her "the destroyer of all his friends and servants, of which," he says, "there is sufficiency in her own hand-writ by the faith of her letters to condemn her," he would have them "by all possible means search for more matters, not only against her, but against all those who had come to England with her, and to devise by what means the articles he had sent them might be made out." 1st, "The manner of the Queen's discord with the King before the baptism; the manner of his coming to Glasgow, of his falling sick there, the occasion of his sickness-whether it appeared to be poison; and who were his mediciners?" On these points Lennox could have given the best information himself, seeing that Darnley came to him direct from Stirling, and of course told him all his grievances, whether proceeding from the Queen or her Ministers. The manner of Darnley's sickness he had no occasion to inquire of Moray, since it occurred under his own roof at Glasgow; nor to ask people sixty miles from the place to describe symptoms, when he had watched over them with his own eyes; neither to inquire who were the physicians, whom he had seen every day for nearly a month, in attendance on his son. The leading points in Crawford's deposition are suggested, and afford convincing evidence that the notes taken by him were not, as he swore, "made for the information of Lennox," but supplied by Lennox to be produced as evidence of the Queen's unkindness to her husband, in corroboration of the statements pretended to be made by her in the love-letters. They are as follows: "The manner of Hiegate's speaking, and discourse at Stirling; the time of the Queen's arrival at Glasgow, the company that came with her, and what discourse Thomas Crawford held with her at her coming to the town; how long she remained there with the King; her usage and custom to entertain the King; if she used to send any messages to Edinburgh, by whom; and what women were in her company, or in her chamber, at that time."1 All these things Lennox, who kept his chamber in Glasgow Castle, under the plea of sickness, while the Queen was there, must have known better than any one else, both by the report of

1 Hamilton Papers, No. 23.

his servants, and messages from his son, and also, if there be any truth in Crawford's deposition, from the notes which he swore he jotted down of the things Darnley communicated to him. But why did not Crawford repeat them by word of mouth to the Earl of Lennox? Crawford says, because "the Earl of Lennox was not there." If that were the case, he becomes an unintentional witness of the forgery of the Queen's pretended letters to Bothwell, in the first of which she is feigned to write: "This day his father bled at the mouth and nose; guess what presage that is. I have not yet seen him; he keeps his chamber."1 And again, in the same letter, repeats, "His father keeps his chamber; I have not seen him." 2

The other five principal heads or counts on which Lennox exhorts Moray to exert his ingenuity "in making out". to supply evidence against the Queen, and his foe, Hamilton, Archbishop of St Andrews, whom he desired to include in the accusation of his son's murder-have no connection with Crawford, but refer to her journey to Edinburgh and the house of Kirk-of-Field, and "his desire that the sayings of some of her servants might be reported." Much to the honour of her household it was that not a single witness, male or female, was ever brought against her, nor even a tittle of ex parte evidence could be elicited to her disparagement from them or their familiars—a case without parallel, where accusations of so gross a nature have been brought against a lady. In the concluding item of Lennox's instructions to Moray, he exhorts him "to draw all arguments and proofs that might be against the Lord Herries, Lord Fleming, Lord Livingstone, Lord Claud Hamilton, and all those then in England, with everything that could be said of Bothwell's familiarity with the Queen before the murder, at the time and after." 3 In the absence of proofs, calumnies and vituperations were lavishly employed, and nothing left unsaid that could tend, by blackening the Queen, to further the political views of the actual usurpers of her government, and their dupe and tool the Earl of Lennox; but what occasion for these unworthy 1 Anderson's Collections, vol. ii. p. 136. 2 Ibid., p. 142.

8

Ibid.

tricks and collusions, if she had really been the gross and shameless monster they describe? A crowd of witnesses, in that case, would have been produced to bear testimony of her deeds.

Although it is impossible for anything to be more suspicious than Crawford's deposition becomes, when collated with the list of hints in Lennox's letter to Moray, of "points necessary to be made out against the Queen," there are apparently, as in the supposititious silver-casket letters, a sufficient number of facts intermixed with the fictions to make the latter pass current. Thus, according to the statements in both, the royal pair conversed together on the subject of the agitating reports, so nearly touching themselves, that had lately been investigated by the Privy Council, traced to Walcar and Hiegate, and proved by the Queen herself, before she left Edinburgh, to be without foundation; also the Queen inquired of her husband the real particulars of the tale which had been brought to him that she intended to put him in ward, and that Darnley made the following natural reply: "The Laird of Minto told me 'that a letter was presented to you at Craigmillar, made, as he said, by your device, and subscribed by certain others, who desired you to subscribe the same, which you refused to do;' and I could never believe that you, who are my own proper flesh, would do me any hurt; and if any other would do it, they should buy it dear, unless they took me sleeping." 1 Then he desired her earnestly to bear him company, adding, "that she ever found some ado to draw herself from him to her own lodging, and would never abide with him more than two hours at a time." 2 This was probably true, for Mary had, of course, duties as a Sovereign to perform, which could not be transacted in the infected chamber of her sick husband. Besides the daily routine of signing and considering papers, letters, and petitions, she had to attend

