THE CONFESSIONS OF PARIS
Fatal depositions, if trustworthy, are those of the valet lent by Bothwell to Mary, on her road to Glasgow, in January, 1567. The case of Paris is peculiar. He had escaped with Bothwell, in autumn, 1567, to Denmark, and, on October 30, 1568, he was extradited to a Captain Clark, a notorious character. On July 16, 1567, the Captain had killed one Wilson, a seaman ‘much esteemed by the Lords,’ of Moray’s faction. They had quarrelled about a ship that was ordered to pursue Bothwell.[159]Nevertheless, in July, 1568, Clark was Captain of the Scots in Danish service, and was corresponding with Moray.[160]Clark could easily have sent Paris to England in time for the meetings of Commissioners to judge on Mary’s case, in December-January, 1568-1569. But Paris was not wanted: he might have proved an awkward witness. About August 30, 1569, Elizabeth wrote to Moray asking that Paris might be spared till his evidence could be taken. To spare him was now impossible:Paris was no more. He had arrived from Denmark in June, 1569, when Moray was in the North. Why had he not arrived in December, 1568, when Mary’s case was being heard at Westminster? He had been examined on August 9, 10, 1569, and was executed on August 15 at St. Andrews. A copy of his deposition was sent to Cecil, and Moray hoped it would be satisfactory to Elizabeth and to Lennox.[161]
In plain truth, the deposition of Paris was not wanted, when it might have been given, at the end of 1568, while Moray and Lethington and Morton were all working against Mary, before the same Commission. Later, differences among themselves had grown marked. Moray and Lethington had taken opposed lines as to Mary’s marriage with Norfolk in 1569, and the terms of an honourable settlement of her affairs. Lethington desired; Moray, in his own interest as Regent, opposed the marriage. A charge of guilt in Darnley’s murder was now hanging over Lethington, based on Paris’s deposition. The cloud broke in storm, he was accused by the useful Crawford, Lennox’s man, in the first week of September, 1569. Three weeks earlier, Moray had conveniently strengthened himself by taking the so long deferred evidence of Paris. Throughout the whole affair the witnesses were very well managed, so as to produce just what was needed, and no more. While Lethington and other sinners were working with Moray, then only evidence to the guilt of Bothwelland Mary was available. When Lethington became inconvenient, witness against him was produced. When Morton, much later (1581), was ‘put at,’ new evidence ofhisguilt was not lacking. Captain Cullen’s tale did not fit into the political combinations of September, 1567, when the poor Captain was taken. It therefore was not adduced at Westminster or Hampton Court. It was judiciously burked.
Moray did not send the ‘authentick’ record of Paris’s deposition to Cecil till October, 1569, though it was taken at St. Andrews on August 9 and 10.[162]When Moray at last sent it, he had found that Lethington definitely refused to aid him in betraying Norfolk. The day of reconciliation was ended. So Moray sent the ‘authentick’ deposition of Paris, which he had kept back for two months, in hopes that Lethington (whom it implicated) might join him in denouncing Norfolk after all.
Paris, we said, was examined (there is no record showing that he ever was tried) at St. Andrews. On the day of his death, Moray caused Sir William Stewart, Lyon King at Arms, by his own appointment, to be burned for sorcery. Ofhistrial no record exists. He had been accused of a conspiracy against Moray, whom he certainly did not admire, no proof had been found, and he was burned as a wizard, or consulter of wizards.[163]The deposition of Paris on August 10 is in the Record Office, and is signed atthe end of each page with his mark.We are not told who heard the depositions made.We are only told that when it was read to him before George Buchanan, John Wood (Moray’s man), and Robert Ramsay, he acknowledged its truth: Ramsay being the writer of ‘this declaration,’ that is of the deposition. He wrote French very well, and was a servant of Moray. There is another copy with a docquet asserting its authenticity, witnessed by Alexander Hay, Clerk of the Privy Council, who, according to Nau, wrote the old band against Darnley (October, 1566), and who was a correspondent of Knox.[164]Hay does not seem to mean that the deposition of Paris was taken in his presence, but that II. is a correct copy of Number I. If so, he is not ‘guilty of a double fraud,’ as Mr. Hosack declares. Though he omits the names of the witnesses, Wood, Ramsay, and Buchanan, he does not represent himself as the sole witness to the declaration. He only attests the accuracy of the copy of Number I. Whether Ramsay, Wood, and Buchanan examined Paris, we can only infer: whether they alone did so, we know not: that he was hanged and quartered merely on the strength of his own deposition, we think highly probable. It was a great day for St. Andrews: a herald was burned, a Frenchman was hanged, and a fourth of his mortal remains was fixed on a spike in a public place.
Paris said, when examined in August, 1569, thaton Wednesday or Thursday of the week of Darnley’s death, Bothwell told him in Mary’s room at Kirk o’ Field, Mary being in Darnley’s, that ‘we Lords’ mean to blow up the King and this house with powder. But Bowton says, that till the Friday, Bothwell meant to kill Darnley ‘in the fields.’[165]Bothwell took Paris aside for a particular purpose: he was suffering from dysentery, and said, ‘Ne sçais-tu point quelque lieu là où je pouray aller...?’ ‘I never was here in my life before,’ said Paris.
Now as Bothwell, by Paris’s own account (derived from Bothwell himself), had passed an entire night in examining the little house of Kirk o’ Field, how could he fail to know his way about in so tiny a dwelling? Finally, Paris foundung coing ou trou entre deux portes, whither he conducted Bothwell, who revealed his whole design.
