| <Taits Edinburgh Magazine 1846 ~~ Burton> 
| <Mary Queen of Scots Part II>
| <Continued from page 432 of our July number.>
| <pb n="493">
| It is not right, that, even in reviewing a guilty age, we should 
| believe in charges of gross crime, on the slightest rumour of 
| evidence; but a knowledge of the social condition in which the 
| actors lived, smooths the way to an opinion, when there is 
| otherwise a considerable body of evidence. It would not be 
| fair to believe of Caesar Borgia, that it was by his deed that 
| his brother John was murdered, and thrown into the Tiber, 
| without some evidence; but as Caesar headed a band of 
| cut-throats and poisoners, much less evidence would satisfy the 
| historian of his guilt, than would be necessary to prove that 
| Charles I. poisoned his brother Henry. The court of France, 
| where Mary lived during the period of life when the notions of 
| right and wrong are formed, was conspicuous for poisonings, 
| and other secret assassinations. The charge of murder was of 
| course frequently made without foundation; but one 
| accustomed to hear of it as the natural means of revenging an 
| injury, or removing a troublesome neighbour, would not 
| acquire a wholesome horror of such deeds. Her own husband 
| Francis was said to have been killed by a barber shaving him 
| with a poisoned razor. That great tragedy of national perfidy 
| and crime, the Bartholomew massacre, was a subsequent fruit 
| of the morality in which she had been trained; and indeed her 
| own immediate maternal relations were among the most active 
| perpetrators of its horrors. Such being the nature of the people 
| from among whom she came, is it likely that she would be 
| purified by contact with the Ruthvens, Mortons,  
| Darnleys, and Bothwells, among whom her lot was cast in 
| Scotland? We get over many historical difficulties, by 
| reflecting on what things may, and what things may not be 
| expected, of persons in this or that position. Mirabeau the 
| elder thought that there could be nothing more natural than 
| that, when there were two brothers to divide the world 
| between them, the one should put the other to death. Probably 
| the old marquis argued from his own temper and disposition; 
| an interpretation one would not put on his reasoning, if, 
| instead of founding on an abstract view of human nature, he 
| had argued from facts, and inferred that a person who has 
| been brought up in the midst of murders in one country, is in 
| good training for countenancing them in another. The young 
| lady who reads many romances, where beautiful women are 
| terribly ill used by old and ugly men, has derived from 
| literature no idea of  a lovely murderess; and would be still 
| less able to fill the picture from her own circle of 
| acquaintance, none of whom, she feels morally convinced, 
| could, however disagreeable and conceited they may be, be 
| induced to murder their husbands. But the <hi rend="italic"> 
| Causes Celebres </hi> tells another story. 
| It is clear that if, before the murder of Rizzio, Mary despised 
| Darnley, after that cruel tragedy she qualified her contempt 
| with a cordial hatred. Accomplished, gifted, ardent, and 
| exacting, she was not of the nature calmly to brook slights and 
| insults from one whom her foolish fondness for his handsome 
| person had raised to such a pinnacle of greatness. Darnley was 
| a fool, and a paltry guzzling dissipated fool. He drank deep 
| and continuously; kept low company of every kind and grade; 
| and showed his queenly wife too plainly that constancy to one 
| subject was too dear a price to pay for her smiles. He was a 
| sort of royal Tony Lumpkin, who not brook the restraints and 
| etiquettes of a court, and must always be grubbing among the 
| lowest and most degrading
| <pb n="494">
| enjoyments. The murder of Rizzio was attended with 
| circumstances of the deepest insult. If there be no reason to 
| presume that the queen had a criminal intercourse with the 
| Italian, there can be no doubt that here husband charged her 
| with it, publicly and with blunt coarseness. Was a 
| high-spirited woman to submit to this? She told the perpetrators it 
| would be dear blood to some of them. Did she exclude 
| Darnley from the denunciation? 
