LETTER VII

This Letter purports to follow on another, ‘sen my letter writtin,’ and may be of Tuesday, April 22, as Mary reports that Huntly is anxious about what he is to do ‘after to-morrow.’ She speaks of Huntly as ‘your brother-in-law that _was_,’ whereas Huntly, Bothwell not being divorced, was still his brother-in-law. Huntly is afraid that Mary’s people, and especially the Earl of Sutherland, will die rather than let her be carried off. We do not know, from other sources, that Sutherland was present. Mary implores Bothwell to bring an overpowering force. No transcript of the original French, nor any English translation, is known. Mary must have written two of these letters (and apparently eleven sonnets also) while ill, anxious, and busy, on the 22nd, at Stirling, with the third on the 23rd, either at Stirling or Linlithgow. She could hardly get answers to anything written as late as the 22nd, before Bothwell arrived at Haltoun, near Linlithgow, on the night of April 23.