[355] Nelson, according to Miss Strickland (Mary Stuart, ii. 178, 1873), left Edinburgh for England, and was detained by Drury for some months at Berwick. For this Miss Strickland cites Drury to Cecil, Berwick, February 15, 1567, a letter which I am unable to find in the MSS. But the lady is more or less correct, since, on February 15, Mary wrote to Robert Melville, in England, charging him, in very kind terms, to do his best for Anthony Standen, Darnley’s friend, who was also going to England (Frazer, The Lennox, ii. 7). A reference to Cal. For. Eliz. viii. 193, No. 1029, shows that a letter of Mary to Drury, asking free passage for Standen and four other Englishmen, is really of March 15, not of February 15. Again, a letter of March 8, 1567, from Killigrew, at Edinburgh, to Cecil, proves that ‘Standen, Welson, and Guyn, that served the late king, intend to return home when they can get passport’ (Bain, ii. 347, No. 479). Now ‘Welson’ is obviously Nelson. On June 16, Drury allowed Standen to go south (Cal. For. Eliz. viii. 252, No. 1305). Nelson, doubtless, also returned to Lennox. It is odd that Lennox, having these two witnesses, should vary so much, in his first indictment, from the accepted accounts of events at Kirk o’ Field. This Anthony Standen is the younger of the two brothers of the same name. The elder was acting for Darnley in France at the time of the murder. He lived to a great age, recounting romances about his adventures.
[356] Mr. Hay Fleming suggests that ‘Jhone a Forret’ may be Forret of that ilk—of Forret near Cairnie. Of him I have no other knowledge.
[357] Hatfield MSS. Calendar, i. 376, 377.
[358] Melville, Memoirs, 173, 174. Hosack’s Mary, i. 536 (The Book of Articles). Anderson, ii. 18, 19 (Detection). Cecil’s Journal, under date Saturday, February 8, has ‘She confronted the King and my lord of Halyrodhouse conforme to hir letter wryttin the nycht before:’ that is, this Letter III.
[359] Mr. Hosack makes an error in averring that no letter as to this intrigue was produced at Westminster or later; that the letter was only shown at York in October, 1568. There and then Moray’s party ‘inferred, upon a letter of her own hand, that there was another meane of a more cleanly conveyance devised to kill the King’ (Goodall, ii. 142; Hosack, i. 409, 410). The letter was that which we are now considering.
[360] The Scots has ‘handling.’ The Cambridge MS. of the Scots translation reads ‘composing of thame,’ from ‘le bien composer de ceux’ in the original French.
[361] Dr. Bresslau notes several such coincidences, but stress cannot be laid on phrases either usual, or such as a forger might know to be favourites of Mary’s.
[362] Laing, ii. 286.
[363] Mary Queen of Scots, vol. ii. No. 63.
[364] ‘Je m’en deferay au hazard de la faire entreprandre:’ the translators, not observing the gender referring to the maid, have blundered.