Robertson, cited by Laing, remarks that the narrative of Paris ‘abounds with a number of minute facts and particularities which the most dexterous forger could not have easily assembled and connected together with any appearance of probability.’ The most bungling witness who ever perjured himself could not have brought more impossible inconsistencies than Paris brings into a few sentences, and he was just as rich in new details, when, in a second confession, he contradicted his first. In the insanitary, and, as far as listeners were concerned, insecure retreat ‘between two doors,’ Bothwell bluntly toldParis that Darnley was to be blown up, because, if ever he got his feet on the Lords’ necks, he would be tyrannical. The motive was political. Paris pointed out the moral and social inconveniences of Bothwell’s idea. ‘You fool!’ Bothwell answered, ‘do you think I am alone in this affair? I have Lethington, who is reckoned one of our finest wits, and is the chief undertaker in this business; I have Argyll, Huntly, Morton, Ruthven, and Lindsay. These three last will never fail me, for I spoke in favour of their pardon, and I have the signatures of all those whom I have mentioned, and we were inclined to do it lately when we were at Craigmillar; but you are a dullard, not fit to hear a matter of weight.’ If Bothwell said that Morton, Ruthven, and Lindsay signed the band, he, in all probability, lied. But does any one believe that the untrussed Bothwell, between two doors, held all this talk with a wretched valet, arguing with him seriously, counting his allies, real or not, and so forth? Paris next (obviously enlightened by later events) observed that the Lords would make Bothwell manage the affair, ‘but, when it is once done, they may lay the whole weight of it on you’ (which, when making his deposition, he knew they had done), ‘and will be the first to cryHaro!on you, and pursue you to death.’ Prophetic Paris! He next asked, What about a man dearly beloved by the populace, and the French? ‘No troubles in the country whenhegoverned for two or three years, all was well, money was cheap; look at the difference now,’ and so forth.‘Who is the man?’ asked Bothwell. ‘Monsieur de Moray; pray what side does he take?’
‘He won’t meddle.’
‘Sir, he is wise.’
‘Monsieur de Moray, Monsieur de Moray! He will neither help nor hinder, but it is all one.’
Bothwell, by a series of arguments, then tried to make Paris steal the key of Mary’s room. He declined, and Bothwell left the appropriate scene of this prolonged political conversation. It occupies more than three closely printed pages of small type.
Paris then devotes a page and a half to an account of a walk, and of his reflections. On Friday, Bothwell met him, asked him for the key, and said thatSundaywas the day for the explosion. Now, in fact,Saturdayhad been fixed upon, as Tala declared.[166]Paris took another walk, thought of looking for a ship to escape in, but compromised matters by saying his prayers. On Saturday, after dinner, Bothwell again asked for the key: adding that Balfour had already given him a complete set of false keys, and that they two had passed a whole night in examining the house. So Paris stole the key, though Bothwell had told him that he need not, if he had not the heart for it. After he gave it to Bothwell, Marguerite (Carwood?) sent him back for a coverlet of fur: Sandy Durham asked him for the key, and he referred Sandy to thehuissier, Archibald Beaton. This Sandy is said in the Lennox MSS. to have been warned by Mary to leave the house.He was later arrested, but does not seem to have been punished.
On Sunday morning, Paris heard that Moray had left Edinburgh, and said within himself, ‘O Monsieur de Moray, you are indeed a worthy man!’ The wretch wished, of course, to ingratiate himself with Moray, but his want of tact must have made that worthy man wince. Indeed Paris’s tactless disclosures about Moray, who ‘would neither help nor hinder,’ and did sneak off, may be one of the excellent reasons which prevented Cecil from adding Paris’s deposition, when he was asked for it, to the English edition of Buchanan’s ‘Detection.’[167]When the Queen was at supper, on the night of the crime, with Argyll (it really was with the Bishop of Argyll) and was washing her hands after supper, Paris came in. She asked Paris whether he had brought the fur coverlet from Kirk o’ Field. Bothwell then took Paris out, and they acted as in the depositions of Powrie and the rest, introducing the powder. Bothwell rebuked Tala and Bowton for making so much noise, which was heard above, as they stored the powder in Mary’s room. Paris next accompanied Bothwell to Darnley’s room, and Argyll, silently, gave him a caressing dig in the ribs. After some loose babble, Paris ends, ‘And that is all I know about the matter.’
This deposition was made ‘without constraint or interrogation.’ But it was necessary that he should know more about the matter. Next day he wasinterrogué, doubtless in the boot or the pilniewinks, or under threat of these. Hemustincriminate the Queen. He gave evidence now as to carrying a letter (probably Letter II. is intended) to Bothwell, from Mary at Glasgow, in January, 1567. His story may be true, as we shall see, if the dates put in by the accusers are incorrect: and if another set of dates, which we shall suggest, are correct.
Asked as to familiarities between Bothwell and Mary, he said, on Bothwell’s information, that Lady Reres used to bring him, late at night, to Mary’s room; and that Bothwell bade him never let Mary know that Lady Bothwell was with him in Holyrood! Paris now remembered that, in the long conversation in the hole between two doors, Bothwell had told him not to put Mary’s bed beneath Darnley’s, ‘for that is where I mean to put the powder.’ He disobeyed. Mary made him move her bed, and he saw that she was in the plot. Thereon he said to her, ‘Madame, Monsieur de Boiduel told me to bring him the keys of your door, and that he has an inclination to do something, namely to blow the King into the air with powder, which he will place here.’
This piece of evidence has, by some, been received with scepticism, which is hardly surprising. Paris places the carrying of a letter (about the plot to make Lord Robert kill Darnley?) on Thursday night. It ought to be Friday, if it is to agree with Cecil’s Journal: ‘Fryday. She ludged and lay allnycht agane in the foresaid chalmer, and frome thence wrayt, that same nycht, the letter concerning the purpose of the abbott of Halyrudhouse.’ On the same night, Bothwell told Paris to inform Mary that he would not sleep till he achieved his purpose, ‘were I to trail a pike all my life for love of her.’ This means that the murder was to be on Friday, which is absurd, unless Bothwell means to wake for several nights. Let us examine the stories told by Paris about the key, or keys, of Mary’s room. In the first statement, Paris was asked by Bothwell at the Conference between Two Doors, for thekeyof Mary’s room. This was on Wednesday or Thursday. On Friday, Bothwell asked again for thekey, and said the murder was fixed for Sunday, which it was not, but for Saturday. On Saturday, Bothwell again demandsthat key, after dinner. He says that he has duplicates, from James Balfour, of all the keys. Paris takes thekey, remaining last in Mary’s room at Kirk o’ Field, as she leaves it to go to Holyrood. Paris keeps thekey, and returns to Kirk o’ Field. Sandy Durham, Darnley’s servant, asks for the key. Paris replies that keys are the affair of the Usher. ‘Well,’ says Durham, ‘since you don’t want to give it to me!’ So, clearly, Paris kept it. On Sunday night, Bothwell bade Paris go to the Queen’s room in Kirk o’ Field, ‘and when Bowton, Tala, and Ormistoun shall have entered, and done what they want to do, you are to leave the room, and come to the King’s room and thence go where you like.... The rest can do without you’(in answer to a remonstrance), ‘for they have keys enough.’ Paris then went into the kitchen of Kirk o’ Field, and borrowed and lit a candle: meanwhile Bowton and Tala entered the Queen’s room, and deposited the powder. Paris does notsaythat he let them in with thekey, which he had kept all the time; at least he never mentions making any use of it, though of course he did.