| Meanwhile another and a darker figure comes across the 
| stage; one with a stronger head and a firmer heart. We never 
| saw a portrait of Bothwell. Probably it might disappoint our 
| imagination, and we are content in the possession of the ideal 
| image. To us he seems the most perfect historical personation 
| of the ruffian of romance. We see him with a majestic gloomy 
| brow, a swarthy complexion, dark fierce eyes, and lips 
| expressive alike of treachery, sensuality, cruelty, and 
| firmness. The incidents of his history are singular ~~ boldly 
| grasping at a crown ~~ breaking down all the social and moral 
| laws to attain his purpose, and dragging others through the 
| gap ~~ defying and intimidating the banded nobility of his 
| country ~~ standing fiercely at bay; and, finally, when 
| pursued, faithful still to his career of wickedness, and dying as 
| a pirate in the northern seas: Such a picture of wickedness and 
| courage ~~ of successful villany and fatal overthrow, is surely 
| nowhere else exemplified in general history. Mary 
| acknowledged the influence of this greater spirit; ~~ what a 
| contrast to the paltry creature she was bound to call husband! 
| Courage and firmness have ever exercised the strongest 
| influence over the female heart; and, between two bad men, he 
| who was both bold and bad could not but prevail. 
| A circumstance occurred soon after Rizzio's murder, 
| which, in spite of all that Prince Labanoff and others have 
| done to give it a different interpretation, must go down to all 
| posterity as an undoubted indication of the depth of the 
| queen's criminal attachment to Bothwell. On the 7th of 
| October, 1766, he was severely wounded in a conflict with the 
| border thieves; so severely that the reports of Queen 
| Elizabeth's spies, in Scotland, announced his death. Next day 
| the queen arrived at Jedburgh, and opened the sessions of the 
| Court of Justiciary. Her proceeding to this distant town, where 
| she was in the middle of a wild turbulent people, and 
| unattended by the amenities and enjoyments of her court, on 
| which she so much depend, is, by itself, a singular 
| circumstance; but, at a period when news traveled so slowly, it 
| would scarcely be just to connect this journey with the 
| circumstance of Bothwell having been wounded on the 
| preceding day. A few days subsequently, however, she took 
| horse, with a few attendants, crossed the wild border country, 
| and visited Bothwell on his sick-bed. The incident was strange 
| enough to leave an enduring recollection in the traditions of 
| the borderers, of the localities connected with the queen's wild 
| ride. She remained two hours at his stronghold, the castle of 
| Hermitage, <q>  
| </q>  as Lord Scrope writes to Cecil, and then 
| galloped back as she had come. It was a spirited act, and 
| worthy of a better cause. The whole journey, amounting to 
| nearly fifty miles, over bog and moor and mountain-steeps, 
| lay through that district where no post-chaise had been seen in 
| Scott's childhood ~~ the land of wild freebooters, who would 
| have as handily carried off her sovereign majesty, and 
| ensconced her in one of their peel towers, a general hostage 
| for the safety of unnumbered offenders against the law, as 
| they afterwards kidnapped the Lord President of the Court of 
| Session, while walking on the sands of Leith, endeavouring to 
| solve some knotty question of law on which he was called to 
| give judgment. <q> </q> says Bishop Keith, 
| <q> </q> The result was a burning fever, whether occasioned 
| by her exertions, or by the state of mind which tempted her to 
| undertake such an escapade, ~~ or by both. The apologetic 
| narrator tells us that Mary wanted to know, from the very best 
| source, the real state of the southern districts of her 
| dominions; that business was the sole end and motive of the 
| journey, and that she expected to receive from Bothwell such 
| information as <reg orig="no one"> no-one </reg> 
| else could provide her with. Had he 
| been able to give her any secret information about the Guises, 
| or Philip of Spain, ~~ to impart to her news from the 
| council-chamber of Elizabeth, ~~ or to tell any of those secrets 
| from other courts, which sovereigns love to hear and keep to 
| themselves, we might imagine a considerable effort made for 
| a personal interview. But that this wild ride, with all its 
| dangers, should have been encountered for the sake of a 
| personal knowledge about outbreaks with which it was the 
| part of the justiciar and the hangman to deal, ~~ that no person 
| among her zealous courtiers or grave councilors could procure 
| the necessary information on these vulgar matters connected 
| with the administration of the justice, and <q>  
| </q> ~~ we cannot believe. No, no. Wisdom shakes 
| her head. Princes, in that age especially, were not so anxious 
| to undertake the grubbing labours of <p> "the business of the 
| country." </p> IN truth, it was an incident that, standing by itself, 
| would have been inexplicable: connected with subsequent 
| events, it stands forth in light all too clear and damnatory. 
