Casket Letters on which he remarks. And well might he have seen them, for
his three despatches of June 11 are ‘all written on the same sheets, _and
in the same hand_,’ as two letters written and sent, on the following day,
by John Wood, from Greenwich, to Moray and Lethington. Thus Wood, or his
secretary, wrote out all five epistles.[249] Consequently Wood, who had
translations of the Casket Letters, was then with Lennox, and was likely
to be now and then with him, till the Conference at York in October. On
October 3, just before the Conference at York, Lady Lennox tells Cecil
that she means to speak to Mr. John Wood, if he is at Court, for he knows
who the murderers are.[250] And Wood carried to Lennox, at York, Lady
Lennox’s despatches.[251] Being allied with Wood, as the Chiswick and
Greenwich letters of June 11, 12, prove, and writing to Wood’s master,
Moray, about Mary’s Casket Letters, it is hardly probable that Lennox had
not been shown by Wood the Scots versions of the Casket Letters, then in
Wood’s custody. And when, about this date or later, Lennox composed the
long indictment against Mary, and quoted the letter already cited by
Moray, it is hardly credible that he described the long poisonous document
from mere hearsay, caught from Moray in the previous year. It is at least
as likely, if not much more so, that his description of the long letter
was derived from a translation of the letter itself, as it then existed in
the hands of Wood. Is it probable that Wood (who was known to have in his
custody the Letters to which Lennox refers, in his epistle to Moray of
June 11) could withhold them from the father of the murdered Darnley, a
noble who had been selected by the Lords as a co-Regent with Moray, and
who was, like himself, a correspondent of Moray and an eager prosecutor of
the Queen? If then Wood did in June, 1568, show to Lennox the Casket
Letters as they then existed, when Lennox presently described the long
murderous letter, he described what he had seen, namely a _pièce de
conviction_ which was finally suppressed. And that it was later than his
meeting with Wood, on June 11, 1568, that Lennox prepared his elaborate
discourse, is obvious, for what reason had he to compose an indictment
before, in June or later, it became clear that Mary’s case would be tried
in England?
Not till June 8 did Elizabeth send to Moray, bidding him ‘impart to her
plainly all that which shall be meet to inform her of the truth for their
defence in such weighty crimes’ as their rebellion against Mary.[252]
Mary, Elizabeth declared, ‘is content to commit the ordering of our case
to her,’ and Moray has consented, through Wood, ‘to declare to us your
whole doings.’ Elizabeth therefore asks for Moray’s evidence against Mary.
From that date, June 8, the negotiations for some kind of trial of Mary
went on till October, 1568. In that period, Lennox must have written the
discourse in which he cites the false letter, and in that period he had
the aid of Wood, in whose hands the Scots translations were.
The inference that Lennox borrowed his description of a long poisonous
epistle from a forged letter, a very long letter, then in Wood’s custody
with the rest, and occupying the place later taken by Letter II., is
natural, and not illogical, but rather is in congruence with the relations
between Wood and Lennox. The letter described had points in common with
Letter II. (as when Mary wishes Bothwell in her arms) and with the Casket
Sonnets. It certainly was not a genuine document, and certainly raises a
strong presumption that fraud was being attempted by Mary’s enemies. But
we need not, for that reason, infer that Letter II. is a forgery. It may
be genuine, and may have been in the hands of Mary’s enemies. Yet they may
have tried to improve upon it and make it more explicit, putting forward
to that end the epistle quoted by Lennox and Moray. If so they later fell
back on Letter II., possibly garbled it, and suppressed their first
version.
Lennox, as we shall see, did not rest on his earlier form of the
indictment, with its description of Mary’s letter about poisoning Darnley
and Lady Bothwell, which he originally drew up, say in July-August, 1568.
In his letters from Chiswick he asked for all sorts of evidence from
Scotland. He got it, and, then, dropping his first indictment (which
contained only parts of such matter), he composed a second. That second
document was perhaps still unfinished, or imperfect, just before the
meeting of Commissioners at York (October 6, 1568).
That the second indictment, about October 1, 1568, was still in the
making, I at first inferred from the following passage which occurs in a
set of pieces of evidence collected for Lennox, but without date. ‘Ferder
your h. sall have advertisement of, as I can find, but it is gude that
this mater’ (Lennox’s construction of a new indictment) ‘be not endit
quile’ (until) ‘your h. _may haif copie of the letter_, quhilk I sall haif
at _York_, so sone as I may haif a traist berar’ (a trusty bearer to carry
the copy to Lennox). So I read the letter, but Father Pollen, no doubt
correctly, in place of ‘York’ reads ‘your h.;’ that is, ‘Your Honour,’ a
common phrase. The date yielded by ‘York’ therefore vanishes. We can,
therefore, only infer that this correspondent, writing not to Lennox, it
appears, but to some one, Wood perhaps, engaged in getting up the case,
while sending him information for his indictment, advises that it be not
finished till receipt of a copy of a certain letter, which is to be sent
by a trusty bearer. It may be our Letter II. We can have no certainty. In
his new indictment, substituted for his former discourse, Letter II. is
the only one to which Lennox makes distinct allusion.
