Letter II., implied Livingstone’s knowledge of Mary’s amour with Bothwell.

He, therefore, in a paper which we can date about October 4, 1568,[279] suggests ‘that the Lord Livingstone may be examined upon his oath of the words between his mistress and him at Glasgow, mentioned in her own letter.’ But this very proper step was never taken: nor was Lennox then heard. The words might have been used, but that would not prove Mary’s authorship of the letter containing them. They might have been supplied by Lady Reres, after her quarrel with Mary in April-May, 1567. Moray next desired to know--

1. Whether the English Commissioners had authority to pronounce Mary guilty or not guilty. (She had protested (Oct. 7) that she ‘was not subject to any judge on earth.’)

2. Whether the Commissioners will promise to give verdict instantly.

3. Whether, if the verdict was ‘guilty,’ Mary would be handed over to them, or kept prisoner in England.

4. Whether, in that case, Elizabeth would recognise Moray as Regent.

Till these questions were answered (they were sent on to Elizabeth), Moray could not ‘enter to the accusation.’[280] Hitherto they had been ‘content rather to hide and conceal than to publish and manifest to the world’ Mary’s dishonour. They had only told all Europe--in an unofficial way. The English Commissioners waited for Elizabeth’s reply. On the 11th October, Moray replied to the charges of Mary, without accusing her of the murder. He also ‘privately,’ and unofficially, showed to the English Commissioners some of the Casket Papers. Lethington, Wood (?), Makgill, and Buchanan (in a new suit of black velvet) displayed and interpreted the documents. They included a warrant of April 19, signed by Mary, authorising the Lords to sign the Ainslie band, advising Bothwell to marry her.[281] Of this warrant we hear nothing, as far as I have observed, at Westminster.[282] Calderwood, speaking of Morton’s trial in 1581, says that ‘he had,’ for signing Ainslie’s band, ‘a warrant from the Queen, which none of the rest had.’[283] At York, the Lords said that all of them had this warrant. ‘Before they had this warrant, there was none of them that did, or would, set to their hands, saving only the Earl of Huntly.’ Yet they also alleged that they signed ‘more for fear than any liking they had of the same.’ They alleged that they were coerced by 200 musketeers.[284] Now Kirkcaldy, on April 20, 1567, reports the signing of the Band on the previous day, to Bedford, but says not a word of the harquebus men. They are not mentioned till ten days later.

Lethington kindly explained the reason for Mary’s abduction, which certainly needs explanation. A pardon for that, he told the English Lords, would be ‘sufficient also for the murder.’ The same story is given in the ‘Book of Articles,’ the formal impeachment of Mary.[285] Presently the English Commissioners were shown ‘one horrible and long letter of her own hand, containing foul matter and abominable ... with divers fond ballads of her own hand, which letters, ballads, and other writings before specified, were closed in a little coffer of silver and gilt, heretofore given by her to Bothwell.’

After expressing abhorrence, the three Commissioners enclose extracts, partly in Scots.[286] The Commissioners, after seeing the papers unofficially, go on to ask how they are to proceed. Their letter has been a good deal modified, by the authors, in a rather less positive and more sceptical sense than the original, which has been deciphered.[287]

On the same day, Norfolk wrote separately to Pembroke, Leicester, and Cecil. He excused the delays of the Scots: ‘they stand for their lives, lands, goods, and they are not ignorant, if they would, for it is every day told them, that, as long as they abstain from touching their Queen’s honour, she will make with them what reasonable end they can devise....’ In fact, as Melville has told us, he himself was their go-between for the compromise. Norfolk adds that there are two ways, by justice public and condign, ‘if the fact shall be thought as detestable and manifest to you, as, for aught we can perceive, it seemeth here to us,’ or, if Elizabeth prefer it, ‘to make such composition as in so broken a cause may be.’

Norfolk seems in exactly the mind of an honourable man, horrified by Mary’s guilt, and anxious for her punishment. He either dissembled, or was a mere weathercock of sentiment, or, presently, he found reason to doubt the authenticity of what he had been shown. Lethington, we saw, showed the letters, unofficially, on October 11. On October 12, Knollys had a talk with Mary. ‘When,’ asked she, ‘will they proceed to their odious accusations, or will they stay and be reconciled to me, or what will my good sister do for me?’ Surely an innocent lady would have said, ‘Let them do their worst: I shall answer them. A reconciliation with dastardly rebels I refuse.’ That was not Mary’s posture: ‘But,’ she said, ‘if they will fall to extremities they shall be answered roundly, and at the full, and then are we past all reconciliations.’ So wrote Knollys to Norfolk, on October 14.[288] Mary would fall back on her ‘something in black and white.’

