Letter II., ‘remember zow of the ludgeing in Edinburgh,’ a memorandum

_not_ in the English translation, may have been added fraudulently to prove the point that Kirk o’ Field was, from the first, devised for Darnley’s destruction.[354] These passages, in any case, prove that the false letter reported by Moray and Lennox haunted the minds of Lennox and Buchanan to the last.

The evidence of Nelson, Darnley’s servant,[355] later with Lady Lennox, to the effect that Craigmillar was proposed, but that Darnley rejected it, may be taken either as corroboration of the intention to lodge Darnley at Craigmillar (as is insisted on in Letters I. and II.) or as one of the sources whence Letter II. was fraudulently composed. On the whole, however, the Craigmillar references in the Letters have an air of authenticity. They were not what the accusers wanted; they wanted references to Kirk o’ Field, and these they amply provided in the Letter about poisoning Lady Bothwell, echoes of which are heard in the ‘Book of Articles,’ and in Lennox’s indictment in Scots.

The letter described by Moray and Lennox, when both, at different dates, were in contact with Wood, was full of references to Kirk o’ Field, which are wholly absent in Letters I. and II. The letter known to Moray and Lennox was probably forged in the interval between June 21 and July 8, 1567, when (July 8) the Lords sent ‘Jhone a Forret’ to Moray. As I shall make it evident that Robert Melville was sent to inform Elizabeth about the capture of the Casket on the very day of the event, the pause of seventeen days before the sending of ‘Jhone a Forret’ to Moray is very curious. In that time the letter noticed by Moray and Lennox may have been forged to improve the evidence against Mary. At all events its details were orally circulated. But I think that, finding this letter inconsistent, and overcharged, the Lords, in December, 1568, fell back on the authentic, or partially authentic, Letter II., and produced that. My scheme of dates for that Letter need not necessarily be accepted. My theory that Mary made a mistake as to her sheets of paper which caused the confusion of the internal chronology is but a conjecture, and the objection to it I have stated. The question is one of the most delicately balanced probabilities. Either Lennox, from January 1567 onwards, possessed the notes which Crawford swore that he wrote concerning Darnley’s conversation (in which case much of Letter II. is a forgery based on Crawford), or Crawford, in December 1568, deliberately perjured himself. The middle course involves the unlikely hypothesis that Crawford did take notes ‘immediately at the time;’ but that they were lost or destroyed; and that he, with dishonest stupidity, copied his deposition from Letter II. There appears to me to be no hint of the loss or disappearance of the only notes which Crawford swore that he made. Consequently, on either alternative, the conduct of the prosecutors is dishonest. Dishonesty is again suggested by the mysterious letter which Moray and Lennox cite, and which colours both Lennox’s MS. discourses and the ‘Book of Articles.’ But, on the other hand, parts of Letter II. seem beyond the power of the Genius of Forgery to produce. Perhaps the least difficult theory is that Letter II. is in part authentic, in part garbled.[356]

XV

_THE SIX MINOR CASKET LETTERS_

If the accusers had authentic evidence in Letters I. and II., they needed no more to prove Mary’s guilt. But the remaining six Letters bear on points which they wished to establish, such as Mary’s attempt to make her brother, Lord Robert, assassinate her husband, and her insistence on her own abduction. There are some difficulties attendant on these Letters. We take them in order. First Letter III. (or VIII.). This Letter, the third in Mr. Henderson’s edition, is the eighth and last in that of Laing. As the Letter, forged or genuine, is probably one of the last in the series, it shall be discussed in its possible historical place.