He now omits the useful citations of the mysterious epistle which he had
previously used; and, instead, quotes Letter II. The old passages cited
were more than good enough for Lennox’s purpose, but they are no longer
employed by him. There can be no doubt as to which of his discourses is
the earlier and which the later. That containing the report of Mary’s
letter which agrees with Moray’s report to de Silva, lacks the numerous
details about Hiegait, Crawford, Mary’s taunts to Darnley, their quarrel
at Stirling, and so forth, and we know that, on June 11, 1568, Lennox had
sent to Scotland asking for all these particulars. They all duly appear in
the second discourse which contains reference to Letter II. They are all
absent from the discourse which contains the letter about the scheme for
poisoning Darnley and Lady Bothwell. Therefore that indictment is the
earlier: written on evidence of Darnley’s servants, and from ‘the sayings
and reports’ of Mary’s servants.
For what reason should Lennox drop the citations from the poisonous
letter, which he quoted in his earlier discourse, if such a letter was to
be produced by the Lords? The words were of high value to his argument.
But drop them he did in his later discourse, and, in place of them, quoted
much less telling lines from Letter II.
All this is explained, if Letter II. was a revised and less explicit
edition of the letter first reported on by Lennox; or if the letter first
quoted was an improved and more vigorous version of a genuine Letter II.
Mr. Hosack, when he had only Moray’s account of the mysterious letter
before him, considered it fatal to the authenticity of Letter II., which
he thought a cleverly watered-down version of the mysterious letter, and,
like it, a forgery. Mr. Hosack’s theory is reinforced by Lennox’s longer
account of the mysterious epistle. But he overlooked the possibility that
Letter II. may not be a diluted copy of the forgery, but a genuine
original on which the forgery was based. It may be asked, if the Letter
touched on by Lennox and Moray was a forged letter, why was it dropped,
and why was another substituted before the meeting of Commissioners at
York? As we have only brief condensed reports of the Letter which never
was produced, our answer must be incomplete. But Moray’s description of
the document speaks of ‘the house where the explosion was arranged,’
before Mary left Edinburgh for Glasgow. Now, according to one confession,
taken after the finding of the Casket, namely on December 8, 1567, the
explosion was not dreamed of ‘till within two days before the
murder.’[253] Therefore Mary could not, on reflection, be made to write
that the gunpowder plot was arranged before January 21, 1567, for that
contradicted the confession, and the confession was put in as evidence.
The proceedings of Mary’s accusers, therefore, may have taken the
following line. First, having certainly got hold of a silver casket of
Mary’s, about June 21, 1567, they either added a forgery, or, perhaps,
interpolated, as her Lords said, ‘the most principal and substantious’
clauses. They probably gave copies to du Croc: and they told Throckmorton
that they had not only letters, but _witnesses_ of Mary’s guilt. These
witnesses doubtless saw Mary at the murder ‘in male apparel,’ as Lennox
says some declared that she was. But these witnesses were never produced.
They sent, probably, by ‘Jhone a Forret,’ copies to Moray, one of which,
the mysterious letter, in July, 1567, he partly described to de Silva. In
June, 1568, they sent translated copies into England with Wood. These were
not seen by Sussex, Norfolk, and Sadleyr (the men who, later, sat as
Commissioners at York), but Wood, perhaps, showed them, or parts of them,
to Lennox, who cited portions of the mysterious Letter in his first
indictment. But, when Moray, Morton, Lethington, and the other
Commissioners of the Lords were bound for the Inquiry at York, they looked
over their hand of cards, re-examined their evidence. They found that the
‘long letter’ cited by Moray and Lennox contradicted the confession of
Bowton, and was altogether too large and mythical. They therefore
manufactured a subtler new edition, or fell back upon a genuine Letter II.
If so, they would warn Lennox, or some one with Lennox, in framing his new
indictment, to wait for their final choice as to this letter. He did
wait, received a copy of it, dropped the first edition of the letter, and
interwove the second edition, which may be partly genuine, with his
‘discourse.’