On October 13, Lesley and Boyd rode to Bolton, says Knollys, and told Mary what Lethington had done: his privy disclosure of her Letters. He himself was doubtless their informant, his plan being to coerce her into a compromise.

Of all things, it now seemed most unlikely that Norfolk would veer round to Mary’s side, and desire to marry her. But this instantly occurred, and the question is, had he seen reason to doubt the authenticity of the letter which so horrified him? Had Lethington told him something on that long ride which they took together, on Saturday, October 16?[289] As shall be shown, in our chapter on the Possible Forgers, this may be what Lethington had done, and over-done. He had shaken Norfolk’s belief in the Letter, so much that Norfolk presently forbade Mary to accept a compromise!

The evidence of Lesley is here, as usual, at cross purposes. In his confession (November 6, 1571) he says that Robert Melville took him to Lethington’s lodgings, _after_ Lethington had secretly shown the Letters. ‘We talked almost a whole night.’ Lethington said that Norfolk favoured Mary, and wished Moray to drop the charges and arrange a compromise.

Meanwhile in a letter to Mary (after October 16)[290] Lesley first, as in his confession, says that he has conferred with Lethington ‘great part of a night.’ Lethington had ridden out with Norfolk, on October 16, and learned from him that Elizabeth aimed at delay, and at driving Moray to do his very worst. When they had produced ‘all they can against you,’ Elizabeth would hold Mary prisoner, till she could ‘show you favour.’ Norfolk therefore now advised Mary to feign submission to Elizabeth, who would probably be more kind in two or three months.[291] If so, Lethington’s words had not yet their full effect, or Norfolk dissembled.

If we are to believe Sir James Melville, who was at York, Norfolk also conferred with Moray himself, who consulted Lethington and Sir James; but not the other Commissioners, his allies. His friends advised him to listen to Norfolk. We have Moray’s own account of the transaction. In October, 1569, when Norfolk was under the suspicion of Elizabeth, Moray wrote to her with his version of the affair.[292] ‘When first in York I was moved to sue familiar conference with the Duke as a mean to procure us expedition.’ He found the Duke ‘careful to have her schame coverit, hir honour repairit, schew(ed) hir interest to the title of the crown of England.... It was convenient she had “ma” (more) children,’ who would be friends of Moray, and so on. The guileless Regent dreamed ‘of nothing less than that Norfolk had in any way pretended to the said marriage.’ But _now_ (1569) Moray sees that Norfolk’s idea was to make him seem the originator of the marriage.

Meanwhile Robert Melville was still (he says) negotiating between Mary and Moray, on the basis of Mary’s abdication and receipt of a large pension from Scotland. Melville rode to London to act for Mary on October 25.[293] But, before that date, on October 16, Elizabeth wrote to Norfolk as to the demands of Moray made on October 11, and under the influence of what she had now learned from her Commissioners as to the Casket Letters, and, perhaps, of suspicions of Norfolk. Practically, she removed the Conference to London, ordering Norfolk so to manage that Mary should think her restoration was to be arranged.[294] Mary weakly consented to the change of _venue_ (October 22). She sent Lesley and Herries to represent her in London.

At this moment, namely (October 22) when Mary consented to the London Conference, it seems that she expected a compromise on the lines discussed between Moray and herself. She would resign the crown, and live affluently in England, while Moray would not produce his accusations, and would exercise the Regency. This course would be fatal to Mary’s honour, in the eyes of history, but contemporaries would soon forget all, except that there had been gossip about compromising letters. The arrangement proposed was, then, reluctantly submitted to by Mary, according to Robert Melville. But it occurred to Norfolk that he could hardly marry a woman on whom such a blot rested, or, more probably, that his ambition would gain little by wedding a Queen retired, under a cloud, from her realm. If I am right, he had now come, under Lethington’s influence, to doubt the authenticity of the Casket Letters.