| The Queen's illness was frightful and miserable. Her 
| exclamation, that she wished herself dead, and the other 
| strange thoughts disturbing her mind, were marked by those 
| around her, and treasured up with the other records of her 
| wayward fate. Meanwhile there were not wanting tempters to 
| put vile thoughts in her mind. Darnley, who was isolated and 
| slighted ~~ perhaps afraid, proposed to leave the country; but 
| this project was not executed. A divorce was next proposed; 
| and shy it was not adopted is not perfectly clear, unless 
| through the supposition that the principal conspirators thought 
| it stupid and clumsy expedient, and remembered the robbers 
| proverb, <hi rend="italic"> <foreign lang="latin"> 
| </foreign> </hi> Secretary Maitland
| <pb n="495">
| at this juncture, threw forward such shadows of  coming 
| events, as it would have required a more obtuse mind than 
| Mary's to fail in comprehending. He said, <q> </q> Mr. 
| Tytler, who gives us this sententious speech, says, by way of 
| comment, that it <q> </q> Such a dialogue shows that Mary 
| did not very jealously conceal her anxiety to get rid of her 
| bonds; and indicates the conviction of Lethington, that he 
| needed not to be very fastidious about the plans he suggested. 
| Her answer, for some measure, reminds one of the Irish 
| gentleman's instruction to be sure <hi rend="italic"> not </hi> 
| to duck the process server in the horse-pond. It is, at all 
| events, pretty clear that, after such a conversation ~~ apart 
| altogether from the other indications of a secret understanding 
| with the conspirators, Mary must have been fully prepared for 
| a <p> "blow up." </p>
| A party of the nobles having settled, with each other, the 
| main point, that Darnley should be got rid of, proceeded, like 
| proper cautious hones-minded Scotsmen as they were, to have 
| the stipulations and conditions put into legal form. They 
| judged, according to the vulgar maxim, that it is best to have 
| <reg orig="every thing"> everything </reg> in black 
| and white; ~~ it prevents all awkward 
| misunderstandings. With all the reliance which honest discreet 
| men naturally have on each other, especially when united in a 
| good cause, it is well to have <reg orig="every thing"> 
| everything </reg> distinctly set forth, 
| that <reg orig="no one"> no-one </reg> may 
| misunderstand the position in which he stands 
| to his neighbours. So, as in the case of the murder of Rizzio, a 
| "Band," or bond was prepared and signed, three months before 
| the deed was done. The legal spirit is strong in Scotland; and a 
| power of rectifying all irregularities is supposed to lie in the 
| <p> "forms of style." </p> One of the most exterminating of the fierce 
| measures adopted against the Covenanters was by <p> "taking out 
| letters of lawborrows against them," </p> which is equivalent to 
| <p> "swearing the peace," </p> in England. Let us imagine the secretary 
| for Ireland presenting himself before a justice of peace, in 
| Tipperary, and requiring the whole population to find 
| recognisances to keep the peace; and we have the letters of 
| lawborrows. Down to the middle of last century, the Highland 
| rievers, who took black mail for sparing the cattle of the 
| neighbouring Lowland lairds, had the conditions of their 
| agreement drawn up in a "band;" and in the old Statistical 
| Account there is a contract dated in 1741, between 
| James Graham of Glengyle on the one part, <q>  
| </q> by which, for a tax of four per cent on the 
| valued rent, James Graham undertakes to <q> </q> But we are 
| wandering from one piece of business to another. Let us return 
| to the transaction for bringing the life of Darnley to an abrupt 
| conclusion. 
