“Nicholas Hubert, _alias_ French Paris, was Bothwell’s page. He was taken privately to St. Andrews, where the Regent happened to be, and examined by George Buchanan, Robert Ramsey, Murray’s steward, and John Wood, his confidential secretary. Paris made two depositions: the first not touching Mary Stuart, the second fatally implicating her. This last was read over in his presence. He signed it, and was then executed, that there might be no retraction or contradiction.” Regarding these confessions, Agnes Strickland says:— “Nothing can, in fact, afford clearer evidence of Mary’s ignorance of the plot of her husband’s murder than this first confession of Hubert. Malcolm Laing, the most able of all the writers who have adopted the self-interested calumnies of the conspirators against Mary, put forth by their venal organ, Buchanan, and the political agents of Cecil, insists on the authenticity and credibility of this document. It contains, indeed, such strong internal evidences of reality that we fully coincide with him in its being genuine evidence, and for this reason reject the so-called second confession of Nicholas Hubert, or French Paris, as spurious, because one or the other must be false, and the second is palpably a fabrication between Murray and his secretary, Alexander Hay, to bolster up the forged letters and defame the queen. As poor Hubert could not write, it was unlikely he could read the paper to which Murray’s secretary made him put his mark. He had no trial, and though Queen Elizabeth requested he might be sent to London, Murray hanged him, that he might not contradict what had been put forth in his name.” We mention Agnes Strickland, in these comparisons with the testimony of Froude, because she was also an English writer; and she quotes from the very same authorities, for nearly all of the historians, letters, state papers, and authorities are cited by Miss Strickland which are used by Froude in proof of his statements. We also quote Agnes Strickland because her works are within the reach of every one, and those desiring to investigate the evidences on both sides will find her authorities in the foot-notes of her “English and Scottish Queens,” and in separate lives of Mary Stuart and Elizabeth, in her historical series. It is not the authority of Agnes Strickland as against that of Froude, but the weight of the many authorities and state papers which both refer to, as evidence in proof of the different sides they take upon this perplexing question. Froude pronounces Mary Stuart as probably innocent of all evil intent regarding Rizzio, and exonerates her of any improper conduct with him further than a good-natured condescension towards one in her employ. But if Mary Stuart’s guilt with Bothwell is proven, it is idle to talk of her innocence with Rizzio.