What indeed? Mary had not kept copies of her letters to Bothwell, if she wrote them. She was short of paper when she wrote Letter II., if she wrote it, and certainly could make no copy: the idea is grotesque. What ‘subtlety of practice’ could she intend?[270] Conceivably, if Lethington sent her copies of both French and Scots (which is denied), she may have tried whether she could do the Scots into the French idioms attributed to her, and, if she could not, might advance the argument that the French was none of hers. Barham avers that she received no French copies. But did Lesley say, with truth, that she received any copies? Here, confession for confession, that of Robert Melville gives the lie to Lesley’s. Melville (who, years later, had been captured with Lethington and Kirkcaldy of Grange in the Castle) was examined at Holyrood, on October 19, 1573.[271] According to Lesley, Melville rode to Bolton with Lethington’s letters from Fast Castle, before the meeting of Commissioners at York. But Melville denies this: his account runs thus:
‘Inquirit quhat moved him to ryde to the quene in England the tyme that the erll of morey Regent was thair, he not being privie therto? Answeris it wes to get a discharge of sic thingis as she had gotten from him. And that the Regent wes privie to the same and grantit him licence to follow efter. Bot wald not let him pas in company wt him. And denys that he past first to bolton bot come first to York.’
If Melville told truth, then he did not secretly visit Mary before the Conference, and she did not deal then with Lethington, or receive copies of the Casket Letters, or bid any one ‘stay these rigorous accusations and travail with the Duke of Norfolk in her favour,’ as Lesley confessed.[272] The persons who examined Melville, in 1573, were acquainted with Lesley’s confession of 1571, and Melville is deliberately and consciously contradicting the evidence of Lesley. Both confessed when in perilous circumstances. Which of the two can we believe?
On Saturday, October 2, Mary’s Commissioners arrived in York, but Wood did not ride in from London till October 8.[273] Moray and the other Commissioners of the Lords came in on Sunday, followed, an hour later, by the English negotiators: ‘mediators,’ Mary calls them. Then began a contest of intrigue and infamy. If we believe Melville, he no sooner arrived in York than Moray sent him to Bolton, ‘to deal with the Queen as of his awin heid,’—that is, as if the proposal were an unofficial suggestion of his own. He was to propose a compromise: the Lords were not to accuse her, and she was to stay in England with a large allowance, Moray still acting as Regent. ‘The Quene did take it verie hardlie at the begyning ... bot in the end condescendit to it, swa that it come of [part obliterated] the Quene of England’s sute.’ Melville was then kept going to and from Bolton, till the Commissioners departed to London. On this statement Moray, apparently as soon as the Commissioners met at York, treated with Mary for a compromise in his favour, and Mary assented, though reluctantly.[274]
Turning to the reports of Elizabeth’s Commissioners, we find that, on October 4, they met Mary’s Commissioners, and deemed their instructions too limited. Mary’s men proposed to ask for larger license, and, meanwhile, to proceed. But Herries (Oct. 6) declared that he would ‘in no ways say all in this matter that he knew to be true.’[275] Moray and Lethington, already ‘though most sorry that it is now come to that point,’ said that they must disclose what they knew. Lethington by no means tried to ‘mitigate these rigours intended,’ as in the letter which Lesley says that he sent to Mary by Melville. He already boasted of what ‘they could an’ they would.’ Probably Lethington, to use a modern phrase, was ‘bluffing.’ Nothing could suit him worse than a public disclosure of the letters, laying him open to a riposte from Mary if she were allowed to be present, and speak for herself. His game was to threaten disclosure, and even to make it unofficially, so as to frighten Mary into silence, and residence in England, while he kept secretly working for another arrangement with Norfolk, behind the backs of the other English Commissioners.
This was a finesse in which Lethington delighted, but it was a most difficult game to play. His fellows, except Morton, not a nervous man, were less compromised than he, or not compromised at all, and they might break away from him, and offer in spite of him (as they finally did) a public disclosure of the Letters. The other English Commissioners, again, might not take their cue from Norfolk. Above all, Norfolk himself must be allowed to see the Letters, and yet must be induced to overlook or discredit the tale of the guilt of Mary, which they revealed. This was the only part of Lethington’s arduous task in which he succeeded, and here he succeeded too well.[276]
On October 6, Norfolk, writing for himself, told Cecil that, from the talk of Mary’s enemies, ‘the matter I feare wyll fall owte very fowle.’[277] On October 8, Mary’s men produced their charges against the Lords. The signers were Lesley, Lord Livingstone (who certainly knew whether the anecdote about himself, in the Glasgow Letter II., was true or not), Herries (who, in June, had asked Elizabeth what she intended to do if Mary was proved guilty), Cockburn of Skirling, a Hamilton, commendator or lay abbot of Kilwinning, and Lord Boyd.
Lennox, who was present at York,[278] burning for leave to produce his indictment, had asked his retainers to collect evidence against Herries, Fleming, Lord Livingstone, ‘and all these then in England,’ with Mary. On this head Lennox got no help, except so far as an anecdote, in the Casket 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.