This is, at least, a coherent hypothesis. There is, however, another
possible hypothesis: admirers of the Regent Moray may declare. Though
capable of using his sister’s accomplices to accuse his sister, ‘the noble
and stainless Moray’ was not capable of employing a forged document. On
returning to Scotland he found that, in addition to the falsified Letter,
there existed the genuine Letter II., really by Mary. Like a conscientious
man, he insisted that the falsified Letter should be suppressed, and
Letter II. produced.
This amiable theory may be correct. It is ruined, however, if we are right
in guessing that, when Moray sent Wood into England with Scots versions of
the Letters (May, 1568), he may have included among these a copy of the
falsified Letter, which was therefore cited by Lennox.
There is another point of suspicion, suggested by the Lennox Papers. In
Glasgow Letter II., Mary, writing late at night, is made to say, ‘I cannot
sleep as thay do, and as I wald desyre, _that is in zour armes_, my deir
lufe.’ In the Lennox account of the letter quoted by Moray to de Silva,
she ‘_wishes him then present in her arms_.’ In the Lennox Paper she
speaks of Darnley’s ‘sweet baits,’ ‘_flattering_ and sweet words,’ which
have ‘almost overcome her.’ In the English text of Letter II., Darnley
‘used so many kinds of _flatteries_ so coldly and wisely as you would
marvel at.’ His speeches ‘would make me but to have pity on him.’ Finally,
in the Lennox version of the unproduced Letter, Mary represents herself as
ready to ‘abandon her God, put in adventure the loss of her dowry in
France, hazard such titles as she had to the crown of England, as heir
apparent thereof, and also to the crown of the realm.’ Nothing of this
detailed kind occurs, we have seen, in the Letters, as produced. Similar
sentiments are found, however, in the first and second Casket Sonnets. ‘Is
he not in possession of my body, of my heart which recoils neither from
pain, nor dishonour, nor uncertainty of life, nor offence of kindred, nor
worse woe? For him I esteem all my friends less than nothing.... I have
hazarded for him name and conscience; for him I desire to renounce the
world ... in his hands and in his power I place my son’ (which she did not
do), ‘my honour, my life, my realm, my subjects, my own subject soul.’
It is certainly open, then, to a defender of Mary to argue that the
Letters and Sonnets, as produced and published, show traces of the ideas
and expressions employed in the letter described by Moray, and by Lennox.
Now that letter, certainly, was never written by Mary. It had to be
dropped, for it was inconsistent with a statement as to the murder put
forward by the prosecution; Bowton’s examination.
In short, the letter cited by Moray, and by Lennox, the long letter from
Glasgow, looks like a sketch, later modified, for Letter II., or a forgery
based on Letter II., and suggests that forgeries were, at some period,
being attempted. As the Glasgow Letter (II.), actually produced, also
contains (see ‘The Internal Evidence’) the highly suspicious passage
tallying verbally with Crawford’s deposition, there is no exaggeration in
saying that the document would now carry little weight with a jury.
Against all this we must not omit to set the failure to discredit the
Letters, when published later, by producing the contemporary copies
reported by de Silva to be in the hands of La Forest, or du Croc, as early
as July, 1567. But the French Government (if ever it had the copies) was
not, as we have said, when Buchanan’s ‘Detection’ was thrust on the
courtiers, either certain to compare La Forest’s copies and the published
Letters critically, or to raise a question over discrepancies, if they
existed. In any case neither Charles IX., nor La Mothe Fénelon, in 1571,
wrote a word to suggest that they thought the Casket Papers an imposture.
