Mary Queen of Scots 1542-1587 Part 17

JAMES, REGENT.

PATRICK, L. LINDSAY.

MORTON.

AD. ORKAD.

DUNFERMLINE.

_ANSWER TO THE "EIK"_

1568.--December 1. The Answer of Queen Mary's Commissioners to the "Eik."

_Goodall_, vol. ii. p. 213, _from Queen Mary's Register_.

My Lords,--We are heartily sorry to hear that our countrymen should intend to colour their most unjust, ingrate, and shameful doings.... Her Highness made the greatest of them of mean men, if they had used their own calling, Earls and Lords, and now, without any evil deserving on her Grace's part to any of them in deed or word, to be thuswise recompensed with calumnious and false invented bruits {rumours}, slandered in so great a matter, to her reproach, whereof they themselves, that now pretend herewith to excuse their own treasons, were the first inventors, writers with their own hands of that devilish band, the conspiracy of the slaughter of that innocent young gentleman, Henry Stewart, late spouse till our sovereign, and presented to their wicked confederate, James, Earl Bothwell, as was made manifest before ten thousand people at the execution of certain the princ.i.p.al offenders at Edinburgh....

_MARY AND ELIZABETH_

The Queen's Highness, our and their native sovereign, ... gave them in her youth ... the twa part (two-thirds) of the patrimony pertaining to the Crown of Scotland, and seeing that her successors, Kings of that realm, might not maintain their estate upon the third part ... for their evil deservings and most proud contemption ... caused her use the privilege of the laws always granted to the Kings of that realm before, and make revocation before her full age of xxv. years, ... so that it was not the punishment of that slaughter that moved them to this proud rebellion, but the usurping of their Sovereign's supreme authority, and to possess themselves with her great riches....

... Our desire is most earnestly that it should be the Queen's Majesty's pleasure that our Sovereign may be admitted to come into the presence of the Queen's Highness of this realm, her whole n.o.bility, and also in presence of the amba.s.sadors of foreign countries, for more true declaration of her innocency.

1568.--December 4. Elizabeth's Answer.

_Goodall_, vol. ii. p. 222, _from Queen Mary's Register_.

I think it very reasonable that she should be heard in her own cause, being so weighty; but to determine whom before, when and what, any time before I understand how they will verify their allegation, I am not as yet resolved.

_THE PRIVY COUNCIL_

1568.--Dec. 4. Proceedings of the Privy Council.

_Goodall_, vol. ii. p. 223, _from the Journal of the Privy Council of England_.

Die Sabbati, 4 Decembris 1568, Hora prima post meridiem.

_Present._

THE QUEEN'S MAJESTY.

The Lord Keeper {Sir Nicholas Bacon}.

Duke of Norfolk.

Marquis {of Northampton}.

Lord Steward {Pembroke}.

Earl Ess.e.x.

Earl Bedford.

Earl Leicester.

Lord Admiral {Lord Clinton}.

Lord Chamberlain {Lord Howard of Effingham}.

Sir William Cecil.

Sir Ralph Sadler.

Sir Walt. Mildmay.

The said Bishop {of Ross} and his colleagues, before they came to the Court, sent a message to the Earl of Leicester and Sir William Cecil, requiring to speak with them two apart.... And thereupon the said Commissioners came into the Earl of Leicester's chamber, where the said Bishop in the name of the rest said ... That although the Earl of Murray and his complices had delivered in writing a grievous accusation against the Queen, their Sovereign, and that they were prohibited to make any further answer to any such matter, but only to desire the Queen of Scots might come in person to the presence of the Queen's Majesty to make any further answer to any such matter; yet they having considered with themselves their mistress's intention to have been always from the beginning, that these causes should be ended by the Queen's Majesty by some such good appointment betwix her and her subjects, as might be for her Grace's honour and the common weal of the country, with surety also to the Earl of Murray, and his party ... thought good to declare thus much to the said Earl and Sir William Cecil....

_COUNCIL PROCEEDINGS_

After the said Bishop had reiterated the said motion, as above is mentioned, the Queen's Majesty said: "... Trusting and wishing that the Queen, her sister, should be found innocent, ... she thought it better for her sister's honour and declaration to the world of her innocency, to have the Earl of Murray and his complices charged and reproved for this their so audacious defaming of the Queen, their sovereign, and to receive that which was due for their punishment, than to have it ended by appointment, except it might be thought that they should be able to show some apparent just causes of such an attempt, whereof her Majesty would be sorry to hear. And as for the Queen of Scots coming in person to her Majesty to make answer hereunto, the same being of no small moment to her honour, but rather likely to touch her in reputation, in that it might be thought the accusation so probable, as it not to be improved {disproved} by any other, but that she should be forced to come herself, being a Queen, in person to answer for herself, her Majesty said she would not have the Queen's honour and estate in that matter endangered without this their accusation might first appear to have more likelihood of just cause than she did find therein....

Hereunto the Queen of Scots' Commissioners said that this last motion for an appointment came not from the Queen since the accusation given in by the Earl of Murray, and so also the Queen's Majesty a.s.sented thereto, but of their own consideration."

