mouth _very_ broad. The jawbone is prominent (partly on account of the
drying up of the flesh). The hind part of the skull is broad and deep. The
arms are folded on the chest, below which the body is still wrapped in its
winding sheet, only the feet emerging from it. The head lies on some white
stuff which seems to be silk. All about the body is a quantity of
vegetable remains, looking like broken sticks; they told me it was hops,
supposed to have preserving qualities.
As for the authenticity of the relic, there is no absolute proof. It is
probable and likely; not certain. That Bothwell died in Dragsholm and was
buried in Faarvejle church is certain. The coffin has no mark, no
inscription, no sign whatever allowing identification. But, if not
Bothwell, who can this be--for there _it_ is? That careful embalming is
not a usual process; the other people buried in the church either have
their names on their coffins or are not of such importance as to justify
such a costly process.
A careful burial and no name on the tomb tally rather well with the
circumstances: for the man was a great man, the husband of a Queen; and
yet what was to be done with his body? would he not be sent back to
Scotland some day? what rites should be allowed him? Even before his
death Bothwell had become, so to say, anonymous; and, to get rid of
importunities, the Danish King, Fred. II., had allowed the rumour of his
death to be spread several years before it happened.
The question remains an open one. J. J. A. Worsaae believed in the
authenticity of the relic. The professor of anatomy, I. Ibsen, has also
pronounced in its favour. Others have disagreed. Anatomici certant.
APPENDIX B
THE BURNING OF LYON KING OF ARMS
Among the mysteries of Mary’s reign, none is more obscure than the burning
of Sir William Stewart, the Lyon King at Arms: at St. Andrews, in August,
1569. In 1560, Stewart was Ross Herald, and carried letters between Mary
and Elizabeth.[404] On February 11, 1568, when Moray was Regent, we find
Stewart sent on a mission to Denmark. He was to try to obtain the
extradition of Bothwell, or, at least, to ask that he might be more
strictly guarded.[405] Now we know that, according to Moray, Bothwell’s
valet, Paris, did not arrive in Scotland from Denmark till June, 1569,
though he was handed over to Captain Clark in October, 1568. Miss
Strickland conjectured that Sir William Stewart, now Lyon Herald, brought
back Paris from Denmark, learned from him that Mary was innocent, and
Moray’s associates culpable, and so had to be put out of the way. But the
Lyon Herald returned to Scotland without Paris, a year before Paris; for
he was in Scotland by July, 1568, and Paris did not land till June, 1569.
On July 20, 1568, Drury informs Cecil that Moray ‘has understanding who
has determined to kill him,’ and has enlisted a bodyguard of thirty
gentlemen. Drury adds--I cite him in his native orthography--
‘I send unto your h. herewt. some pease off the woorke that the conjurers
that dyd vse theyre develysshe skyle dyd devyse above Edenborogh, the
platte whereoff I sente you before paynted.[406] And so ajayne I humbly
take my leave.
‘Some money they fownde. Will Stwart kyng off herauldee one off the parte
players he that they judge schoold be the fynder off the threasure,
schoold be the rejente.’
Here Drury speaks of ‘conjurers,’ who have played some prank involving
discovery of a treasure. Stewart was one of the party, but what is meant
by ‘he that they judge should be finder of the treasure, should be
Regent’? There is, apparently, some connection between the treasure hunt
and the plot to kill Moray, and Stewart is mixed up with the magic of the
treasure hunters. We know that Napier of Merchistoun, inventor of
Logarithms, was to assist Logan of Restalrig to find treasure, ‘by arts to
him known,’ at a later date. Probably the divining rod was to be employed,
as in a case cited by Scott.
But in 1568, Napier of the Logarithms was only a boy of eighteen.
