I had myself been partly convinced that this was the correct view. But the existence of Mary’s memoranda, and the way in which they influence Letter II., seem to me an almost insuperable proof that part, at least, of Letter II. is genuine. It may, however, be said that the memoranda were genuine, but not compromising, and that the Letter was based, by forgers, on the memoranda (accidentally left lying in her Glasgow room, by Mary) and on Crawford’s report, obtained from Lennox. This is not impossible. But the craft of the forger in making Mary, on her second night of writing, find her forgotten memoranda (II. 15), be reminded by them of her last neglected item (‘Of Monsieur de Levingstoun’), and then go on (II. 16) to tell the anecdote of Livingstone, never publicly contradicted by him, seems superhuman. I scarcely feel able to believe in a forger so clever. Yet I hesitate to infer that Crawford, when asked to corroborate the statements in the Letter, took his report from the Letter itself, and perjured himself when he said, on oath, that his Deposition was derived from a writing taken down from Darnley’s lips ‘immediately at the time.’ I should come to this conclusion with regret and with hesitation. It is disagreeable to feel more or less in doubt as to Crawford’s honour. We know nothing against Crawford’s honour, unless it be that he was cruel to the Hamilton tenantry, and that he deposed to having received confessions on the scaffold, from Bothwell’s accomplices, implicating Mary.[345] These do not occur in the dying confessions printed with Buchanan’s ‘Detection,’ though Bowton hinted something against Mary, when he was in prison; so that trustworthy work informs us. Thus Crawford’s second Deposition, as to the dying confessions, is certainly rather suspicious. We know nothing else against the man. He lived to be a trusted servant of James VI. (but so did the infamous Archibald Douglas); he denounced Lethington of guilt in the murder; he won fame by the capture of Dumbarton Castle. Yet some are led to suspect that, when asked to corroborate a passage in a letter, he simply took the corroboration, _textually_, from the letter itself. If not the Letter is a forgery.