In the second statement, Paris avers that he took thekeys(the number becomes plural, or dual) on Friday, not on Saturday, as in the first statement, andnotafter the Queen had left the room (as in the first statement), but while she was dressing. He carried them to Bothwell, who compared them with other, new, false keys, examined them, and said ‘They are all right! take back these others.’ During the absence of Paris, the keys were missed by the Usher, Archibald Beaton, who wanted to let Mary out into the garden, and Mary questioned Parisaloud, on his return. This is not probable, as, by his own second statement, he had already told her, on Wednesday or Thursday, that Bothwell had asked him for the keys, as he wanted to blow Darnley sky high. She would, therefore, know why Paris had the keys of her room, and would ask no questions.[168]On Saturday, after dinner, Bothwell bade him take thekeyof Mary’s room, and Mary also told him to do so. He took it. Thus, in statement II., he has his usual De Foe-like details, different from those equallyminute in statement I. He takes the keys, or key, at a different time, goes back with them in different circumstances, is asked for them by different persons, and takes a keytwice, once on Friday, once on Saturday, though Bothwell, having duplicates that were ‘all right’ (elles sont bien), did not need the originals. As to these duplicates, Bowton declared that, after the murder, he threw them all into a quarry hole between Holyrood and Leith.[169]Tala declared that Paris had a key of the back door.[170]Nelson says that Beaton, Mary’s usher, kept the keys: he and Paris.[171]
Paris, of course under torture or fear of torture, said whatever might implicate Mary. On Friday night, in the second statement, Paris again carried letters to Bothwell; if he carried them both on Thursday and Friday, are both notes in the Casket Letters? The Letter of Friday was supposed to be that about the affair of Lord Robert and Darnley. On Saturday Mary told Paris to bid Bothwell send Lord Robert and William Blackadder to Darnley’s chamber ‘to do what Bothwell knows, and to speak to Lord Robert about it, for it is better thus than otherwise, and he will only have a few days’ prison in the Castle for the same.’ Bothwell replied to Paris that he would speak to Lord Robert, and visit the Queen. This was on Saturdayevening(au soyr), after the scene, whatever it was or was not, between Darnley and Lord Robert on Saturdaymorning.[172]As tothat, Mary ‘told her people in her chamber that Lord Robert had enjoyed a good chance to kill the King, because there was only herself to part them.’ Lennox in his MSS. avers that Moray was present, and ‘can declare it.’ Buchanan says that Mary called in Moray to separate her wrangling husband and brother, hoping that Moray too would be slain! Though the explosion was for Sunday night, Mary, according to Paris, was still urging the plan of murder by Lord Robert on Saturday night, and Bothwell was acquiescing.
The absurd contradictions which pervade the statements of Paris are conspicuous. Hume says: ‘It is in vain at present to seek improbabilities in Nicholas Hubert’s dying confession, and to magnify the smallest difficulty into a contradiction. It was certainly a regular judicial paper, given in regularly and judicially, and ought to have been canvassed at the time, if the persons whom it concerned had been assured of their own innocence.’ They never saw it: it was authenticated by no judicial authority: it was not ‘given in regularly and judicially,’ but was first held back, and then sent by Moray, when it suited his policy, out of revenge on Lethington. Finally, it was not ‘a dying confession.’ Dying confessions are made in prison, or on the scaffold, on the day of death. That of Paris ‘took God to record, at the time of his death’ (August 15), ‘that this murder was by your’ (the Lords’) ‘counsel, invention,and drift committed,’ and also declared that he ‘never knew the Queen to be participant or ware thereof.’ So says Lesley, but we have slight faith in him.[173]He speaks in the same sentence of similar dying confessions by Tala, Powrie, and Dalgleish.
I omit the many discrepant accounts of dying confessions accusing or absolving the Queen. Buchanan says that Dalgleish, in the Tolbooth, confessed the Exchequer Housefabliau, and that this is duly recorded, but it does not appear in his Dying Confession printed in the ‘Detection.’ In his, Bowton says that ‘the Queen’s mind was acknowledged thereto.’ The Jesuits, in 1568, were informed that Bowton, at his trial, impeached Morton and Balfour, and told Moray that he spared to accuse him, ‘because of your dignity.’[174]These statements about dying confessions were bandied, in contradictory sort, by both sides. The confession of Morton, attested, and certainly not exaggerated, by two sympathetic Protestant ministers, is of another species, and, as far as it goes, is evidence, though Morton obviously does not tell all he knew. The part of Paris’s statement about the crime ends by saying that Huntly came to Bothwell at Holyrood, late on the fatal night, and whispered with him, as Bothwell changed his evening dress, after the dance at Holyrood, for a cavalry cloak and other clothes.Bothwell told Paris that Huntly had offered to accompany him, but that he would not take him. Morton, in his dying confession, declared that Archibald Douglas confessed that he and Huntly were both present: contradicting Paris as to Huntly.
