Mary, Queen of Scots, 1542-1587; Queens -- Scotland -- Biography; Scotland -- History -- Mary Stuart, 1542-1567
If so, they would warn Lennox, or some one with Lennox, in framing his new
indictment, to wait for their final choice as to this letter. He did
wait, received a copy of it, dropped the first edition of the letter, and
interwove the second edition, which may be partly genuine, with his
‘discourse.’
This is, at least, a coherent hypothesis. There is, however, another
possible hypothesis: admirers of the Regent Moray may declare. Though
capable of using his sister’s accomplices to accuse his sister, ‘the noble
and stainless Moray’ was not capable of employing a forged document. On
returning to Scotland he found that, in addition to the falsified Letter,
there existed the genuine Letter II., really by Mary. Like a conscientious
man, he insisted that the falsified Letter should be suppressed, and
Letter II. produced.
This amiable theory may be correct. It is ruined, however, if we are right
in guessing that, when Moray sent Wood into England with Scots versions of
the Letters (May, 1568), he may have included among these a copy of the
falsified Letter, which was therefore cited by Lennox.
There is another point of suspicion, suggested by the Lennox Papers. In
Glasgow Letter II., Mary, writing late at night, is made to say, ‘I cannot
sleep as thay do, and as I wald desyre, _that is in zour armes_, my deir
lufe.’ In the Lennox account of the letter quoted by Moray to de Silva,
she ‘_wishes him then present in her arms_.’ In the Lennox Paper she
speaks of Darnley’s ‘sweet baits,’ ‘_flattering_ and sweet words,’ which
have ‘almost overcome her.’ In the English text of Letter II., Darnley
‘used so many kinds of _flatteries_ so coldly and wisely as you would
marvel at.’ His speeches ‘would make me but to have pity on him.’ Finally,
in the Lennox version of the unproduced Letter, Mary represents herself as
ready to ‘abandon her God, put in adventure the loss of her dowry in
France, hazard such titles as she had to the crown of England, as heir
apparent thereof, and also to the crown of the realm.’ Nothing of this
detailed kind occurs, we have seen, in the Letters, as produced. Similar
sentiments are found, however, in the first and second Casket Sonnets. ‘Is
he not in possession of my body, of my heart which recoils neither from
pain, nor dishonour, nor uncertainty of life, nor offence of kindred, nor
worse woe? For him I esteem all my friends less than nothing.... I have
hazarded for him name and conscience; for him I desire to renounce the
world ... in his hands and in his power I place my son’ (which she did not
do), ‘my honour, my life, my realm, my subjects, my own subject soul.’
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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