Returning to the plot to kill Moray: on August 14, 1568, Patrick Hepburn,
bastard of the Bishop of Moray, and cousin of Bothwell, was taken in
Scone, by Ruthven and Lindsay, brought before Moray at Stirling, and
thence taken to Edinburgh. He was examined, revealed the nature of the
plot, and gave up the names of his accomplices.[407]
This Patrick Hepburn was parson of Kynmoir by simoniacal arrangement with
his father, the Bishop. It seems possible that Stewart met Bothwell, when
he was in Denmark, in the spring of the year, and induced him to arrange a
conspiracy with his cousin, Patrick Hepburn. Before Hepburn was taken, the
Lyon Herald, on August 2, fled to Dumbarton, where he was safe under the
protection of Lord Fleming, then holding Dumbarton Castle for Mary.[408]
The Herald ‘was suspecte of conspiracy against the life of the Regent, the
Earll of Moray.’ He lost his place as Lyon King at Arms, and Sir David
Lindsay was appointed to the office, held under James V. by his poet
namesake. On August 19, Sir William Stewart wrote, from Dumbarton, a
letter to a lord, not named. This lord had written to ask Fleming to give
up Stewart, who believes that he was instigated by some other. ‘For I
cannot think that you can be so ingrate as to seek my innocent life and
blood, considering that I have so favourably and so oft forewarned you of
the great misery that you are like to fall into now, for not following my
counsel and admonitions made oft and in due time.’ Here we see Stewart
claiming foreknowledge of events. ‘Desist, I pray you, to seek further my
blood, for as I shall answer to the eternal God, I never conspired or
consented to the Earl of Moray’s death.... I fear you not, nor none of
that monstrous faction, for, as God is the defender of innocents, so is he
the just and severe punisher of cruel monsters and usurpers, who spare not
to execute all kind of cruelty, under the pretext of religion and
justice.... But there be some of his own secret Council that both directly
and indirectly have sought that bloody usurper’s life, whom I shall name
as occasion shall serve....’ Stewart again protests his own innocence,
apparently with conviction. He ends ‘I pray you be favourable to the
Parson of Kenmore’ (Patrick Hepburn), ‘and with such as have meddled with
my apparel, bows, and books, to keep all well till meeting, which will be
soon God willing....’[409]
This letter shows Stewart as a believer in foreknowledge of events, as one
who hates Moray, ‘a bloody usurper,’ and as acquainted with a plot against
Moray by his intimates. Lethington and Sir James Balfour were more or less
at odds with Moray, about this time, but we have no evidence that they
conspired to kill him.
How it happened we do not know, but Stewart was captured, despite the
protection of Dumbarton Castle. On October 4, 1568, his reception there
was one of the charges made, perhaps by John Wood, against Mary’s party,
‘Lord Fleming refusing his delivery.’[410] At all events, on August 5,
1569, we find Stewart imprisoned in Edinburgh Castle, as also was Paris,
who, says Moray, arrived at Leith in June of the year. On August 5, both
men were taken to St. Andrews, ‘there to be punished according to their
demerits.’[411]
On the same day, August 5, 1569, Stewart wrote from the Castle a piteous
letter to ‘the most merciful Regent.’ He declared, as to the conspiracy of
1568, that he only knew of it by public talk. ‘The bruit of your Grace’s
murder was tossed up and down at Edinburgh.’ Even if Stewart foreknew and
concealed the plot, ‘yet till the principal devisers are tried and
convicted, I cannot be accused.’ Stewart himself first heard of the
conspiracy on July 21, 1568, from Patrick Hepburn. The comptroller
(Tullibardine) had, on that day, ‘purged himself’ of the affair at
Stirling. Now July 21 was the day after Drury gave his second notice of
the treasure-hunt by magic, somehow involving a new regent, in which
Stewart was concerned. Stewart cannot be accurate in referring his first
hearsay knowledge of the conspiracy to July 21, 1568.
He goes on excusing himself. He could not believe that the persons
implicated by Patrick Hepburn ever contemplated the murder of Moray, who
knows their names. Moreover, there is some one who predicted many events
to Stewart, such as Darnley’s murder, the fall of Bothwell, ‘the death of
Lyon Herald, and my promotion, the Queen’s deliverance,’ Langside, ‘and
other predictions which have proved true.’ This soothsayer said that Moray
was only in danger from ‘domestical treason.’ Therefore, Stewart
disbelieved wholly in Patrick Hepburn’s story of a plot, and so did not
divulge it. As witness, he cites ‘a certain courtier’ to whom he had given
the same reason for his scepticism, in the middle of July, 1568. He adds
that he thinks it wrong, following St. Paul, to resist ‘tyrants and
usurpers.’ He regarded Moray as a tyrant and usurper, we have seen, in
August, 1568. He ends by offering disclosures, privately, and asking for
mercy.[412]
On August 15, 1569, ‘William Stewart, being convictit for witcherie, was
burnt, and the said Paris, convictit for ane of the slayaris of the King,
wes hangit in Sanctandrois,’ says the ‘Diurnal.’
Now, why was Lyon Herald burned? If there was a conspiracy, in July, 1568,
no others suffered for it. It was easy to convict Stewart for ‘witchery’:
he confessed to dealings with a soothsayer, and the Kirk was beginning its
campaign against witches. But what was the political or personal reason
for Moray’s cruelty? Had he seen Stewart’s letter of August 19, 1568?