_PRODUCTION OF THE PROOFS_

1568.--Dec. 6. Proofs produced at Westminster.

_Goodall_, vol. ii. p. 231, _from the Journal of the Commissioners_.

... They {Murray and others} would show unto her Majesty's Commissioners a collection made in writing of the presumptions and circ.u.mstances, by the which it should evidently appear that as the Earl Bothwell was the chief murtherer of the King, so was the Queen a deviser and maintainer thereof; the which writing followeth thus. Articles containing certain conjectures, &c. {the Book of Articles. See _supra_, p. 144}.

After the reading hereof they also said that according to the truth contained in the same, the three estates of Parliament, called by the King, now present, their whole actions and proceedings from the murther of the late King were ratified and approved to be lawful....

_Hosack I., App. C., from State Papers_ (_Mary, Queen of Scots_), 1568, vol. ii. p. 61, December 7, 1568.

... The Queen's Majesty's Commissioners having heard the foresaid Book of Articles read unto them ... entered into a new hearing of the Book of Articles, whereof having heard three of the chapters or heads, the Earl of Murray and his colleagues, according to the appointment, came to the said Commissioners and said: 'They trusted that, after the reading of the Book of Articles, and specially upon the sight of the Act of Parliament, wherein the whole cause wherewith their adversaries did charge them, were found, declared, and concluded to be lawful; their Lordships would be satisfied to think them clear and void of such crime as her Majesty did charge them withal.... They required to know whether their Lordships were not now satisfied with such things as they had seen, and if they were not, and that it would please them to show if in any part of these Articles exhibited they conceived any doubt, or would have any other proof, which they trusted, needed not.... {The Commissioners declined to give any opinion on this point.}

_THE CASKET_

And so they produced a small gilded coffer of not fully one foot long, being garnished in many places with the Roman letter F set under a Royal Crown, wherein were certain letters and writings, and as they said and affirmed to have been written with the Queen of Scots' own hand, to the Earl Bothwell, which coffer, as they said, being left in the Castle of Edinburgh by the said Earl Bothwell before his flying away, was sent for by one George Dalgleish, his servant, who was taken by the Earl of Morton, who also thereto sitting presently as one of the Commissioners avowed upon his oath the same to be true, and the writings to be the very same without any manner of change, and before they would exhibit the sight of these letters they exhibited {the two marriage contracts}.... After this the said Earl and his colleagues offered to show certain proofs, not only of the Queen's hate towards the King, her husband, but also of unordinate love towards Bothwell, for which purpose they produced a letter written in French and in Roman hand, which they averred to be a letter of the said Queen's own hand to Bothwell when she was at Glasgow with her husband, at the time she went to bring him to Edinburgh, the tenour of which letter hereafter followeth: Il semble que avecques ure absence, &c. {Letter i. p. 165.}

_ITS CONTENTS_

After this they produced for the same purpose one other long letter written also with the like hand, and in French, ... the tenour of all which letter followeth hereafter: Estant party du lieu, &c. {Letter ii.

p. 167.}

_Goodall_, vol. ii. p. 235, _from the Journal of the Commissioners_, December 8.

They produced seven several writings written in French in the like Roman hand, as others her letters which were shewed yesternight and avowed by them to be written by the said Queen, which seven writings, being copied, were read in French, and a due collation made thereof as near as could be by reading and inspection, and made to accord with the originals, which the said Earl of Murray required to be redelivered, and did thereupon deliver the copies being collationed, the tenour of all which seven writings hereafter follow in order, the first being in manner of a sonnet,

"O Dieux, ayez de moy," &c.

[This is the first line of the first of the collection of sonnets, which will be found on pp. 195-201. The other six "writings" are Letters iii.-viii., on pp. 162-195.]

_DEPOSITIONS_

After this they did produce and show three several writings in English, subscribed and signed by Sir John b.e.l.l.e.n.den, Knight, Justice-Clerk in Scotland, whereof the first contained two several examinations, the first of John Hay, the younger of Talla, the 13th of September, anno 1567, the second of John Hepburn, called John of Bolton, being examined upon the murder of the King, the 8th of December 1567. The third writing containeth the examination of one George Dalgleish, the 26th of June in the same year, 1567. All which writings ... were delivered to the said Commissioners, the true tenour whereof hereafter followeth, _Apud Edinburgh_, 13 die mensis Septembris.

After this they produced and showed forth in writing, subscribed likewise by the said Justice-Clerk, a copy of the process, verdict, and judgment against the foresaid John Hepburn, John Hay, William Powrie, and George Dalgleish, as culpable of the murder of the said King, which being read, was also delivered, and the tenours thereof hereafter followeth, _Curia justiciariae S. D. N. regis_, &c. After this they produced and shewed forth a writing in a long paper, being, as they said, the judgment and condemnation by Parliament of the Earl Bothwell, James Ormiston, Robert Ormiston, Patrick Wilson, and Paris, a Frenchman, Sym, Armstrong, and William Murray, as guilty sundry ways of treason for the murder of the King. The tenour whereof thus followeth: _In the Parliament holden at Edinburgh, the 20th day of December_.