INTERNAL EVIDENCE OF THE LETTERS
Letter I
This Letter, usually printed as Letter I., was the first of the Casket Letters which Mary’s accusers laid before the Commission of Inquiry at Westminster (December 7, 1568).[332] It does not follow that the accusers regarded this Letter as first in order of composition. There exists a contemporary copy of an English translation, hurriedly made from the French; the handwriting is that of Cecil’s clerk. The endorsing is, as usual, by a Scot, and runs, ‘Ane short Lettre from Glasco to the Erle Bothwell. Prufes her disdaign against her husband.’ Possibly this Letter, then, was put in first, to prove Mary’s hatred of Darnley, and so to lead up to Letter II., which distinctly means murder. If the accusers, however, regarded this piece (Letter I.) as first in order of composition, they did not understand the meaning and drift of the papers which they had seized.[333]
Letter I., so called, must be, in order of composition, a sequel to Letter II. The sequence of events would run as follows: if we reject the chronology as given in ‘Cecil’s Journal,’ a chronological summary handed to Cecil, we know not by whom, and supply the prosecution with a feasible scheme of time. ‘Cecil’s Journal’ makes Mary leave Edinburgh on January 21, stay at Lord Livingstone’s house of Callendar (not Callander in Perthshire) till January 23, and then enter Glasgow. If this is right, Letters I. and II. are forgeries, for II. could not, by internal evidence, have been finished before Mary’s second night, at least, in Glasgow, which, if she arrived on January 23, would be January 24. Consequently it could not (as in the statement of Paris, the alleged bearer) reach Bothwell the day before his departure for Liddesdale, which ‘Cecil’s Journal’ dates on January 24. Moreover, on the scheme of dates presented in ‘Cecil’s Journal,’ Mary must have written and dispatched Letter I. on the morning of January 25 to Bothwell, whom it could not reach (for he was then making a raid on the Elliots, in Liddesdale), and Mary must, at the same time, have been labouring at the long Letter II. All this, with other necessary inferences from the scheme of dates, is frankly absurd.[334]
The defenders of Mary, like Mr. Hosack, meet the Lords on the field of what they regard as the Lords’ own scheme of dates, and easily rout them. In a court of law this is fair procedure; in history we must assume that the Lords, if the Journal represents their ideas, may have erred in their dates. Now two contemporary townsmen of Edinburgh, Birrel, and the author of the ‘Diurnal of Occurrents,’ coincide in making Mary leave Edinburgh on January 20. Their notes were separately written, without any possible idea that they might be appealed to by posterity as evidence in a State criminal case. The value of their testimony is discussed in Appendix C, ‘The date of Mary’s Visit to Glasgow.’
Provisionally accepting the date of the two diarists, we find that the Queen left Edinburgh on January 20, slept at Callendar, and possibly entered Glasgow on January 21. Drury from Berwick said that she entered on January 22, which, again, makes the letter impossible. Let us, however, suppose her to begin her long epistle, Letter II., at Glasgow on the night of January 21, finish it in the midnight hours of January 22, and send it to Bothwell by Paris (his valet, who had just entered her service) on January 23. Paris, in his declaration of August 10, 1569, avers that he met Bothwell, gave him the letter, stayed in Edinburgh till next day, again met Bothwell returning from Kirk o’ Field, then received from him for Mary a letter, a diamond (ring?), and a loving message; he received also a letter from Lethington, and from both a verbal report that Kirk o’ Field was to be Darnley’s home. Paris then returned to Glasgow. If Paris, leaving Edinburgh ‘after dinner,’ say three o’clock, on the 24th, did not reach Glasgow till the following noon, then the whole scheme of time stands out clearly. He left Glasgow on January 23, with the long Letter (II.) which Mary wrote on January 21 and 22. He gave it to Bothwell on the 23rd, received replies ‘after dinner’ on the 24th, slept at Callendar or elsewhere on the way, and reached Glasgow about noon on January 25. If, however, Paris reached Glasgow on the day he left Edinburgh (January 24), the scheme breaks down.
If he did not arrive till noon on the 25th, all is clear, and Letter I. falls into its proper place as really Letter II., and is easily intelligible. Its contents run thus: Mary, who left Bothwell on January 21, upbraids him for neglect of herself. She expected news, and an answer to her earlier Letter (II.) dispatched on the 23rd, and has received none. The news she looked for was to tell her what she ought to do. If no news comes, she will, ‘according to her commission,’ take Darnley to Craigmillar on Monday: she actually did take him on Monday, as far as Callendar. But she is clearly uncertain, when she writes on January 25, as to whether Craigmillar has been finally decided upon. A possible alternative was present to her mind. After describing the amorous Darnley, and her own old complaint, a pain in the side, she says, ‘If Paris doth bring back unto me that for which I have sent, it should much amend me.’ News of Bothwell, brought by Paris, will help to cure her. She had expected news on the day before, January 24.
Nothing could be more natural. Mary and Bothwell had parted on January 21. She should have heard from him, if he were a punctual and considerate lover, on the 23rd; at latest Paris should have brought back on the 24th his reply to her long letter, numbered II. but really I. But the morning of ‘this Saturday’ (the 25th) has dawned, and brought no news, no answer, no Paris. (That is, if Paris either slept in Edinburgh on the night of the 24th, or somewhere on the long dark moorland road.) Impatient of three days’ retarded news, ignorant as to whether Craigmillar is fixed on for Darnley, or not, without a reply to the letter carried to Bothwell by Paris (Letter II.), Mary writes Letter I. on January 25. It is borne by her chamberlain, Beaton, who is going on legal business to Edinburgh. Nothing can be simpler or more easily intelligible.
There remains a point of which much has been made. In the English, but not in the Scots translation, Mary says, ‘I send this present to Lethington, to be delivered to you by Beaton.’ The Scots is ‘I send this be Betoun, quha gais’ to his legal business. Nothing about Lethington. On first observing this, I inferred—(a) that Lethington had the reference to himself cut out of the Scots version, as connecting him with the affair. (b) I inferred that Lethington could have had no hand in forging the original French (if forging there was), because he never would have allowed his name to appear in such a connection. Later I observed that several Continental critics had made similar inferences.[335] But all this is merely one of the many mare’s-nests of criticism. For proof of the futility of such deductions see [Appendix E], ‘The Translation of the Casket Letters.’
On the whole, I am constrained to regard Letter I. as possibly authentic in itself, and as affording a strong presumption that there was an authentic Letter II. Letter I. was written, and sent on a chance opportunity, just because no answer had been received to the Letter wrongly numbered II. This was a circumstance not likely to be invented.