As to the soothsayer, he may have been a familiar spirit, but he may also
have been the Laird of Merchistoun, Napier, the father of the inventor of
Logarithms. One of his prophecies to Stewart dealt with Mary’s escape from
Loch Leven. And Nau, Mary’s secretary, writes, ‘The Laird of Merchistoun,
who had the reputation of being a great wizard, made bets with several
persons, to the amount of 500 crowns, that by the 5th of May, her Majesty
would be out of Loch Leven.’[413]
Thus there were two wizard Lairds of Merchistoun, the scientific son (the
treasure-hunter for the laird of Restalrig) and his father.
For the rest, the conspiracy against Moray, in July, 1568, and the secret
as to the cause of Lyon Herald’s death, remain mysterious.[414]
APPENDIX C
THE DATE OF MARY’S VISIT TO GLASGOW
The question of the possibility that Letter II. may be authentic turns on
dates. If the Lords are right in declaring, in ‘Cecil’s Journal,’ that
Mary left Edinburgh on January 21, 1567, and arrived in Glasgow on January
23, then the evidence of the Letter is incompatible with that of Paris,
and one or both testimonies must be abandoned. They fare no better if we
accept the statement of Drury, writing from Berwick, that Mary entered
Glasgow on January 22. It is shown in the text that, if we accept the date
as given in Birrel’s ‘Diary,’ and also in the ‘Diurnal of Occurrents’: if
we make Mary leave Edinburgh on January 20, and (contrary to Drury and
‘Cecil’s Journal’) make her enter Glasgow on January 21, then the Letter
may be brought into harmony with the statement of Paris.
Of course it may be argued that the ‘Diurnal’ and Birrel’s ‘Diary’
coincide in an error of date. The ‘Diary’ of Birrel describes itself as
extending from 1532 to 1605. One man cannot have kept a daily note of
events for seventy-three years. The ‘Diary,’ in fact, is _not_ a daily
record. There is but one entry for 1561, one for 1562, one for 1565, ten
for 1566, and twenty-four for 1567; up to Mary’s surrender at Carberry
(June 15). The ‘Diurnal,’ for our period, is more copious, and is by a
contemporary, though probably he did not always write his remarks on the
day of the occurrence noted.
From August 19, 1561, to June 15, 1567, the ‘Diurnal’ and the ‘Diary’
record in common twenty-one events, with date. In seven of these cases
they differ, as to date. They differ as to the day of Mary’s departure
from Edinburgh to Jedburgh, as to the departure of the ambassadors from
Stirling, as to the arrival of Mary with her infant child in Edinburgh
(January, 1567), as to the return of Mary and Darnley from Glasgow, as to
the day of Darnley’s burial, as to the day of opening Parliament, and as
to the attack on Borthwick Castle by the Lords: while the ‘Diurnal’ makes
the explosion at Kirk o’ Field occur at 2 A.M. on February 10, but ends
the Parliament on April 29, which is absurd. When the dates are correctly
known from other sources, and when the ‘Diary’ and the ‘Diurnal’ coincide
as to these dates, then, of course, we may accept their authority. But
when, as in the case of Mary’s departure from Edinburgh, and arrival in
Glasgow, the ‘Diary’ and ‘Diurnal’ oppose ‘Cecil’s Journal,’ and Drury’s
version, every reader must estimate the value of their coincidence for
himself. If their date, January 20, is correct, then a letter may have
been written, and sent, and received, and the facts, so far, are
corroborated by Paris’s deposition.
The argument of Chalmers, that Mary was at Edinburgh till January 24,
because there are entries as if of her presence there in the Register of
Privy Seal, is not valid, as such entries were occasionally made in the
absence of the King or Queen.
APPENDIX D
THE BAND FOR DARNLEY’S MURDER
This Band, which is constantly cited in all the troubles from 1567 to
1586, is a most mysterious document. We have seen that Mary’s secretary,
Nau, wilfully or accidentally confuses it with an anti-Darnley band signed
by Morton, Moray, and many others, early in October, 1566. We have also
seen that Randolph, in 1570, distinguishes between this ‘old band’ and the
band for the murder, which, he says, Lethington and Balfour abstracted
from a little coffer in the Castle, covered with green cloth or velvet,
immediately after Mary surrendered at Carberry. I have ventured the theory
that this carefully covered little coffer may have been the Casket
itself.[415] Drury, again, in November, 1567, reports that the band has
been burned, while the papers as to Mary are ‘kept to be shewn.’ But, in
Scotland, till Morton’s execution in June, 1581, the murder band was
believed to be extant: at least Sir James Balfour, if he chose, could give
evidence about it. What Mary wished to be believed as to this matter, we
have seen in Nau, who wrote under her inspiration between 1575 and 1587.
