Plate D
SIDE OF CASKET WITH ARMS OF HAMILTON
RAISED WORK ON ROOF OF CASKET
Gowrie was executed for treason in May, 1584, and of the Casket no more is heard. Goodall, in 1754, supposed that the Earl of Angus got it as Morton’s ‘heir by tail,’ whereas we know that Gowrie succeeded Morton as custodian. In an anonymous writer of about 1660, Goodall found that ‘the box and letters were at that time to be seen with the Marquis of Douglas; and it is thought by some they are still in that family, though others say they have since been seen at Hamilton.’[401] In 1810, Malcolm Laing, the historian, corresponded on the subject with Mr. Alexander Young, apparently the factor, or chamberlain, of the Duke of Hamilton. He could hear nothing of the Letters, but appears to have been told about a silver casket at Hamilton, rather less than a foot in length. A reproduction of that casket, by the kindness of the Duke of Hamilton, is given in this book. Laing maintained that, without the F’s, crowned as mentioned in Cecil’s minute, the casket could not be Mary’s Casket. In any case it is a beautiful work of art, of Mary’s age, and has been well described by Lady Baillie-Hamilton in ‘A Historical Relic,’ Macmillan’s Magazine.[402] Lady Baillie-Hamilton, when staying at Hamilton Palace, asked to be shown a ring which Mary bequeathed to Lord John Hamilton, created Marquis in 1599. The ring was produced from a silver box, which also contained papers. One of these, written probably about 1700-1715, gave the history of the box itself. It was ‘bought from a Papist’ by the Marchioness of Douglas, daughter of George (first Marquis of Huntly). In 1632 this lady became the second wife of William, first Marquis of Douglas. Her eldest son married Lady Anne Hamilton, heiress of James, first Duke of Hamilton, who later became Duchess of Hamilton in her own right, her husband (Lord William Douglas, later Earl of Selkirk) bearing the ducal title. The Marchioness of Douglas bought the box from a papist at an unknown date after 1632, the box being sold as the Casket. The Marchioness ‘put her own arms thereon,’ the box having previously borne ‘the Queen’s arms.’ The Marchioness bequeathed her plate to her son, Lord John Douglas, who sold it to a goldsmith. The daughter-in-law of the Marchioness, namely the Duchess of Hamilton, purchased the box from the goldsmith, as she had learned from the Marchioness that it was the historical Casket, and, by her husband’s desire, she effaced the arms of the Marchioness, and put on her own, as may be seen in Plate D. Only one key was obtained by the Duchess, and is shown lying beside the Casket. The lock has been, at some time, ‘stricken up,’ as Morton says that the lock of the Casket was (see Plate E). The box is ‘not fully a foot long’; it measures eight inches in length. The scroll-work (Plate E) and bands have been gilded, but the whole piece has not been ‘overgilt,’ as in Morton’s description. That by the English Commissioners at York, ‘a little coffer of silver and gilt,’ better describes the relic. It is pronounced to be ‘French work of the early part of the sixteenth century,’ but Lady Baillie-Hamilton observes that the scroll-work closely resembles the tooling on a book of Catherine de’ Medici, now in the British Museum.
Plate E
CASKET SHOWING THE LOCK AND KEY