| There was at that time an able, industrious, persevering 
| young man, by name James Balfour, who, by patient 
| continuance in well-doing, rose step by step, till he became 
| Lord President of the Court of Session. To him appears to 
| have been committed the important task of preparing this 
| onerous document. It was a delicate duty, requiring expertness 
| and prudence; and the employment of Balfour on the 
| occasion, shows that he was a man eminently worthy of 
| confidence. A part of this precious document has been 
| preserved as a precedent in conveyancing, for modern use, 
| and stands thus: ~~ <q> </q> 
| It was on Sunday, the 9th of February, 1567, that the 
| pledge in this contract was redeemed, and the <p> "young fool" </p>
| was <p> "put off." </p> It may amuse the reader to have before him a 
| part of the evidence given by the witnesses, with which no 
| farther liberty is taken on the present occasion than a 
| modification of the spelling of the more peculiar and 
| grotesque words. William Pourie, servitor to the Earl of 
| Bothwell depones, ~~ <q> 
| <pb n="496">
| </q> 
| To be my Lord Bothwell's friends was a powerful 
| talisman in that court, and to be so described, indicated 
| persons not to be lightly meddled with by sentinels on duty. 
| But let us leave Bothwell, with his velvet hose trussed with 
| silver and his satin doublet, changed for black hose and coat 
| of canvass ~~ the workman's suit donned for the work of 
| murder ~~ and keep company with the queen's grace, whom 
| the conspirators saw going before them with lighted torches to 
| visit her husband, as they went up the Black Friar's Wynd. She 
| had declared her intention of remaining all night with her 
| husband at the Kirk of Field. There was no apparent intention 
| on her part to remove: <reg orig="no one"> no-one </reg> 
| could have expected, without 
| having a private hint from herself that she was to do so. Yet it 
| was while she was there in the room with him, that the 
| conspirators were arranging their murderous operations in the 
| floor below. Did they intend that she should be a fellow 
| victim? Surely not. Such a consummation was as far as 
| possible from the designs of the arch-conspirator. There was 
| no design at that time of slaying the queen, for there was no 
| considerable quarrel with her, and it would have been time, 
| trouble, and risk, thrown away. To us, this circumstance is 
| very strong evidence, that the conspirators knew that her 
| majesty was to leave the Kirk of Field at a timely juncture, 
| and that she knew that she was expected to evacuate the 
| premises. The husband and wife were sitting amicably 
| together, when the latter suddenly remembered that she had 
| promised to give a masque at the wedding of Bastian, one of 
| her French menials, and so she departed. It is probable that 
| there was a merry night of it at the masque, for Bastian was a 
| facetious rogue, ingenious in masquerade devices. It is on 
| record that he very nearly embroiled the three kingdoms, 
| England, France, and Scotland, by one of his pantomimes. He 
| superintended the representation of a mystery at the palace, to 
| which the English ambassadors were invited. Part of the 
| entertainment consisted of a dance of satyrs, who wagged 
| their tails in such a manner as to make their excellencies 
| suppose there was something meant against themselves. The 
| honest, clumsy Roastbeefs were ever ready to put an 
| uncharitable construction on the scurvy Scots and the flippant 
| French, and it required some management to remove their 
| uneasiness. Of the masque at the palace, on the 9th February 
| ~~ by the way it was a Sunday ~~ we have no particulars. 
| Doubtless it was worthy of the accomplished artist in whose 
| honour it was held. But how ran the thoughts of the queen 
| during these hours? Could we get a glimpse of that, we would 
| know all. What pity it is that <reg orig="some one"> 
| someone </reg> who was present has 
| not left us a description of her countenance and conduct. But it 
| was a time when people of discretion never spoke or even 
| noted more than was necessary. Hired political spies were the 
| only persons who took note of the bearing and appearance of 
| great personages. 