1 Crawford's Deposition before the English Commissioners at York, endorsed by Cecil. There is clearly an allusion here, either to the warrant which Mary had been requested by Moray and her other ministers to subscribe, or to the bond drawn by Sir James Balfour for his murder, which Archibald Douglas mentions in his letter to the Queen.

2 Crawford's Deposition-State Paper MS.

to all the appeals and suits that poured in upon her as soon as her arrival in Glasgow was known, and she had also to receive all the nobility and gentry, both male and female, of the west country, who came to pay their devoir to her. To prevent exposing these and her own personal suite to the immediate contagion of the small-pox, and also, perhaps, because she distrusted the Earl of Lennox, who was in Glasgow Castle with his son, she took up her abode with her ladies and numerous attendants in the Archbishop's Palace, distant about a hundred yards from the castle.1 Darnley, according to Crawford's statement, was annoyed at her occupying different lodgings from himself, and importuned her to share his own apartment, " or else," said he, "I desire never to rise forth of this bed."2 Mary replied "that he must first be cleansed from the effects of his malady by a course of medicine and bathing," such being the practice of the physicians after the small-pox at that period, for purifying the system from what was considered its dregs. She then informed him "that preparations had been made for his going through this sanitary process at Craigmillar, where she might be with him, and not far from her son;" adding "that she had brought a litter with her, that he might travel more softly." Darnley replied "that he would go with her wheresoever she pleased, on condition that they should be together at bed and board, and live like husband and wife once more." She answered "that her coming was only to that effect; and if she had not been minded thereto, she had not come so far to fetch him; promised it should be as he desired," and gave him her hand upon it, and the faith of her body, "that she would love him as well as ever." Then he promised "to do whatever she would have him do, and to love all she loved." 3 No reconciliation, therefore, could be more perfect, or resemble more the making up of a lover's quarrel, than this was, even from the showing of the inimical deponent, who, by his own account, commenced the unhallowed work of an incendiary forthwith, by labouring to kindle fresh sparks of discontent in Darnley's mind as 2 Crawford's Deposition. 3 Ibid., State Paper MS.

1 Whitaker.

soon as they were alone together, telling him "he liked not the Queen's purpose of taking him to Craigmillar Castle, for if she desired his company, she would take him to his own house in Edinburgh;" for Crawford artfully flattered the pride of Darnley by thus styling Mary's royal palace of Holyrood, where assuredly, if she had been really desirous of shortening his days, she would have carried him, as the most likely place in her realm to bring them quickly to a close. What would Buchanan, who has accused Mary of intending to cause the death of her fine healthy boy by bringing him from Stirling Castle to the 66 damp sunless marsh of Holyrood," as he terms it, have said, had she been so inconsiderate as to transfer her husband from the mild air of Glasgow, immediately after he had had the small-pox, to so unsuitable a temperature, besides the risk of carrying the infection to the infant heir of the realm? The fact is a plain one, that, surrounded as Mary was by traitors, who were leagued for her ruin, whatever she did would have been turned to her reproach: the very precautions she took to prevent her sick husband from being visited by the winds of heaven too rudely, were perverted by his murderers into evidences of her malice against him. Her arrangements for his temporary residence in Craigmillar Castle were certainly traversed by the inimical influence of Lennox's emissary Crawford, who told Darnley "that it was his opinion that the Queen, if she carried him to Craigmillar Castle, would take him away more like a prisoner than a husband." This insinuation, combined with the previous alarming reports that she intended to put him in ward, and the association, perhaps, of Craigmillar Castle with the tragic fate of James III.'s unfortunate brother, Alexander Earl of Mar, rendered Darnley uneasy, and he observed "that he should entertain some fears himself, were it not for the confidence he had in the Queen's promises; " according to Crawford's statement, he added, "that he would put himself in her hands, and go with her, though she were to cut his throat." But Darnley was very unlikely to use such expressions of his royal wife Ibid., State Paper Office MS.

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