The declarations of Paris were never published at the time. On November 8, 1571, Dr. Wilson, who was apparently translating something—the ‘Detection’ of Buchanan, or the accompanying Oration (‘Actio’), into sham Scots—wrote to Cecil, ‘desiring you to send unto me “Paris” closely sealed, and it shall not be known from whence it cometh.’ Cecil was secretly circulating libels on Mary, but ‘Paris’ was not used. His declarations would have clashed with the ‘Detection’ as written when only Bothwell and Mary were to be implicated. The truth, that there was a greatpoliticalconspiracy, including some of Mary’s accusers, and perhaps Morton, Lindsay, and Ruthven (for so Paris makes Bothwell say), would have come out. The fact that Moray ‘would neither help nor hinder,’ and sneaked off, would have been uttered to the world. The glaring discrepancies would have been patent to criticism. So Cecil withheld documents unsuited to his purpose of discrediting Mary.[175]
The one valuable part of Paris’s declarations concerns the carrying of a Glasgow letter. And that is only valuable if we supply the accusers with possible dates, in place of their own impossiblechronology, and if we treat as false their tale[176]that Bothwell ‘lodged in the town’ when he returned from Calendar to Edinburgh. The earlier confessions, especially those of Tala, were certainly mutilated, as we have seen, and only what suited the Lords came out. That of Paris was a tool to use against Lethington, but, as it also implicated Morton, Lindsay, and Ruthven, with Argyll and Huntly, who might become friends of Morton and Moray, Paris’s declaration was a two-edged sword, and, probably, was little known in Scotland. In England it was judiciously withheld from the public eye. Goodall writes (1754): ‘I well remember that one of our late criminal judges, of high character for knowledge and integrity, was, by reading it [Paris’s statement], induced to believe every scandal that had been thrown out against the Queen.’ A criminal judge ought to be a good judge of evidence, yet the statements of Paris rather fail, when closely inspected, to carry conviction.
Darnley, in fact, was probably strangled by murderers of the Douglas and Lethington branches of the conspiracy. On the whole, it seems more probable that the powder was placed in Mary’s room than not, though all contemporary accounts of its effects make against this theory. As touching Mary, the confessions are of the very slightest value. The published statements, under examination, ofPowrie, Dalgleish, Tala, and Bowton do not implicate her. That of Bowton rather clears her than otherwise. Thus: the theory of the accusers, supported by the declaration of Paris, was that, when the powder was ‘fair in field,’ properly lodged in Mary’s room, under that of Darnley, Paris was to enter Darnley’s room as a signal that all was prepared. Mary then left the room, in the time required ‘to say a paternoster.’ But Bowton affirmed that, as he and his fellows stored the powder, Bothwell ‘bade them make haste, before the Queen came forth of the King’s house, for if she came forth before they were ready, they would not find such commodity.’ This, for what it is worth, implies that no signal, such as the entrance of Paris, had been arranged for the Queen’s departure. The self-contradictory statements of Paris can be torn to shreds in cross-examination, whatever element of truth they may contain. The ‘dying confessions’ are contradictorily reported, and all the reports are worthless. The guilt of some Lords, and their alliance with the other accusers, made it impossible for the Prosecution to produce a sound case. As their case stands, as it is presented by them, a jury, however convinced, on other grounds, of Mary’s guilt, would feel constrained to acquit the Queen of Scots.
MARY’S CONDUCT AFTER THE MURDER
Nothing has damaged Mary’s reputation more than her conduct after the murder of Darnley. Her first apologist, Queen Elizabeth, adopted the line of argument which her defenders have ever since pursued. On March 24, 1567, Elizabeth discussed the matter with de Silva. Her emissary to spy into the problem, Killigrew, had dined in Edinburgh at Moray’s house with Bothwell, Lethington, Huntly, and Argyll. All, except Moray, were concerned in the crime, and this circumstance certainly gave force to Elizabeth’s reasoning. She told de Silva, on Killigrew’s report, that grave suspicions existed ‘against Bothwell, and others who are with the Queen,’ the members, in fact, of Moray’s little dinner party to Killigrew. Mary, said Elizabeth, ‘did not dare to proceed against them, in consequence of the influence and strength of Bothwell,’ who was Admiral, and Captain of the Guard of 500 Musketeers. Elizabeth added that, after Killigrew left Scotland, Mary had attempted to take refuge in the Castle, but had been refused entry by the Keeper, who feared thatBothwell would accompany Mary and take possession. This anecdote is the more improbable as Killigrew was in London by March 24, and the Earl of Mar was deprived of the command of the Castle on March 19.[177]To have retired to the Castle, as on other occasions of danger, and to have remained there, would have been Mary’s natural conduct, had the slaying of Darnley alarmed and distressed her. Those who defend her, however, can always fall back, like Elizabeth, on the theory that Bothwell, Argyll, Huntly, and Lethington overawed her; that she could not urge the finding of the murderers, or even avoid their familiar society, any more than Moray could rescue or avenge Darnley, or abstain from sharing his salt with Bothwell.[178]De Silva inferred from Moray’s talk, that he believed Bothwell to be guilty.[179]
The first efforts of Mary and the Council were to throw dust in the eyes of France and Europe. The Council met on the day of Darnley’s death. There were present Hamilton, Archbishop of St. Andrews, Atholl, Caithness, Livingstone, Cassilis, Sutherland, the Bishop of Galloway (Protestant), the Bishop of Ross, the treasurer, Flemyng, Bellenden, Bothwell, Argyll, Huntly, and Lethington. Of these the last four were far the most powerful, and were in the plot. They must have dictated the note sent byexpress to France with the news. The line of defence was that the authors of the explosion had just failed to destroy ‘the Queen and most of the nobles and lords in her suite, who were with the King till near midnight.’ This was said though confessedly the explosion did not occur till about two in the morning. The Council add that Mary escaped by not staying all night at Kirk o’ Field. God preserved her to take revenge. Yet all the Court knew that Mary had promised to be at Holyrood for the night, and the conspirators must have seen her escort returning thither with torches burning.[180]The Lennox MSS., in a set of memoranda, insist that Mary caused a hagbut to be fired, as she went down the Canongate, for a signal to Bothwell and his gang. They knew that she was safe from any explosion at Kirk o’ Field.