| A more obtuse mind than Darnley's in such an age, and 
| among such people, would know very well that his life was 
| not worth, in modern phrase
| <pb n="497">
| many years purchase. He had already reason to suppose that 
| an attempt had been made to poison him. The disease from 
| which he was recovering was understood to have been the 
| small-pox; but, as contemporary sages had doubts, there was 
| plenty of room for his own fears and the suspicion of his 
| friends, to represent the formidable manifestations of this 
| disease as the effect of poison. On the day which proved his 
| last, he was thoughtful and sad, and was visited by a fit of 
| devotion; an unwonted guest with him, but a frequent 
| attendant of bad men in their hours of peril and misery. It was 
| remarked that he frequently repeated the 55th Psalm. It is the 
| voice of complaint against the cruel machinations of enemies; 
| and, after describing their wickedness, ingratitude, and guile, 
| concludes with predictions of relief and triumph. These were 
| no doubt cheering auguries; but in what spirit could he who 
| left his whinyard in the body of Rizzio  read the last stanza, 
| beginning ~~
| <q> </q>
| <He had finished his devotions and gone to sleep. Was the 
| last stanza recurring to him in his dreams when he thought he 
| heard a sound as of <reg orig="some one"> someone 
| </reg> trying the lock of his door? 
| With too good reason to be watchful, he rushed to the spot. 
| There he met the assassins who strangled him, amidst 
| struggles and shrieks which startled the dull ear of night. His 
| body, along with that of his page, who was killed at the same 
| time for the sake of making a complete job, was thrown into 
| the garden, and then the house was blown up. We might have 
| thought this, in the circumstances, a needless expenditure of 
| noise and powder: but the conspirators must have known best. 
| That they could expect it to be believed that the bodies had 
| been thrown from the exploding building, cannot easily be 
| supposed, nor can it be seen how it would improve the case to 
| make it appear as if it had so happened. 
| We have given above a pretty large quotation from the 
| testimony of a witness, which we shall presently resume. We 
| shall give an intermediate picture from the confession of an 
| accomplice, to wit, ~~ Cockburn of Ormiston, the friend of 
| Wishart, the martyr. We place no reliance on the extenuation 
| of their own conduct, which is apparent in the statement of 
| both accomplice and witness; nor do we think much stress  
| could justly be laid on Ormiston's insinuations against the 
| queen. Here is his statement: ~~ <q> </q> 
| We continue the account of Bothwell's conduct from 
| Pourie's deposition. Like Ruthven, he required a refreshing 
| draught after his hard night's work. 
| <q> </q>
| One of the strangest things in this whole history, is the 
| openness with which the entire proceeding was conducted. 
| Precautions being taken sufficient to avoid interruption, all 
| that was necessary seems to have been looked on as 
| accomplished, ~~
| <pb n="298">
| intimidation would do the rest. Various menial persons are 
| employed in the conveyance of the powder. They call for this 
| and that person on their way, like young men who have 
| broken out of college bounds, and are scouting the country, on 
| a frolic. The sentinels see them, but are at once silenced y the 
| all potent spell of Bothwell's name. They buy six halfpenny 
| candles from George Burn's wife in the Cowgate. All 
| Edinburgh knew who had committed the murder, as well as it 
| knew who wrote "Guy Mannering" before the Theatrical Fund 
| Dinner; but few dared to speak. It seems to be quite 
| impossible that the queen could be for a moment, ignorant 
| who had done the deed. Yet Bothwell was covered with 
| honours and caresses. At the same time she professed, in the 
| few records we possess of her feelings on the occasion, to say 
| that the design was intended as much against herself as against 
| her husband, and that she had made a providential escape. In a 
| letter to Archbhisop Beaton, she said, ~~
| <q> </q> If there were nothing more to implicate the queen in 
| a guilty knowledge of the project and its end, this hypocritical 
| declaration would be enough in itself. 