That Norfolk opposed compromise appears from Robert Melville’s deposition. On arriving in London, he met Herries, who, rather to his surprise, knew the instructions of Mary to Robert himself. ‘The Lord Herries sayand to this deponair that he’ (Melville) ‘was cum thither with sic commission to deale privelie with the Quene of England, howbeit thair wes mair honest men thair’ (than Melville). ‘The men that had bene the caus of hir trouble’ (Morton and the rest) ‘wald be prefarit in credit to thame. This berair (Melville) be the contraire affirmit that the caus of his cumming thair wes to be a witness in caise he should be called upon,’ namely to the fact that Mary did not sign her abdication (at Loch Leven) as a free agent. Melville goes on to say that, ‘in the tyme quhan it was thocht that course’ (the compromise with Murray) ‘should have past furthair, thair com a writing from the quene to the Bishop of Ross that the Scotch partie heard the Bishop reid, and partly red himself, bearing amangis uther purposis that the Duke of Norfolk had send liggynnis’ (Liggens, or Lygons his messenger) ‘to hir and forbid hir to dimitt hir crown. And sa the Bishop willit the Secretair’ (Lethington) ‘to lief of that course’ (the compromise) ‘as a thing the Quene (Mary) was not willing to, without the Duke’ (Norfolk) ‘gaif hir counsail thairto.’[295]

Thus it appears that Norfolk prevented Mary from pursuing her compromise (which Lethington was favouring in his own interest) and from abdicating, leaving the Letters unproduced. Lethington had shaken his faith in the authenticity of the Casket Letters. That Mary should have acquiesced in a compromise demonstrates that she dreaded Moray’s accusations. That, at a word from Norfolk, she reconsidered and altered her plan, proves that she could, in her opinion, outface her accusers, and indicates that Norfolk now distrusted the genuine character of the Letters. She knew, if not by the copies of her Letters which Lethington did (or did not) send her, at least by Lesley’s report of that which Lethington showed the English Commissioners, what her enemies could do. She would carry the war into Africa, accuse her accusers, and, in a dramatic scene in Westminster Hall, before the Peers and the foreign Ambassadors, would rout her enemies. That, if accused, she would not be allowed to be present, and to reply, did not occur to her. Such injustice was previously unknown. That she would be submitting to a judge, or judges, she could overlook, or would, later, protest that she had never done. According to Nau, she had made the same offer to defend herself (as we have seen) to Moray, before the Scots Parliament of December, 1567.

Mary’s plan was magnificent. Sussex himself, writing from York, on October 22, saw the force of her tactics.[296] He speaks, as well he might, of ‘the inconstancy and subtleness of the people with whom we deal.’ Mary must be found guilty, or the matter must be huddled up ‘with a show of saving her honour.’ ‘The first, I think, will hardly be attempted, for two causes: the one for that if her adverse party accuse her of the murder by producing of her letters, she will deny them, and accuse the most of them of manifest consent to the murder, _hardly to be denied_; so as, upon the trial on both sides, _her proofs will judicially fall out best_, as it is thought.’ The other reason for not finding Mary guilty was that, if little James died, the Hamiltons were next heirs. This would not suit Moray, he (like Norfolk) would now wish for more children of Mary’s, to keep the Hamiltons out, but, if she were now defamed, there would be a difficulty as to their succession to the crown. So Sussex believed (rightly) that a compromise was intended, for which Lethington, as he says, had been working at York, while Robert Melville was also engaged. Sussex then states the compromise in the same terms as Robert Melville did, adding that Moray would probably hand his proofs over to Mary, and clear her by a Parliamentary decree. The Hamiltons had other ideas. ‘You will find Lethington wholly bent to composition.’ A general routing out of evidence did not suit Lethington.

To Sussex, the one object was to keep Mary in England; a thing easy if Moray produced his proofs, and if Elizabeth, ‘by virtue of her superiority over Scotland,’ gave a verdict against Mary. But Sussex thought that the proofs of Moray ‘will not fall out sufficiently to determine judicially, if she denies her letters.’

This was the opinion of a cool, unprejudiced, and well-informed observer. Mary’s guilt could not, he doubted, be judicially proved. Moray’s party, he might have added, would have been ruined by an acknowledgment of English suzerainty. The one thing was to prevent the Scots from patching a peace with Mary. And, to that end, though Sussex does not say so, Mary must not be allowed to appear in her own defence.