XI
_THE LETTERS AT THE CONFERENCE OF YORK_
In tracing the history of the mysterious letter cited by Moray in July,
1567, and by Lennox about July, 1568, we have been obliged to diverge from
the chronological order of events. We must return to what occurred
publicly, as regards the Letters, after Throckmorton was told of their
existence, by Lethington in Scotland in July, 1567. Till May, 1568, Mary
remained a prisoner in Loch Leven. For some time after July, 1567, we hear
nothing more of the Letters. Elizabeth (August 29) bade Throckmorton tell
Mary’s party, the Hamiltons, that ‘she well allows their proceedings as
far as they concern the relief of the Queen.’ On August 30, Moray asked
Cecil to move Elizabeth ‘to continue in her good will of him and his
proceedings!’[254] Elizabeth, then, was of both parties: but rather more
inclined to that of Mary, despite Throckmorton’s report as to Mary’s
Letters. They are next alluded to by Drury, writing from Berwick on
October 28, 1567. ‘The writings which comprehended the names and consents
of the chief for the murdering of the King is turned into ashes, the same
not unknown to the Queen (Mary) and the same which concerns her part kept
to be shown.’[255]
On December 4, the Lords of the Privy Council, ‘and other barons and men
of judgement,’ met in Edinburgh. They were mainly members of the
Protestant Left.[256] Their Declaration (to be reported presently) was the
result, they tell us, of several days of reasoning and debate. Nor is it
surprising that they found themselves in a delicate posture. Some of them
had been in the conspiracy; others had signed the request to Bothwell that
he would marry the Queen, and had solemnly vowed to defend his quarrel,
and maintain his innocence. Yet if they would gain a paper and
Parliamentary security for their lives and estates (subject to be
attainted and forfeited if ever Mary or her son came to power, and wished
to avenge Darnley’s murder and the Queen’s imprisonment), they must prove
that, in imprisoning Mary, they had acted lawfully. This they
demonstrated, though ‘most loth to do so,’ by asking Parliament to approve
of all their doings since Darnley’s death (which included their promise to
defend Bothwell, and their advice to Mary to marry him). And Parliament
was to approve, because their hostile acts ‘was in the said Queen’s own
default, in as far as by divers her private letters, written and
subscribed with her own hand, and sent by her to James, Earl Bothwell,
chief executor of the said horrible murder, as well before the committing
thereof as thereafter, and by her ungodly and dishonourable proceeding in
a private marriage with him; ... it is most certain that she was privy,
art and part, and of the actual device and deed of the forementioned
murder, ... and therefore justly deserves whatsoever has been attempted or
shall be used toward her for the said cause....’
From the first, it seems, ‘all men in their hearts were fully persuaded of
the authors’ of the crime. Bothwell, to be sure, had been acquitted, both
publicly and privately, by his peers and allies. Moray had invited an
English envoy to meet him, at a dinner where all the other guests were
murderers. People, however, only ‘awaited until God should move the hearts
of some to enter in the quarrel of avenging the same’--which they did by
letting Bothwell go free, and entrapping Mary! The godly assemblage then
explains how ‘God moved the hearts of some.’ The nobles were ‘in just
fear’ of being ‘handled’ like Darnley, ‘perceiving the Queen so thrall and
bloody’ (_sic_: probably a miswriting for ‘blindly’) ‘affectionate to the
private appetite of that tyrant,’ Bothwell.
The Council thus gave the lie to their own repeated averments, that
Bothwell caused Mary to wed him by fear and force. Now she is gracefully
spoken of as ‘bloody affectionate.’
It will be observed that, like Moray earlier, they here describe Mary’s
Letters as ‘signed.’ The Casket Letters (in our copies) are unsigned. The
originals may have been signed, they were reported to La Forest to be
signed as late as December, 1568.
On December 15, a Parliament met in Edinburgh. According to Nau, Mary’s
secretary, inspired by her, she had already written from prison a long
letter to Moray. ‘She demanded permission to be heard in this Parliament,
either in person or by deputy, thereby to answer the false calumnies which
had been _published_ about her since her imprisonment.’ Mary offered to
lay down her crown ‘of free will,’ and to ‘submit to all the rigour of the
laws’ which she desired to be enforced against Darnley’s murderers. None
should be condemned unheard. If not heard, she protested against all the
proceedings of the Parliament.[257]
This may be true: this was Mary’s very attitude when accused at
Westminster. Mary made the same assertion as to this demand of hers to be
heard, in her ‘Appeal to Christian Princes,’ in June, 1568.[258] Not only
had she demanded leave to be present, and act as her own advocate, but
Atholl and Tullibardine, she said, had admitted the justice of her
claim--and just it was. But neither then, nor at Westminster in December,
1568, was Mary allowed to appear and defend herself. She knew too much,
could have proved the guilt of some of her accusers, and would have broken
up their party. A Scots Parliament always voted with the dominant faction.
The Parliament passed an Act in the sense of the resolution of the Council
and assessors. The Letters, however, are now described, in this Act, not
as ‘signed’ or ‘subscribed,’ but as ‘written wholly with her own
hand.’[259] No valuable inference can be drawn from the discrepancy.
Nau says not a word about the Letters, but avers that Herries protested
that Mary might not have signed her abdication by free will: her signature
might even have been forged. He asked leave, with others, to visit her at
Loch Leven, but this was refused. ‘Following his example, many of the
Lords refused to sign the Acts of this Parliament.’[260] It appears that
the Letters really were ‘produced’ in this Parliament, for Mary’s Lords
say so in their Declaration of September 12, 1568, just before the
Commissioners met at York. They add that ‘there is in no place’ (of ‘her
Majesty’s writing’) ‘mention made, by which her highness might be convict,
albeit it were her own handwriting, as it is not.’ The Lords add, ‘and
also the same’ (Mary’s ‘writing’) ‘is devysit by themselves in some
principal and substantious clauses.’[261] This appears to mean that, while
the handwriting of the Letters is not Mary’s, parts of the substance were
really hers, ‘principal and substantious clauses’[262] being introduced by
the accusers.