| And, now the people of Edinburgh becoming tired of the 
| rapid succession of crimes perpetrated by their nobility before 
| their eyes, began to murmur secretly, and from secret 
| murmurs, raised the loud voice of popular indignation. The 
| reaction began with mysterious cries on the street, with 
| placards posted on the tollbooth door, naming the great 
| offender. Darnley's own immediate kinsfolk, the Lennox 
| family. Demanded that the person whom the popular voice of 
| the capital had denounced should be brought to trial. Among 
| the few documents which throw any light on the queen's 
| conduct and feelings during that period of doubt and mystery 
| which elapsed between the slaughter, and the accusation 
| against herself of participation in it, we have, printed for the 
| first time in Prince Labanoff's collection, the letters of Mary to 
| the Earl of Lennox. Writing from Seton, on  21 February 
| 1567, she says: ~~ <q> </q> 
| There is here no great appearance of grief for the death of 
| her husband, or of condolence with the bereaved father; nor 
| do any of her letters show much more despondency than was 
| exhibited by the widow of the Royal Dane. Herein we think 
| she was honest and consistent; and her reserve, in not 
| venturing one word more of widowed sorrow than decency 
| appeared to exact, if more in her favour than the ravings of her 
| knight-errants about her high, and pure, and princely spirit. 
| These protestations were not satisfactory to the old earl. 
| We do not possess his answer to Mary's letter; but we have her 
| reply, apolgetical, shrinking, and uncandid. The earl, it 
| appears, had urged her to prosecute the persons named in the 
| placards affixed to the Tolbooth door. She states that there is 
| so much contradiction and confusion in these denunciations, 
| that it is impracticable to proceed upon them. <q>
| <pb n="499">
| </q> 
| The earl responds to this cry of <p> "name, name." </p> If he gave 
| more than one name, that of Bothwell was beyond doubt first 
| and foremost, and Mary would receive the announcement 
| while she was loading him with kindnesses and favours. What 
| a shock to her nerves, if she did not know it all before! Then, 
| if she believed him innocent, surely there would be an 
| indignant remonstrance. If it was the first intimation she had 
| of the appalling charge, she might be expected to exhibit some 
| surprise and alarm in her answer; she shows none of these 
| natural emotions, and is only careful to avoid all mention of 
| Bothwell's name. She says, <q></q>
| The mock trial and its results are well known. Was Mary 
| a mere tool in all this duplicity and perversion of justice? If 
| so, the magnanimous mind, the high sense of queenly dignity 
| and womanly pride must be abandoned, and she must appear a 
| paltry shrinking wretch, ready to sacrifice justice, the honour 
| of her throne, her good name, and in the end her person, to an 
| insolent bullying subject. Is this consistent with the woman 
| who stood between her minion and the poniards of the 
| assassins, speaking daggers for those they used, and telling 
| them it should be dear blood, and there were those who would 
| avenge her? Scarcely; but <q> 
| </q> as one who was a prattling child when these 
| dark deeds were in progress has said in the name of one who 
| was also planning vengeance. We find the Lennox family to 
| an advanced period fully persuaded of Mary's guilt. On 10th 
| July, 1570, she wrote to the countess a letter, printed by Prince 
| Labanoff, saying, <q> </q> The countess handed this letter to 
| her husband, whose very unpromising commentary on it has 
| been preserved by Robertson, and the ordinary historians, and 
| is in these terms:
| <q> </q> 
| According to Mary's own account, about a year after this 
| bitter retort, the old countess became convinced of her 
| innocence. Prince Labanoff, prints in his fifthe volume a 
| French letter by Mary to Archbishop Beaton of 2d May, 1578, 
| in which, after speaking of the recent death of the countess, 
| and her son's claims on the estate left by her, she says, <q> 
| <pb n="500">
| </q> These letters have not reached our day, and thus we have 
| only the accused party's account; they would surely, if 
| discovered, throw some rays of light on this dark question. 
| The cries in the streets, the placards on the tollbooths, the 
| other hints and insinuations of the murderer's name and rank, 
| were perilous experiments for discreet citizens to make; and 
| several incidents show that these ostracists encountered such 
| peril, as deep and fierce indignation could alone have 
| prompted them to encounter. An active inquiry was made as 
| to the authorship of these insinuations, and one day the chief 
| murderer rode fiercely through the town, with a band of armed 
| ruffians, to intimidate the cautious citizens. But oppression 
| and iniquity had been driven too far; the looks of the meek 
| burgesses retorted scorn for scorn. On that same evening, two 
| new placards appeared, the one containing the letters M.R. 
