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.