Next, on December 9, a written statement by Darnley’s servant, Nelson, who survived the explosion, was sworn to by the man himself. His evidence chiefly bore on the possession of the Keys of Kirk o’ Field by Mary’s servants, and her economy in using a door for a cover of the ‘bath-vat,’ and in removing a black velvet bed. We have dealt with it already (p. 133).
Next was put in Crawford’s deposition as to his conversations with Darnley at Glasgow. This was intended to corroborate Letter II., but, as shall later be shown, it produces the opposite effect.[314] At an unknown date, Cecil received the Itinerary of Mary during the period under examination, which is called ‘Cecil’s Journal,’ and is so drawn up as to destroy Moray’s case, if we accept its chronology. We know not on what authority it was compiled, but Lennox, on June 11, had asked his retainers to ascertain some of the dates contained in this ‘Journal.’
On December 14[315] Elizabeth added Northumberland and Westmorland to her Commissioners. They not long after rose in arms for Mary’s cause. Shrewsbury, Huntingdon, Worcester, and Warwick also met, at Hampton Court. They were to be made to understand the case, and were told to keep it secret. Among the other documents, on December 14, the originals of the Casket Letters ‘being redd, were duly conferred and compared for the manner of writing and fashion of orthography, with sundry other letters, long time heretofore written and sent by the said Quene of Scots to the Quene’s majesty. And next after, there was produced and redd a declaration of the Erle of Morton of the manner of the finding of the said lettres, as the same was exhibited upon his othe, the ix of December. In collation whereof’ (of what?) ‘no difference was found. Of all which letters and writings, the true copies are contained in the memorialls of the actes of the sessions of the 7 and 8 of December.’ Apparently the ‘collation’ is intended to refer to the comparison of the Casket Letters with those of Mary to Elizabeth. Mr. Froude runs the collation into the sentence preceding that about Morton, in one quotation.
The confessions of Tala, Bowton, and Dalgleish were also read, and, ‘as night approached’ (about 3.30 P.M.), the proceedings ended.[316]
The whole voluminous proceedings at York and Westminster were read through: the ‘Book of Articles’ seems to have been read, after the Casket Letters were read, but this was not the case. On a brief December day, the Council had work enough, and yet Mr. Froude writes that the Casket Letters ‘were examined long and minutely by each and every of the Lords who were present.’[317] We hear of no other examination of the handwriting than this: which, as every one can see, from the amount of other work, and the brevity of daylight, must have been very rapid and perfunctory.
There happens to be a recent case in which the reputation of a celebrated lady depended on a question of handwriting. Madame Blavatsky was accused of having forged the letters, from a mysterious being named Koot Hoomi, which were wont to drift out of metetherial space into the common atmosphere of drawing-rooms. A number of Koot Hoomi’s later epistles, with others by Madame Blavatsky, were submitted to Mr. Netherclift, the expert, and to Mr. Sims of the British Museum. Neither expert thought that Madame Blavatsky had written the letters attributed to Koot Hoomi. But Dr. Richard Hodgson and Mrs. Sidgwick procured earlier letters by Koot Hoomi and Madame Blavatsky. They found that, in 1878, and 1879, the letter d, as written in English, occurred 210 times as against the German d, 805 times. But in Madame Blavatsky’s earlier hand the English d occurred but 15 times, to 2,200 of the German d. The lady had, in this and other respects, altered her writing, which therefore varied more and more from the hand of Koot Hoomi. Mr. Netherclift and Mr. Sims yielded to this and other proofs: and a cold world is fairly well convinced that Koot Hoomi did not write his letters. They were written by Madame Blavatsky.[318]
The process of counting thousands of isolated characters, and comparing them, was decidedly not undertaken in the hurried assembly on that short winter day at Hampton Court, when the letters ‘were long and minutely examined by each and every of the Lords who were present,’ as Mr. Froude says. On the following day (December 15) the ‘Book of Articles’ was read aloud; though the minute of December 14 would lead us to infer that it was read on that day. The minute states that ‘there was produced a writing in manner of Articles ... but, before these were read,’ the Casket Letters were studied. One would imagine that the ‘Book of Articles’ was read on the same day, after the Casket Letters had been perused. The deposition of Powrie, the Casket contracts, and other papers followed, and then another deposition of Crawford, which had been put in on December 13.
This deposition is in the Lennox MSS. in the long paper containing the description of the mysterious impossible Letter, which Moray also described, to de Silva. Crawford now swore that Bowton and Tala, ‘at the hour of their death,’ confessed, to him, that Mary would never let Bothwell rest till he slew Darnley. Oddly enough, even Buchanan, or whoever gives the dying confessions of these men, in the ‘Detection,’ says nothing about their special confession to Crawford.[319] The object of Crawford’s account appears clearly from what the contemporaries, for instance the ‘Diurnal,’ tell us about the public belief that the confession ‘fell out in Mary’s favour.’
Hepburne, Daglace, Peuory, to John Hey, mad up the nesse,
Which fowre when they weare put to death the treason did confesse;
And sayd that Murray, Moreton to, with others of ther rowte
Were guyltie of the murder vyl though nowe they loke full stowte.
Yet some perchaunce doo thinke that I speake for affection heare,
Though I would so, thre thousan can hearin trew witness beare
Who present weare as well as I at thexecution tyme
& hard how these in conscience pricte confessed who did the cryme.[320]
A number of Acts and other public papers were then read; ‘the whole lying altogether on the council table, were one after another showed, rather “by hap” as they lay on the table than by any choice of their natures, as it might had there been time.’ Mr. Henderson argues, as against Hosack, Schiern, and Skelton, that this phrase applies only to the proceedings of December 15, not to the examination of the Casket Letters. This seems more probable, though it might be argued, from the prolepsis about reading the ‘Book of Articles’ on the 14th, that the minutes of both days were written together, on the second day, and that the hugger-mugger described applies to the work of both days. This is unimportant; every one must see that the examination of handwriting was too hasty to be critical.