced_. We first hear of this
Letter by a report of Moray to de Silva, repeated by de Silva to Philip of
Spain (July, 1567).
Before going further we must examine Moray’s probable sources of
information as to Mary’s correspondence. From April 7, to the beginning of
July, he had been out of Scotland: first in England; later on the
Continent. As early as May 8, Kirkcaldy desired Bedford to forward a
letter to Moray, bidding him come to Normandy, in readiness to return,
(and aid the Lords,) now banding against Bothwell.[231] ‘He will haste
him after he has seen it.’ Moray did not ‘haste him,’ his hour had not
come. He was, however, in touch with his party. On July 8, a fortnight
after the discovery of the Casket, Robert Melville, at ‘Kernye’ in Fife,
sends ‘Jhone a Forret’ to Cecil. John is to go on to Moray, and
(Lethington adds, on July 9) a packet of letters for Moray is to be
forwarded ‘with the greatest diligence that may be.’ Melville says, as to
‘Jhone a Forret’ (whom Cecil, in his endorsement, calls ‘Jhon of
Forrest’), ‘Credit the bearer, who knows all occurrents.’ Can ‘Jhone a
Forret’ be a cant punning name for John Wood, sometimes called ‘John a
Wood,’ by the English, a man whom Cecil knew as Moray’s secretary? John
Wood was a Fifeshire man, a son of Sir Andrew Wood of Largo, and from Fife
Melville was writing. Jhone a Forret is, at all events, a bearer whom, as
he ‘knows all occurents,’ Cecil is to credit.[232] This Wood is the very
centre of the secret dealings of Mary’s enemies, of the Lords, and Lennox.
Cecil, Elizabeth, and Leicester are asked to ‘credit’ him, later, as Cecil
‘credited’ ‘Jhone a Forret.’
Up to this date (July 8) when letters were sent by the Lords to Moray, he
was, or feigned to be, friendly to his sister. On that day a messenger of
his, from France, was with Elizabeth, who told Cecil that Moray was vexed
by Mary’s captivity in Loch Leven, and that he would be ‘her true servant
in all fortunes.’ He was sending letters to Mary, which the Lords were
not to see.[233] His messenger was Nicholas Elphinstone, who was not
allowed to give Mary his letters.[234] After receiving the letters sent to
him from Scotland on July 8, Moray turned his back on his promises of
service to Mary. But, before he received these letters, Archbishop Beaton
had told Alava that Moray was his sister’s mortal enemy and by him
mistrusted.[235] Moray’s professions to Elizabeth may have been a blind,
but his letters for Mary’s private eye have a more genuine air.
Moray arrived in England on July 23.