On the same day, February 10 (11?), Mary, or rather Lethington for Mary, wrote, in Scots, the same tale as that of her Council, to Beaton, her ambassador in Paris. She had just received his letter of January 27, containing a vague warning of rumoured dangers to herself. The warning she found ‘over true’ (it probably arose from the rumour that Darnley and Lennox meant to seize the infant Prince). The explosion had been aimed at her destruction; so the letter said. ‘It wes dressit alsweill for us as for the King:’ she only escaped by chance, or rather because ‘God put it inour hede’ to go to the masque. Now all the world concerned knew that Mary was not in Kirk o’ Field at two in the morning, and Mary knew that all the world knew.[181]To be sure she did not actually write this letter. Who had an interest in this supposed plot of general destruction by gunpowder? Not Lennox and Darnley, of course; not the Hamiltons, not Mary and the Lords who were to be exploded. Only the extreme Protestants, whose leader, Moray, left on the morning of the affair, could have benefited by the gunpowder plot. In Paris, on February 21, the deed was commonly regarded as the work of ‘the heretics, who desire to do the same by the Queen.’[182]
This was the inference—namely, that the Protestants were guilty—which the letters of Mary and the Council were meant to suggest. To defend Mary we must suppose that she, and the innocent members of Council, were constrained by the guilty members to approve of what was written, or were wholly without guile. The secret was open enough. According to Nau, Mary’s secretary, she had remarked, as she left Kirk o’ Field at midnight, ‘Jesu, Paris, how begrimed you are!’ The story was current. Blackwood makes Mary ask ‘why Paris smelled so of gunpowder.’ Had Mary wished tofind the guilty, the begrimed Paris would have been put to the torture at once. The sentinels at the palace would have been asked who went in and out after midnight. Conceivably, Mary was unable to act, but, if her secretary tells truth as to the begrimed Paris, she could have no shadow of doubt as to Bothwell’s guilt. A few women were interrogated, as was Nelson, Darnley’s servant, but the inquiry was stopped when Nelson said that Mary’s servants had the keys. Rewards were offered for the discovery of the guilty, but produced only anonymous placards, denouncing some who were guilty, as Bothwell, and others, like ‘Black Mr. James Spens,’ against whom nothing was ever proved.
PLACARD OF MARCH 1567. MARY AS A MERMAID
It were tedious and bewildering to examine the gossip as to Mary’s private demeanour. If she had Darnley buried beside Riccio, she fulfilled the prophecy which, Lennox tells us, she made over Riccio’s new-made grave, when she fled from Holyrood after the murder of the Italian: ‘ere a twelvemonth was over, a fatter than he should lie beside him.’ What she did at Seton and when (Lennox says that, at Seton, she called for the tuneWell is me Since I am free), whether she prosecuted her amour with Bothwell, played golf, indulged in the unseasonable sport of archery or not, is matter of gossip. Nor need we ask how long she sat under candle-light, in darkened, black-hung chambers.[183]She assuredly made no effort to avenge her husband. Neither thestrong and faithful remonstrances of her ambassador in France, nor the menace of Catherine de Medicis, nor the plain speaking of Elizabeth, nor a petition of the godly, who put this claim for justice last in a list of their own demands, and late (April 18), could move Mary. Bothwell ‘ruled all:’ Lethington, according to Sir James Melville, fell into the background of the Court. He had taken nothing by the crime, for which he had signed the band, and it is quite conceivable that Bothwell, who hated him, had bullied him into signing. He may even have had no more direct knowledge of what was intended, or when, than Moray himself. He can never have approved of the Queen’s marriage with Bothwell, which was fatal to his interests. He was newly married, and was still, at least, on terms with Mary which warranted him in urging her to establish Protestantism—or so he told Cecil. But to Bothwell, Mary was making grants in money, in privileges, and in beautiful old ecclesiastical fripperies: chasubles and tunicles all of cloth of gold, figured with white, and red, and yellow.[184]Lennox avers, in the Lennox Papers, that the armour, horses, and other effects of Darnley were presented by Mary to Bothwell. Late in March Drury reported that, in the popular belief, Mary was likely to marry him.
From the first Lennox had pleaded for the arrest and trial of Bothwell and others whom he named, but who never were tried. Writers like Goodall havedefended, Laing and Hill Burton have attacked, the manner of Bothwell’s Trial (April 12). Neither for Lennox nor for Elizabeth, would Mary delay the process. As usual in Scotland, as when Bothwell himself, years before, or when John Knox still earlier, or when, later, Lethington, was tried, either the accused or the accuser made an overwhelming show of armed force. It was ‘the custom of the country,’ and Bothwell, looking dejected and wretched, says his friend, Ormistoun, was ‘cleansed’ in the promptest manner, Lennox merely entering a protest. The Parliament on April 19 restored Huntly and others to forfeited lands, ratified the tenures of Moray, and offended Mary’s Catholic friends by practically establishing the Kirk. On the same night, apparently after a supper at Ainslie’s tavern, many nobles and ecclesiastics signed a band (‘Ainslie’s band’). It ran thus: Bothwell is, and has been judicially found, innocent of Darnley’s death. The signers therefore bind themselves, ‘as they will answer to God,’ to defend Bothwell to the uttermost, and to advance his marriage with Mary. If they fail, may they lose every shred of honour, and ‘be accounted unworthy and faithless Traytors.’