On October 30, Elizabeth held a great Council at Hampton Court. Mary’s Commissioners, and then those of the Lords, were to have audience of her. Mary’s men were to be told that Elizabeth wished ‘certain difficulties resolved.’ To the Lords, she would say that they should produce their charges: if they were valid, Elizabeth would protect them, and detain Mary during their pleasure. As Mary was sure to hear of this plan, she was to be removed from Bolton to Tutbury, which was not done till later. Various peers were to be added to the English Commission, but not the foreign Ambassadors; though, on June 20, the Council reckoned it fair to admit them.[297]

Mary heard of all this, and of Moray’s admission to Elizabeth’s presence, from Hepburn of Riccartoun, Bothwell’s friend and kinsman (November 21).[298] On November 22, therefore, she wrote to bid her Commissioners break up the Conference, if she, the accused, was denied the freedom to be present, conceded to Moray, the accuser. Nothing could be more correct, but, at the same time, in ‘a missive letter’ Mary suggested to her Commissioners that they should again try to compromise, saving her crown and honour.[299] These would not have been saved by the compromise which, according to Robert Melville, Norfolk forbade her to make.

XII

_THE LETTERS AT WESTMINSTER AND HAMPTON COURT_

The Commission opened on November 25 at Westminster, after Elizabeth had protested that she would not ‘take upon her to be judge.’[300]

On the 26th Moray put in a written Protestation, as to their reluctance in accusing Mary. They then put in an ‘Eik,’ or addition, with the formal charge.[301] On the 29th November, the Lords said that this charge might be handed to Mary’s Commissioners. Lennox appeared as an accuser, and put in ‘A Discourse of the Usage’ of Darnley by Mary: the last of his Indictments. It covered three sheets of paper. Mary’s men now entered, received Moray’s accusation, retired, discussed it, and asked for a delay for consideration. On December 1, they returned. Moray’s ‘Eik’ of accusation had been presented to Mary’s Commissioners on November 29. James Melville says that Lethington was not present, had ‘a sore heart,’ and whispered to Moray that he had shamed himself for ever. The Letters would come out. Mary would retort. Lethington would be undone. Mary’s men might have been expected, as they asked for a delay, to protract it till they could consult their mistress. The wintry weather was evil, the roads were foul, communication was slow, and the injustice to Mary of keeping her at four or five days’ distance from her representatives was disgraceful. Instead of consulting her, the Commissioners for Mary met the English on December 1.

They had none of her courage, and Herries had plainly shown to Elizabeth his want of confidence in Mary’s innocence. In June he had asked Elizabeth what she meant to do if appearances proved against Mary. And he told Mary that he had done so.[302] He now read a tame speech, inveighing against the accusers, and declaring that, when the cause should be further tried, some of them would be proved guilty of entering into bands for Darnley’s murder. Lesley followed, stating that he and his fellows must see Elizabeth, and communicate to her Mary’s demand to be heard in person, before Elizabeth, the Peers, and the Ambassadors; while the accusers must be detained till the end of the cause.[303] On December 3, Lesley and the rest presented these demands to Elizabeth at Hampton Court. The Council later put the request before legal advisers, who replied at length. They answered that even God (though He was fully acquainted with all the circumstances) did not condemn Adam and Eve unheard. But as to Mary’s non-recognition of a mortal judge, that was absurd. If she meant to be heard, she tacitly acknowledged the jurisdiction: which is perfectly true. A door must be open or shut. Thirdly, it was ridiculous to ask Elizabeth to be present, but only as a spectator. Fourthly, it was no less absurd to ask all the nobles to attend a trial which might be long, but they might choose representatives, if Mary desired it, to appear when convenient. Fifthly, it was ridiculous to demand the presence of ambassadors, who would be neither prosecutors, defenders, judges, clerks, nor witnesses: they could only be lookers-on, like other people. That the scene should be London was reasonable, but it might be elsewhere.

There was this addition (_puis est adjouxté_), ‘We think this voluntary offer’ (of Mary) ‘so important that, in our opinion, all her demands should be granted, without prejudice or contravention to the Queen of England, so that none may be able to say a word against the manner of procedure.’[304]

To myself it appears that the majority of the civilians consulted returned the reply which insists that Mary must be tried with acknowledgment of jurisdiction, if she is to be heard at all, and that the addition, declaring her demands just, is the conclusion of a minority. Mary wanted the pomp and publicity of a great trial, which, after all, was to be a mere appeal to public opinion. As Queen of Scots, she could not destroy the fruits of Bannockburn and the wars of Independence, by acknowledging an English sovereign as her Judge and Superior. She could not return to the position of John Balliol under Edward I. She had been beguiled into confiding her cause to Elizabeth, and this was the result.

