Sixth. The Casket Letter number two, commonly known as the Glascow letter (because it was supposed to have been written to Bothwell from Glasgow while Mary was visiting her sick husband there) contains a report of a conversation between Mary and Darnley which corresponds so closely with another document adduced eighteen months later in evidence against the Queen, that the one must have been copied from the other. A brief explanation is necessary to make the importance of this circumstance clear. A certain Robert Crawfurd was in attendance on Darnley at Glasgow when Mary went thither to comfort him. At the request of the Earl of Lennox, Darnley’s father, Crawfurd (so he states), noted down the conversations that passed between the royal couple; but, not being present at them, he learned what had been said only from the account which Darnley afterwards gave him. Also in the letter number two is recounted one of Darnley’s plaintive discourses. It is clear, therefore, that if it could be shown that the conversation embodied in this letter was really held, something would be done to give an air of genuineness to the whole document. Hence, Crawfurd was called upon for an account of what had passed between Mary and Darnley, and his deposition was brought forward by the Regent and his associates before the English commissioners. Now, it turns out that Crawfurd’s deposition and the portion of the Casket Letter that covers the same ground, agree almost verbally--agree, in fact, so wonderfully that, all the circumstances considered, it is impossible to resist the conclusion that either one must have been copied from the other, and that a fraud was practised somewhere, for both documents were represented as original. I have said, "all the circumstances considered." We must remember that reporters, especially if they are not skilled stenographers, recording a speech, even, while it is being delivered, exhibit a considerable divergence of vocabulary and phraseology in their respective reports. But here both Crawfurd and Mary reported from memory; in fact, Crawfurd had to struggle against the vagaries of two memories--his own and Darnley’s. This is what makes the agreement suspiciously strange. More than that; Crawfurd’s deposition was written in Scots, while the Casket letter was written in French, and afterwards translated into Scots; and it is these two documents which, in spite of so many causes why they should widely differ, are found to agree so closely. Here are the passages in question:-- _Deposition of Crawfurd_.