A copy of the names of the signatories, as given to Cecil by John Read, George Buchanan’s secretary, ‘so far as John Read might remember,’ exists. The names are Murray (who was not in Scotland), Argyll, Huntly, Cassilis, Morton, Sutherland, Rothes, Glencairn, Caithness, Boyd, Seton, Sinclair, Semple,Oliphant, Ogilvy, Ross-Halkett, Carlyle, Herries, Home, Invermeath. ‘Eglintoun subscribed not, but slipped away.’[185]Names of ecclesiastics, as Lesley, Bishop of Ross, appear in copies where Moray’s name does not.[186]It is argued that Moray may have signed before leaving Scotland, that this may have been a condition of his license to depart. Mary’s confessor told de Silva that Moray did not sign.[187]That the Lords received a warrant for their signatures from Mary, they asserted at York (October, 1568), but was the document mentioned later at Westminster? That they were coerced by armed force, was averred later, but not in Kirkcaldy’s account of the affair, written on the day following. No Hamilton signs, at least if we except the Archbishop; and Lethington, with his friend Atholl, seems not even to have been present at the Parliament.
On April 21 (Monday), Mary went to Stirling to see her son, and try to poison him, according to a Lennox memorandum. On the 23rd, she went toLinlithgow; on the 24th, Bothwell, with a large force, seized her, Huntly, and Lethington, at a disputed place not far from Edinburgh. He then carried her to his stronghold of Dunbar. Was Mary playing a collusive part? had she arranged with Bothwell to carry her off? The Casket Letters were adduced by her enemies to prove that she was a party to the plot. As we shall see when examining the Letters if we accept them they leave no doubt on this point. But precisely here the darkness is yet more obscured by the enigmatic nature of Mary’s relations with Lethington, who, as Secretary, was in attendance on her at Stirling and Linlithgow. It will presently be shown that, as to Lethington’s policy at this moment, and for two years later, two contradictory accounts are given, and on the view we take of his actions turns our interpretation of the whole web of intrigue.
Whether Mary did or did not know that she was to be carried off, did Lethington know? If he did, it was his interest to ride from Stirling, by night, through the pass of Killiecrankie, to his usual refuge, the safe and hospitable house of Atholl, before the abduction was consummated. Bothwell’s success in wedding Mary would mean ruin to Lethington’s favourite project of uniting the crowns on the head of Mary or her child. It would also mean Lethington’s own destruction, for Bothwell loathed him. To this point was he brought by his accession to the band for Darnley’s murder. His natural action,then, if he knew of the intended abduction, was to take refuge with Atholl, who, like himself, had not signed Ainslie’s band. If Lethington was ignorant, others were not. Bothwell had chosen his opportunity with skill. He had an excellent excuse for collecting his forces. The Liddesdale reivers had just spoiled the town of Biggar, ‘and got much substance of coin (corn?), silks, and horses,’ so wrote Sir John Forster to Cecil on April 24.[188]On the pretext of punishing this outrage, Bothwell mustered his forces; but politicians less wary than Lethington, and more remote from the capital, were not deceived. They knew what Bothwell intended. Lennox was flying for his life, and was aboard ship on the west coast, but, as early as April 23, he wrote to tell his wife that Bothwell was to seize Mary. A spy in Edinburgh (Kirkcaldy, by the handwriting), and Drury in Berwick, knew of the scheme on April 24, the day of the abduction. If Mary did not suspect what Lennox knew before the event, she was curiously ignorant, but, if Lethington was ignorant, so may she have been.[189]
What were the exact place and circumstances of Mary’s arrest by Bothwell, whether he did or did not offer violence to her at Dunbar, whether she asked succour from Edinburgh, we know not precisely. At all events, she was so far compromised, actually violated, says Melville,[190]that, not being a ClarissaHarlowe, she might represent herself as bound to marry Bothwell. Meanwhile Lethington was at Dunbar with her, a prisoner ‘under guard,’ so Drury reports (May 2). By that date, many of the nobles, including Atholl, had met at Stirling, and, despite their agreement to defend Bothwell, in Ainslie’s band, Argyll and Morton, as well as Atholl and Mar, had confederated against him, Atholl probably acting under advice secretly sent by Lethington. ‘The Earl Bothwell thought to have slain him in the Queen’s chamber, had not her Majesty come between and saved him,’ says Sir James Melville, who had been released on the day after his capture between Linlithgow and Edinburgh.[191]Different rumours prevailed as to Lethington’s own intentions. He was sometimes thought to be no unwilling prisoner, and even to have warned Atholl not to head the confederacy against Bothwell (May 4).[192]Mary wrote to quiet the banded Lords at Stirling (about May 3), and Lethington succeeded in getting a letter delivered in which he expressed his desire to speak with Cecil, declaring that Mary meant to marry Bothwell. He had only been rescued from assassination by Mary, who said that, ‘if a hair of Lethington’s head perished, she would cause Huntly to forfeit lands, goods, and life.’[193]Could the Queen who protected Lethington be in love with Bothwell?
Mary, then, was, in one respect at least, nopassive victim, at Dunbar, and Lethington owed his life to her. He explained that his letters, apparently in Bothwell’s interest, were extorted from him, ‘but immediately by a trusty messenger he advertised not to give credit to them.’[194]Meantime he had arranged to escape, as he did, later. ‘He will come out to shoot with others, and between the marks he will ride upon a good nag to a place where both a fresh horse and company tarries for him.’[195]Lethington made his escape, but not till weeks later, when he fled first to Callendar, then to the protection of Atholl; he joined the Lords, and from this moment the question is, was he, under a pretext of secret friendship, Mary’s most deadly foe (as she herself, Morton, and Randolph declared) or her loyal servant, working cautiously in her interests, as he persuaded Throckmorton and Sir James Melville to believe?
My own impression is that Mary, Morton, and Randolph were right in their opinion. Lethington, under a mask of gratitude and loyalty, was urging, after his escape, the strongest measures against Mary, till circumstances led him to advise ‘a dulce manner,’ because (as he later confessed to Morton)[196]Mary was likely to be restored, and to avenge herself on him. Mary, he knew, could ruin him by proving his accession to Darnley’s murder. His hold over herwould be gone, as soon as the Casket Letters were produced before the English nobles: he had then no more that he could do, but she kept her reserve of strength, her proof against him. His bolt was shot, hers was in her quiver. This view of the relations (later to be proved) between Lethington and the woman whose courage saved his life, explains the later mysteries of Mary’s career, and part of the problem of the Casket Letters.