He asserts that Bothwell, ‘to ease his conscience’ gave Mary a copy of the
band, when he rode away from Carberry (June 15, 1567). He showed Mary the
signatures of Morton, Balfour, Lethington, and others. She kept the
document, and, when she met Morton on Carberry Hill, told him that he was
one of the chief murderers, as she had learned. He slunk away.[416]
Probably Mary did accuse Morton, at Carberry. When he was executed (June
3, 1581) Sir John Foster, from Alnwick, sent an account of the trial to
Walsingham. In the evidence against Morton was ‘the Queen’s confession
when she was taken at Carberry Hill. She said he was the principal man
that was the deed-doer, and the drawer of that purpose.’ Morton certainly
was not present, and it is as good as certain that he did not sign the
band. Still, Mary, at Carberry, charged him with complicity.[417]
We have seen that Mary, ever after Carberry, also inculpated Lethington,
and vowed that she had something in black and white which would hang him.
Something she probably did possess, but not a band signed also by Morton.
Concerning the murder-band, Hay of Tala, before execution (January 3,
1568), ‘in presence of the whole people,’ named as subscribers ‘Bothwell,
Huntly, Argyll, Lethington, Balfour, with divers other nobles.’[418] Hay
saw their signatures, but not that of Morton. ‘He said my Lord Bothwell
said to him that he subscribed the same.’ The Black Laird (December 13,
1573), when in a devout and penitent condition, said that Bothwell had
shown him the contract, ‘subscribed by four or five handwrites, which, he
affirmed to me, was the subscription of the Earl of Huntly, Argyll, the
secretary Maitland, and Sir James Balfour.’ Ormistoun repeated part of the
contents: the paper was drawn up by Balfour, a Lord of Session.[419] (See
Introduction, pp. xiii-xviii.)
Morton, we know, was accused of Darnley’s death, and arrested, at the end
of December, 1580. Archibald Douglas was sought for, but escaped into
England. Elizabeth sent Randolph down to save Morton: Hunsdon was to lead
an army over the Border. Every kind of violence was designed, and forgery
was attempted, but Randolph had to fly to Berwick, at the end of March.
Meanwhile the arch traitor, Balfour, had been summoned from France, as an
evidence against Morton. But he was not of much use. On January 30, 1581,
he wrote from Edinburgh to Mary. He had arrived in Scotland on December
17, 1580, when he found Morton in the height of power. Balfour secretly
approached James’s new favourite, Stewart d’Aubigny, recently created Earl
of Lennox. By giving them information ‘_had from your Majesty’s self_, and
partly by other intelligence which I knew and learned from others,’ he
gave them grounds for Morton’s arrest. But Morton, he says, trusting to
the lack of testimony from the absence of Archibald Douglas, boldly
‘denies all things promised by him to Bothwell in that matter,’ ‘except
his signature to the band whereof I did send the copy to your Majesty.’
Now that was only ‘Ainslie’s band,’ made _after_ the murder, on April 19,
1567, to defend Bothwell’s quarrel. On an extant copy Randolph has
written, ‘upon this was grounded thacusation of therle Morton.’[420] This
was no hanging matter, and Balfour either had not or would not produce the
murder band. He therefore asks Mary for further information: ‘all that
your Majesty has heard or known thereinto.’[421]
Balfour and Mary corresponded in cypher through Archbishop Beaton, her
ambassador in France. On March 18, 1580, she had written to Beaton, ‘if
possible make Balfour write to me fully about the band which he has seen,
with the signatures, for the murder of my late husband, the King, or let
him give you a copy in his own hand.’ If she really possessed the band
which Nau says Bothwell gave her at Carberry, she needed no copy from
Balfour. She does not seem to have believed in him and his band. On May
20, 1580, she writes to Beaton: ‘I put no faith in what Balfour has sent
me, so far, and cannot trust him much having been so wretchedly betrayed
by him,’ for Balfour had put Morton on the trail of the Casket, had sold
the Castle, and later, had betrayed Kirkcaldy and Lethington when they
held the Castle against Morton. However, she sent to Balfour a civil
message, and bade him go on undermining Morton, in which he succeeded, in
the following year. But the murder-band was never produced. On March 16,
1581, Randolph described a conference which had passed between him and
James VI. ‘I spoke again of the _band in the green box_, containing the
names of all the chief persons consenting to the King’s murder, which Sir
James Balfour either hath or can tell of.’ Randolph, who was working for
Morton, obviously knew that _he_ did not sign that band: otherwise he
would have avoided the subject.[422]
We have no account of Morton’s trial, save what Foster tells Walsingham.
