The assembled nobles were then told that Elizabeth did not think she could let Mary ‘come into her presence,’ while unpurged of all these horrible crimes. The Earls all agreed that her Majesty’s delicacy of feeling, ‘as the case now did stand,’ was worthy of her, and so ended the farce.[321]
Mr. Froude, on the authority (apparently) of a Simancas MS., tells us that ‘at first only four—Cecil, Sadleyr, Leicester, and Bacon—declared themselves convinced.’[322] Lingard quotes a Simancas MS. saying that the nobles ‘showed some heart, and checked a little the terrible fury with which Cecil sought to ruin’ Mary.[323] Camden (writing under James VI.) says that Sussex, Arundel, Clinton, and Norfolk thought that Mary had a right to be heard in person. But Elizabeth held this advantage: Mary would not acknowledge her as a judge: she must therefore admit Mary to her presence, if she admitted her at all, not as a culprit. Elizabeth (who probably forgot Amy Robsart’s affair) deemed herself too good and pure to see, not as a prisoner at the Bar, a lady of dubious character. Thus all was well. Mary was firmly discredited (though after all most of the nobles presently approved of her marriage to Norfolk), yet she could not plead her cause in person.
XIII
MARY’S ATTITUDE AFTER THE CONFERENCE
The haggling was not ended. On December 16, 1568, Elizabeth offered three choices to Lesley: Mary might send a trusty person with orders to make a direct answer; or answer herself to nobles sent by Elizabeth; or appoint her Commissioners, or any others, to answer before Elizabeth’s Commissioners.[324] Lesley fell back on Elizabeth’s promises: and an anecdote about Trajan. On December 23 or 24, Mary’s Commissioners received a letter by her written at Bolton on December 19.[325] Mr. Hosack says that ‘she commanded them forthwith to charge the Earl of Moray and his accomplices’ with Darnley’s murder.[326] But that was just what Mary did not do as far as her letter goes, though on December 24, Herries declared that she did.[327] Friends and foes of Mary alike pervert the facts. Mary first said that she had received the ‘Eik’ in which her accusers lied, attributing to her the crimes of which they are guilty. She glanced scornfully at the charge that she meant to murder her child, whom they had striven to destroy in her womb, at Riccio’s murder: ‘intending to have slane him and us both.’ She then, before she answers, asks to see the copies and originals of the Casket Letters, ‘the principal writings, if they have any produced,’ which she as yet knew not. And then, if she may see Elizabeth, she will prove her own innocence and her adversaries’ guilt.
Thus she does not by any means bid her friends forthwith to accuse her foes. That would have been absurd, till she had seen the documents brought against her as proofs. But, to shorten a long story, neither at the repeated request of her Commissioners, nor of La Mothe, who demanded this act of common justice, would Elizabeth permit Mary to see either the originals, or even copies, of the Casket Letters. She promised, and broke her promise.[328]
This incident left Mary with the advantage. How can an accused person answer, if not allowed to see the documents in the case? We may argue that Elizabeth refused, because politics drifted into new directions, and inspired new designs. But Mary’s defenders can always maintain that she never was allowed to see the evidence on which she was accused. From Mary’s letter of December 19, or rather from Lesley’s précis of it (‘Extract of the principall heidis’) it is plain that she does not bid her Commissioners accuse anybody, at the moment. But, on December 22, Lindsay challenged Herries to battle for having said that Moray, and ‘his company here present,’ were guilty of Darnley’s death. Herries admitted having said that some of them were guilty. Lindsay lies in his throat if he avers that Herries spoke of him specially: and, on that quarrel, Herries will fight. And he will fight any of the principals of them if they sign Lindsay’s challenge, ‘and I shall point them forth and fight with some of the traitors therein.’ He communicated the challenge and reply to Leicester.[329] Herries probably hoped to fight Morton and Lethington.
On the 24th, Moray having complained that he and his company were slandered by Mary’s Commissioners, Lesley and Herries answered ‘that they had special command sent to them from the Queen their Mistress, to lay the said crime to their charge,’ and would accuse them. They were appointed to do this on Christmas Day, but only put in an argumentative answer to Moray’s ‘Eik.’ But on January 11, when Elizabeth had absolved both Moray and Mary (a ludicrous conclusion) and was allowing Moray and his company to go home, Cecil said that Moray wished to know whether Herries and Lesley would openly accuse him and his friends, or not. They declared that Mary had bidden them make the charge, and that they had done so, on the condition that Mary first received copies of the Casket documents. As soon as Mary received these, they would name, accuse, and prove the case, against the guilty. They themselves, as private persons, had only hearsay evidence, and would accuse no man. Moray and his party offered to go to Bolton, and be accused. But Mary (as her Commissioners at last understood) would not play her card, her evidence in black and white, till she saw the hand of her adversaries, as was fair, and she was never allowed to see the Casket documents.[330] Mary’s Commissioners appear to have blundered as usual. They gave an impression, first that they would accuse unconditionally, next that they sneaked out of the challenge.[331] But, in fact, Mary had definitely made the delivery to her of the Casket Letters, originals or even copies, and her own presence to plead her own cause, the necessary preliminary conditions of producing her own charges and proofs.