This theory is upheld by Gerdes, and Dr. Sepp, with his hypothesis that
the Casket Letters consist of a Diary of Mary’s, mingled with letters of
Darnley’s, and interpolated with ‘substantious clauses.’[263] When the
originals were produced in England, none of Mary’s party were present to
compare them with the Letters shown in the Scottish Parliament.
The Letters are not remarked on again till after Mary’s escape from Loch
Leven, and flight into England (May 16, 1568), when Moray writes about
them on June 22, 1568.
Wood, in May, as we saw, had carried with him into England copies of the
Letters translated into our language: so says the instruction given by
Elizabeth’s Government to Middlemore. Moray understood that Elizabeth
intended to ‘take trial’ of Mary’s case, ‘with great ceremony and
solemnities.’ He is ‘most loth’ to accuse Mary, though, privately or
publicly, his party had done so incessantly, for a whole year. Now he asks
that those who are to judge the case shall read the Scots translations of
the Letters in Wood’s possession (why in Scots, not in the original
French?), and shall say whether, if the French originals coincide, the
evidence will be deemed sufficient.
Whatever we may think of the fairness of this proposal, it is clear that
the French texts, genuine or forged, as they then stood, were already in
accordance with the Scots texts, to be displayed by Wood. If the
mysterious letter was in Wood’s hands in Scots, doubtless Moray had a
forged French version of it. Any important difference in the French texts,
when they came to be shown, would have been fatal. But, apparently, they
were not shown at this time to Elizabeth.
It is unnecessary to enter on the complicated negotiations which preceded
the meeting of Elizabeth’s Commissioners, at York (October, 1568), with
Mary’s representatives, and with Moray (who carried the Casket with him)
and his allies, Buchanan, Wood, Makgill, Lethington, and others. Mary had
the best promises from Elizabeth. She claimed the right of confronting her
accusers, from the first. If the worst came to the worst, if the Letters
were produced, she believed that she had valid evidence of the guilt of
Morton and Lethington, at least. In a Lennox Paper, of 1569, we read:
‘Whereas the Queen said, when she was in Loch Leven, that she had that in
black and white that would cause Lethington to hang by the neck, which
Letter, if it be possible, it were very needful to be had.’ Nau says that
Bothwell, on leaving Mary at Carberry, gave her a band for Darnley’s
murder, signed by Morton, Lethington, Balfour, and others, ‘and told her
to take good care of that paper.’ Some such document, implicating
Lethington at least, Mary probably possessed ‘in black and white.’ The
fact was known to her accusers, she had warned Lethington as we saw (p.
189), and their knowledge influenced their policy. When Wood wrote to
Moray, from Greenwich, on June 12, 1568, as to Scottish Commissioners to
meet Elizabeth’s, and discuss Mary’s case, he said that it was much
doubted, in England, whether Lethington should be one of them. To
Lethington he said that he had expected Mary to approve of his coming,
‘but was then surely informed she had not only written and accused him,
and my Lord of Morton as privy to the King’s murder, but affirmed she had
both their handwritings to testify the same, which I am willed to signify
to you, that you may consider thereof. You know her goodwill towards you,
and how prompt of spirit she is to invent anything that might tend to your
hurt. The rest I remit to your wisdom.... Mr. Secretary’ (Cecil) ‘and Sir
Nicholas’ (Throckmorton) ‘are both direct against your coming here to this
trial.’[264] But it was less unsafe for Lethington to come, and perhaps
try to make his peace with Mary, than to stay in Scotland. Mary also, in
her appeal to all Christian Princes, declares that the handwriting of
several of her accusers proves that they are guilty of the crime they lay
to her charge.[265] It is fairly certain that she had not the murder band,
but something she probably did possess. And Nau says that she had told
Lethington what she knew on June 16, 1567.
If the Casket Letters were now produced, and if Mary were allowed to
defend herself, backed by her own charms of voice and tears, then some, at
least, of her accusers would not be listened to by that assemblage of
Peers and Ambassadors before which she constantly asked leave to plead,
‘in Westminster Hall.’ The Casket Letters, produced by men themselves
guilty, would in these circumstances be slurred as probable forgeries.
Mary would prefer not to come to extremities, but if she did, as Sussex,
one of Elizabeth’s Commissioners, declared, in the opinion of some ‘her
proofs would fall out the better.’