| and a hand holding a sword; the other, the initials of 
| Bothwell's name, and the representation of a mallet, in 
| allusion to the method in which Darnley was supposed to have 
| been put to death. In fact the embers which subsequently burst 
| forth in open rebellion, were then hot and smouldering. But 
| from such unpleasant matters, the ruffian could retreat to the 
| smiles and plaudits of the royal widow, the most fascinating 
| female of the age. Of their intercourse at this period, Mr. 
| Tytler has preserved the following incident, petty in itself, but 
| surely pregnant with formidable meaning when it is 
| considered along with other matters. 
| <q> </q> This narrative, besides unfolding a remarkable 
| incident, affords the reader a curious glimpse of the times, 
| especially if he be actually acquainted with Tranent, <q> 
| </q>  adduced by the 
| sanatory inquiry commissioners as a type of filth; and if he 
| can figure to himself the queen of the realm, along with two 
| earls, and a few of the lady nobility, taking a forfeit dinner at 
| the inn. 
| The celebrated <p> "silver casket" </p> holds a conspicuous 
| position in the larger works on the question of Queen Mary's 
| guilt. We have not room to give a satisfactory examination of 
| that curious subject here, and can only offer a word or two of 
| reminiscence to those who forget, or have not distinctly 
| noticed, this little episode. When the confederated lords were 
| in the midst of their proceedings, on 20th June 1767, a servant 
| named Dagliesh was sent by Bothwell for something he had 
| left behind him in Edinburgh Castle, of which he had been 
| governor. On his way back, the man was intercepted by 
| Morton, who got possession of what he had in charge. Its 
| outer case was said to be a silver-gilt casket about a foot long, 
| which had belonged to Francis II, and was marked with the 
| initials of his name. Thus had the toy, presented to her in her 
| early girlish nuptials, remained in her hands, not to be a 
| cherished relic of her happy years of youth, but to bear a 
| dreadful and strange association with a second husband 
| murdered, and a third who was the murderer. The casket was 
| said to contain Mary's love-letters to Bothwell, and twelve 
| sonnets. These documents, when examined after the method 
| of juridical inquiry, and without the aid of literary criticism, 
| tend deeply to in culpate the queen. They are natural details, 
| quite disconnected with the questions of the guilt or innocence 
| either of herself or Bothwell. It was by a sharp forensic 
| examination of their contents that they were found to show 
| unequivocally, her accession to the murder. For instance, the 
| passage ~~ <q> </q>  But it is said that the whole of these 
| <p> "productions," </p> as the Scottish lawyers called them, are 
| forgeries; and we are not prepared to combat or support that 
| view. We have found little of <reg orig="any thing"> 
| anything </reg> to throw light on this 
| department of the question in Prince Labanoff's collection; but 
| we shall not pretend to say what others, looking with a more 
| careful critical eye, and intending to write two volumes quarto 
| either on one side or the other, might find ~~ what turns of 
| expression might be discovered in the Prince's collection, 
| which are used or not used in the alleged contents of the 
| casket ~~ what little anachronisms might be penetrated, telling 
| conclusively on one side or the other. We were, however, 
| interested in a paper preserved by the prince, which might 
| have been held at one time to bear on the subject. The sonnets 
| were supposed to have been written in Scottish, and it was 
| said that Queen Mary could neither write that language nor 
| English, at least until a lager date, and that they must therefore 
| be forgeries. It was subsequently admitted, however, that the 
| Scottish version was a translation from the French. It is, as 
| appropriate to the question of her knowledge of the languages 
| of the British isles, seven years after she had commenced her 
| residence in Scotland, that we cite, literatim, the following 
| letter to Sir Francis Knollis. Its terms, if not its grammar and 
| spelling, show that her numerous letters of an earlier date, 
| written in the ordinary Scottish language of the period, must 
| have been the work of secretaries: ~~ <q> </q> 
| To return to the casket. We find in this department of the 
| great question, another important instance of the difference 
| between legal and historical evidence. When a criminal is 
| brought to trial, he should be allowed to see documents that 