Meanwhile, in the first days of May, the Queen rushed on her doom. Despite the protestations of her confessor, who urged that a marriage with Bothwell was illegal: despite the remonstrances of du Croc, who had been sent from France to advise and threaten, despite the courageous denunciation of Craig, the Protestant preacher, Mary hurried through a collusive double process of divorce, proclaimed herself a free agent, created Bothwell Duke of Orkney, and, on May 15, 1567, wedded him by Protestant rites, the treacherous Bishop of Orkney, later one of her official prosecutors, performing the ceremony.[197]To her or to Lethington’s own letter of excuse to the French Court, we return later.
Mary, even on the wedding-day, was miserable. Du Croc, James Melville, and Lethington, who had not yet escaped, were witnesses of her wretchedness. She called out for a knife to slay herself.[198]Marywas ‘the most changed woman of face that in so little time without extremity of sickness they have seen.’ A Highland second-sighted woman prophesied that she should have five husbands. ‘In the fifth husband’s timeshe shall be burned, which death divers speak of to happen to her, and it is said she fears the same.’ This dreadful death was the legal punishment of women who killed their husbands. The fires of the stake shone through Mary’s dreams when a prisoner in Loch Leven. Even Lady Reres, now supplanted by a sister of Bothwell’s, and the Lady of Branxholme, ‘both in their speech and writing marvellously rail, both of the Queen and Bothwell.’[199]
A merry bridal!
Mary’s defenders have attributed her sorrow to the gloom of a captive, forced into a hated wedlock. De Silva assigned her misery to a galling conscience. We see the real reasons of her wretchedness, and to these we must add the most poignant, Bothwell’s continued relations with his wife, who remained in his Castle of Crichton. He, too, was ‘beastly suspicious and jealous.’ No wonder that she called for a knife to end her days, and told du Croc that she never could be happy again.
Meanwhile the Lords, from the first urged on by Kirkcaldy, who said (April 26) that he must avenge Darnley or leave the country, were banded, and were appealing to Elizabeth for help, which she, a Queen,hesitated to lend to subjects confederated against a sister Queen. Kirkcaldy was the dealer with Bedford, who encouraged him, but desired that the Prince should be brought to England. Robert Melville dealt with Killigrew (May 27). Bothwell, to soothe the preachers, attended sermons, Mary invited herself to dinner with her reluctant subjects; the golden font, the christening gift of Elizabeth, was melted down and coined for pay to the guard of musketeers (May 31). Huntly asked for leave to go to the north. Mary replied bitterly that he meant to turn traitor, like his father. This distrust of Huntly is clearly expressed in the Casket Letters.[200]On May 30, Mary summoned an armed muster of her subjects. On June 6, Lethington carried out his deferred scheme, and fled to the Lords. On the 7th, Mary and Bothwell retired to Borthwick Castle. On June 11, the Lords advanced to Borthwick. Bothwell fled to Dunbar.[201]The Lords then retired to Dalkeith, and thence, on the same night, to Edinburgh. Thither Mary had sent a proclamation, which is still extant, bidding the citizens to arm and free her, not from Bothwell, but from the Lords. An unwilling captive would have hurried to their protection. The burgesses permitted the Lords to enter the town. Mary at once, on hearing of this, sent the son of Lady Reres to the commander of Edinburgh Castle, bidding him fire his guns on the Lords. Hedisobeyed. She then fled in male apparel to Dunbar, Bothwell meeting her a mile from Borthwick (June 11). On June 12, the Lords seized the remains of the golden font, and the coin already struck. On the 13th, James Beaton joined Mary and Bothwell at Dunbar, and found them mustering their forces. He returned, with orders to encourage the Captain of the Castle, but was stopped.
Next day (14th) the Lords made a reconnaissance towards Haddington, and Atholl, with Lethington, rode into Edinburgh, at the head of 200 horse. Lethington then for three hours dealt with the Keeper of the Castle, Sir James Balfour, his associate in the band for Darnley’s murder. Later, according to Randolph, they opened a little coffer of Bothwell’s which had a covering of green cloth, and was deposited in the Castle, and took out the band. Was this coffer the Casket? Such coffers had usually velvet covers, embroidered. Lethington won over Balfour, who surrendered the Castle presently. This was the deadliest stroke at Mary, and it was dealt by him whose life she had just preserved.
Next day the Lords marched to encounter Bothwell, met him posted on Carberry Hill, and, after many hours of manœuvres and negotiations, very variously reported, the Lords allowed Bothwell to slip away to Dunbar (he was a compromising captive), and took Mary, clad unqueenly in a ‘red petticoat, sleeves tied with points, a velvet hat and muffler.’ She surrendered to Kirkcaldy of Grange: on what terms,if on any, is not to be ascertained. She herself in Nau’s MS. maintains that she promised to join in pursuing Darnley’s murderers, and ‘claimed that justice should be done upon certain persons of their party now present, who were guilty of the said murder, and were much astonished to find themselves discovered.’ But, by Nau’s own arrangement of his matter, Mary can only have thus accused the Lords (there is other evidence that she did so)afterBothwell, at parting from her, denounced to her Morton, Balfour, and Lethington, giving her a copy of the murder band, signed by them, and bidding her ‘take good care of that paper.’ She did ‘take good care’ of some paper, as we shall see, though almost certainly not the band, and not obtained at Carberry Hill.[202]She asked for an interview with Lethington and Atholl, both of whom, though present, denied that they were of the Lords’ party. Finally, after parting from Bothwell, assuring him that, if found innocent in the coming Parliament, she would remain his loyal wife, she surrendered to Kirkcaldy, ‘relying upon his word and assurance, which the Lords, in full Council, as he said, had solemnly warranted him to make.’ So writes Nau. James Beaton (whose narrative we have followed) merely says that she made terms, which were granted, that none of her party should be ‘invaded or pursued.’[203]Sir James Melville makes the Lords’ promise depend on her abandonment of Bothwell.[204]
Whatever be the truth as to Mary’s surrender, the Lords later excused their treatment of her not on the ground that they had given no pledge, but on that of her adhesion to the man they had asked her to marry. According to Nau, Lethington persuaded the Lords to place her in the house then occupied by Preston, the Laird of Craigmillar, Provost of Edinburgh. She asked, at night, for an interview with Lethington, but she received no answer. Next morning she called piteously to Lethington, as he passed the window of her room: he crushed his hat over his face, and did not even look up. The mob were angry with Lethington, and Mary’s guards dragged her from the window. On the other hand, du Croc says that Lethington, on hearing her cries, entered her room, and spoke with her, while the mob was made to move on.[205]Lethington told du Croc that, when Mary called to him, and he went to her, she complained of being parted from Bothwell. He, with little tact, told her that Bothwell much preferred his wife. She clamoured to be placed in a ship with Bothwell, and allowed to drift at the wind’s will.[206]Du Croc said to Lethington that he hoped the pair would drift to France, ‘where the king would judge righteously, for the unhappy facts are only too well proved.’ This is a very strong opinion against Mary. Years later, when Lethington was holding Edinburgh Castle for Mary, he told Craig that, after Carberry ‘I myself made the offer to herthat, if she would abandon my Lord Bothwell, she should have as thankful obedience as ever she had since she came to Scotland. But no ways would she consent to leave my Lord Bothwell.’[207]Lethington’s word is of slight value.