On December 4, Mary’s men, without consulting her, made a fatal error. Before seeing Elizabeth they met Leicester and Cecil, in a room apart, and asked that Elizabeth should be informed of their readiness, even now, to make a compromise, with surety to Moray and his party. Now Mary had declared to Knollys that, if once Moray accused her publicly, they were ‘past all reconciliation.’ That was the only defensible position, yet her Commissioners, perhaps with her approval, receded from it. Elizabeth seized the opportunity. It was better, she said, and rightly, for her sister’s honour, that Mary’s accusers should be charged with their audacious defaming of their Queen, and punished for the same, unless they could show ‘apparent just causes of such an attempt.’ In fact, Elizabeth must see the Letters, or cause them to be seen by her nobles. She could not admit Mary in person while, as at present, there seemed so little to justify the need of her appearance--for the Letters had not yet been shown. When they were shown, it would probably turn out, she said, that Mary need not appear at all.

The unhappy Scottish Commissioners tried to repair a blunder, which clearly arose from their undeniable want of confidence in their cause. The proposal for a compromise, they said, was entirely their own. We remember that, by Norfolk’s desire, Mary had already refused a compromise to which she had once consented. She would probably, in the now existing circumstances, have adhered to her resolution.[305]

On December 6, Moray and his party were at Westminster to produce their proofs. But Lesley put in a protest that he must, in that case, withdraw. The English Commissioners declared that, in this protest, Elizabeth’s words of December 4 were misrepresented: her words (as to seeing Moray’s proofs) having, in fact, been utterly ambiguous. She had first averred that Moray must be punished if he should be unable to show some apparent just causes ‘of such an attempt,’ and then, at a later stage of the conversation, had ‘answered that she meant not to require any proofs.’ So runs the report, annotated and endorsed by Cecil.[306] But now the Council were sitting to receive the proofs which Elizabeth had first declared that she would, and then that she would not ask for, while, after vowing that she would not ask for them, she had said that she ‘would receive them for her own satisfaction’!

The words of the protest by Mary’s Commissioners described all this, and the production of proofs in Mary’s absence, as ‘a preposterous order.’[307] No more preposterous proceedings were ever heard of in history. The English Commissioners, seizing on the words ‘a preposterous order,’ declined to receive the protest till it should be amended, and at once called on Moray to produce his proofs. Moray then put in the ‘Book of Articles,’ ‘containing certain conjectures,’ a long arraignment of Mary. In the Lennox Papers is a shorter collection of ‘Probable and Infallyable Conjectures,’ an early form of Buchanan’s ‘Detection.’ The ‘Book of Articles’ occupies twenty-six closely printed pages, in Hosack, who first published it, and is written in Scots.[308] The band for Bothwell’s marriage is said to have been made at Holyrood, and Mary’s signature is declared to have been appended later. This mysterious band seems to have reached Cecil _unofficially_, and is marked ‘To this the Queen gave consent the night before the marriage,’ May 14 (cf. p. 254). Nothing is noted as to Darnley’s conduct in seeking to flee the realm in September, 1566, and this account is given of the well-known scene in which Mary, the Council, and du Croc attempted to extract from him his grievances. ‘He was rejected and rebuked opinlie in presence of diverse Lords then of her previe counsale, quhill he was constrenit to return to Streviling.’ Though less inaccurate than the ‘Detection,’ the ‘Book of Articles’ is a violent _ex parte_ harangue.

Moray also put in the Act of Parliament of December, 1567. The English heard the ‘Book of Articles’ and the Act read aloud, on the night of December 6. On the 7th,[309] Moray hoped that they were satisfied. They declined to express an opinion. Moray retired with his company, and returned bearing, at last, The Casket. Morton, on oath, declared that his account of the finding of the Casket was true, and that the contents had been kept unaltered. Then a contract of marriage, said to be in Mary’s hand, and signed, but without date, was produced. The contract speaks of Darnley’s death as a past event, but they ‘did suppose’ that the deed was made _before_ the murder. They may have based this suspicion on Casket