‘The murder of the King was laid to him by four or five witnesses. The
first is the Lord Bothwell’s Testament’ (usually thought to be forged),
‘the second, Mr. Archibald Douglas, when he was his man.’ But Douglas,
surely, dared not appear in Court, or in Scotland. Foster clearly means
that Archibald’s servant, Binning, proved _his_ guilt, and that it
reflected on Morton, whose ‘man’ Archibald was, in 1567, and later. Next
came the charge that Morton ‘spoke with’ Bothwell, as he confessed that he
did, at Whittingam, about January 20, 1567, when he says that he declined
to join the plot without Mary’s written warrant. How could this be known,
except through Mary or Archibald Douglas? Possibly his brother, at whose
house the conference was held, may have declared the matter, as he
‘split,’ in 1581, on Archibald, and all concerned. ‘And then’ Morton was
condemned on ‘the consenting to the murder of the King’ (how was _that_
proved?), on Ainslie’s band to support Bothwell’s quarrel, ‘no person
being excepted,’ and finally, ‘the Queen’s confession at Carberry Hill,’
when she confessed nothing, but accused Morton.
Mary’s conduct, as far as it can be construed, looks as if she knew very
little either about Morton or the murder-band. If Bothwell told her
anything, what he told her was probably more or less untrue.
APPENDIX E
THE TRANSLATIONS OF THE CASKET LETTERS
The casual treatment of the Casket Letters by Mary’s accusers, and by the
English Commissioners, is demonstrated by an inspection of the texts as
they now exist. One thing is absolutely certain, the Letters were
produced, at Westminster and Hampton Court, in the original French,
whether that was forged, or garbled, or authentic. This is demonstrated by
the occurrence, in the English translation, of the words ‘I have taken the
worms out of his nose.’ This ugly French phrase for extracting a man’s
inmost thoughts is used by Mary in an authentic letter.[423] But the Scots
version of the passage runs, ‘I have drawn all out of him.’ Therefore the
English translator had a French original before him, _not_ the French
later published by the Huguenots, where for _tiré les vers du nez_, we
find _j’ay sçeu toutes choses de luy_.
Original French letters were therefore produced; the only doubt rests on
part of Crawford’s deposition, where it verbally agrees with Letter II.
But we may here overlook Crawford’s part in the affair, merely reminding
the reader that the French idioms in that portion of the Letter (Scots
version) which most closely resembles his very words, in his deposition,
may have come in through the process of translating Crawford’s Scots into
French, and out of French into Scots again, to which we return.
The Casket Letters were produced, in French, on December 7 and 8. On
December 9, the English Commissioners read them, ‘being duly translated
into English.’[424] We are never told that the Scottish Lords prepared and
produced the _English_ translations. These must have been constructed on
December 7 and 8, in a violent hurry. So great was the hurry that Letter
VI. was not translated from French at all: the English was merely done,
and badly done, out of the Scots. Thus, Scots, ‘I am wod;’ English, ‘I am
wood.’ As far as this Letter goes, there need have been no original French
text.[425] In this case (Letter VI.) the English is the Scots Anglified,
word for word. The same easy mode of translating French is used in Letter
V.; it is the Scots done word for word into English. In Letters I. and
II., M. Philippson makes it pretty clear that the English translator had a
copy of the Scots version lying by him, from which he occasionally helped
himself to phrases. M. Cardauns, in _Der Sturz der Maria Stuart_, had
proved the same point, which every one can verify. Dozens of blunders
occur in the English versions, though, now and then, they keep closer to
the originals than do the Scots translators.
Of this we give a singular and significant proof. In the Scots of Letter
I. the first sentence ends, ‘Ze promisit to mak me advertisement of zour
newis from tyme to tyme.’ The next sentence begins: ‘The waiting upon
yame.’ In the English we read ‘at your departure you promised to send me
newes from you. _Nevertheless I can learn none_:’ which is not in the
Scots, but is in the published French, ‘et toutes fois je n’en puis
apprendre.’ The _published_ French is translated from the Latin, which is
translated from the Scots, but each of the French _published_ letters
opens with a sentence or two from the _original_ French: thus the
published French, in one of these sentences, keeps what the Scots omits.