| are to be adduced against him; that if they should be false or 
| forged, he may prove them to be so. Mary was not permitted 
| to see the identical documents said to have been found in the 
| casket; and her defenders place her in the position of an 
| accused person not allowed the proper means of defending 
| herself. But we possess, in a historical view, a far more 
| powerful instrument of coming at the truth. When a person is 
| put on trial in this country before a criminal court, all his 
| confidential communings with his law advisers are necessarily 
| excluded as evidence; because if it were admitted, it must be 
| allowed to tell either for or against him, and would be 
| invariably so manufactured as to tell in his favour. We believe 
| it scarcely ever happens that guilt is admitted even to the 
| humblest and least scrupulous attorney; but if we got behind 
| the scenes we should certainly find, in every occasion where 
| the proceedings of the accusers were false and fraudulent, that 
| their conduct would be bitterly reprobated and exposed in 
| these confidential communications. Now, we possess in 
| regard to Queen Mary those very confidential statements, on 
| which contemporary judges of her character could not have 
| founded; and the result is not favourable to her. We give it in 
| Mr. Tytler's words: ~~
| <q> </q> But, on the other hand, he considers her repeated 
| demands of a personal interview, her offers to prove the 
| forgery, and the project of a marriage with Norfolk, the 
| principal commissioner on Elizabeth's side, as indicative of 
| innocence; and concludes, that we do not yet possess evidence 
| sufficient for the basis of a final conclusion. The high, solemn 
| tone of Mary's letters, her lofty indignation under aspersions, 
| her pious submission to calamities, are said strongly to speak 
| to her innocence; and it appears to be considered the main 
| merit of prince Labanoff's collection, that has been added 
| largely to so nobly toned an epistolary correspondence. But 
| then we are to remember that there was nothing in Mary's 
| conduct, supposing her to have simply countenanced, without 
| directly participating in the murder, very outrageously at 
| variance with the principles in which she was brought up, and 
| the conduct she saw around her. The pious resignation, so 
| beautiful in a fallen princess, whose spirit, though thus 
| crushed, was infused into her by the peculiar tone and 
| attributes of her religion. Its solemn and mournful eloquence, 
| appealed with irresistible power to the crushed and 
| broken-hearted: but its influence over the mind of the haughty and 
| prosperous, was not sufficient to drive them from evil ways. It 
| was the faith of comfort and refuge, ~~ not the guide and 
| controller of action. And yet it would be pleasing to the reader 
| who delights in the firm, simple pious tone of these letters, 
| should circumstances start forth to prove that their writer was 
| innocent of the dreadful sins of which there is too much 
| reason to believe her guilty. It would be a good thing, in the 
| eyes of those who admire intellectual greatness, effectually to 
| rescue one more graceful intellect from the contaminations of 
| degrading vice. 
| We have divided the tragedy of Mary Queen of Scots into 
| three acts, ~~ one word on the last which brings on the stage 
| another queen, stronger, if not so graceful in intellect, and 
| certainly more clearly proved to have been wicked at heart. If 
| the proof of Mary's accession to murder be dubious, that 
| against Elizabeth is full and clear. We speak not of the justice 
| or injustices of the formal proceedings against Mary, or the 
| miserable farce by which Elizabeth attempted to disown the 
| warrant for the execution, but to her efforts to get her victim 
| privately assassinated; and it is highly to the honour of the 
| English gentlemen and courtiers of the age, that no practical 
| commentary appeared on the text.
| <q></q> Thus wrote Walsinghame and Secretary Davidson to 
| Sir Amias Paulet, and Sir Drue Davidson to Sir Amias Paulet, 
| and Sir Drue Drurry: ~~ <q>
| <pb n="501">
| </q> 
| Poor Sir Amias Paulet! How hard was he <sic> heart! 
| Did ever any other gaoler receive such a caressing letter from 
| his royal mistress as the following? <q> </q> 
| there have been wilder theories, than that Shakspere had 
| got a practical hint of what royalty does in such matters, when 
| he made King John begin the suggestion of the murder of 
| Arthur thus: ~~ <q> </q> 
| So ends this chapter of the morality of princes in the good 
| old times!