To return to Nau, or to Mary speaking through Nau, on June 16 Lethington did go to see her: ‘but in such shame and fear that he never dared to lift his eyes to her face while he spoke with her.’ He showed great hatred of Bothwell, and said that she could not be allowed to return to him: Mary, marvelling at his ‘impudence,’ replied that she was ready to join in the pursuit of Darnley’s murderers: who had acted chiefly on Lethington’s advice. She then told him plainly that he, Morton, and Balfour had chiefly prevented inquiry into the murder.Theywere the culprits, as Bothwell had told her, showing her the signatures to the murder band, when parting from her at Carberry. She reminded Lethington that she had saved his life. If Lethington persecuted her, she would tell what she knew of him. He replied, angrily, that she would drive him to extremities to save his own life, whereas, if matters were allowed to grow quiet, he might one day be of service to her. If he were kept talking, and so incurred the suspicion of the Lords, her life would be in peril. To ‘hedge,’ Lethington used to encourage Mary, when she was in Loch Leven. But he had, then, no ‘assurance’ from her, and, on a false alarm of herescape, mounted his horse to fly from Edinburgh.[208]Thus greatly do the stories of Mary and of Lethington differ, concerning their interview after Carberry. Perhaps Mary is the more trustworthy.
On June 17, 1567, John Beaton wrote to his brother, Mary’s ambassador in Paris. He says that no man was allowed to speak to Mary on June 16, but that, in the evening, she asked a girl to speak to Lethington, and pray him to have compassion on her, ‘and not to show himself so extremely opposed to her as he does.’[209]Beaton’s evidence, being written the day after the occurrences, is excellent, and leaves us to believe that, in the darkest of her dark hours in Scotland, insulted by the populace, with guards placed in her chamber, destitute of all earthly aid, Mary found in extreme opposition to her the man who owed to her his lands and his life.
And why was Lethington thus ‘extremely opposed’? First, Mary, if free, would join Bothwell, his deadly foe. Secondly, he knew from her own lips that Mary knew his share in Darnley’s murder, and had proof. While she lived, the sword hung over Lethington. He, therefore, insisted on her imprisonment in a place whence escape should have been impossible. He is even said to have advised that she should be secretly strangled. Years later, when time had brought in his revenges, and Lethington and Kirkcaldy were holding the Castle for Mary, her last hope, Lethington explained his change of sides in aletter to his opponent, Morton. Does Morton hate him because he has returned to the party of the Queen? He had advised Morton to take the same course, ‘being assured that, with time, she would recover her liberty (as yet I have no doubt but she will). I deemed it neither wisdom for him nor me to deserve particular ill will at her hands.’ This was a frank enough explanation of his own change of factions. If ever Mary came to her own, Lethington dreaded her feud. We shall see that as soon as she was imprisoned, Lethington affected to be her secret ally. Morton replied that ‘it was vain in Lethington to think that he could deserve more particular evil will at Mary’s hands than he had deserved already.’[210]
Lethington could not be deeper in guilt towards Mary than he was, despite his appearance of friendship. The ‘evil will’ which he had incurred was ‘particular,’ and could not be made worse. In the same revolution of factions (1570-73) Randolph also wrote to Lethington and Kirkcaldy asking them why they had deserted their old allies, Morton and the rest, for the Queen’s party. ‘You yourselves wrote against her, and were the chiefest causes of her apprehension, and imprisonment’ (at Loch Leven), ‘and dimission of her crown.... So that you two were her chiefest occasion of all the calamities,as she hath said, that she is fallen into. You, Lord of Lethington,by your persuasion and counsel toapprehend her, to imprison her, yea, to have taken presently the life from her.’[211]To this we shall return.
When we add to this testimony Mary’s hatred of Lethington, revealed in Nau’s MS., a hatred which his death could not abate, though he died in her service, we begin to understand. Sir James Melville and Throckmorton were (as we shall see) deluded by the ‘dulce manner’ of Lethington. But, in truth, he was Mary’s worst enemy, till his bolt was shot, while hers remained in her hands. Then Lethington, in 1569, went over to her party, as a charge of Darnley’s murder, urged by his old partisans, was hanging over his head.
Meanwhile, after Mary’s surrender at Carberry, the counsel of Lethington 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.’
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 ofFrance 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 wasfound. 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 itselfin 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 abox,’ containingpapers about her intrigues with France. ‘It is promised Drury to have his part of it.’ This rumour of a ‘box’mayrefer 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 laterproduced. 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 andsignedby her hand. Ourcopiesare 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 farfrom 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 laterpublished. It is hazarded without much confidence, but certain circumstances suggest that it may possibly be correct.