However this may be, whether the Declaration was discovered by Bresslau in 1882 or by Mr Henderson in 1889. I am willing to admit that comparatively little weight has hitherto been attached to it by historians. Whether the historians were wrong remains to be scen That is the question I now propose to discuss. I confess that I should like to learn in the first place a little more about the pedigree of this manuscript. A good many years ago a large number of so-called Casket Letters were published by a member of the Scottish Bar, which were ultimately found to have been fabricated. The fraud was exposed, if I remember rightly, by the late David Laing; and since then any new document relating to the casket, whose credentials are not unimpeachable, has been naturally regarded with disfavour. Some time during last century there appears to have been a perfect craze for manufacturing ancient manuscripts, and many of them are said to have been executed with remarkable skill.1 Morton's Declaration, we are told, was in the collection of Sir A. Malet as early as 1876, when the Historical Manuscripts Commission presented their Fifth Report. How it was obtained by Sir A. Malet we do not learn: he was as enthu no siastic a collector as "Monkbarna," cer Assuming, however, that it is a true copy of Morton's declaration, the question arises, Was it emitted under conditions calculated to test its credibility? Is there any reason why we should believe that Morton, the most unscrupulous of men, was on this occasion telling the truth? No representative of Mary was present. Those who were present were more or less hostile to her,Moray, Cecil, Bacon, and the rest. It was a secret tribunal. The members were bound not to dis burgh in June, but in Orkney a month later. "Il est impossible," he concludes, que dans de telle circonstances il ait pu, la veille de son transport au Tolbooth, amener la cassette du château d'Édimbourg dans la maison de la rue de la Potterie et la cacher sous son lit." Etudes,' p. 11. The Lords, it will be remembered, in the Act of 4th December 1567, declared that they had taken up arms against the Queen because they had discovered by her own letters to Bothwell that she was privy to the murder of her husband. As they took up arms long before Dalglish was captured, it would certainly seem that up to December they had not resolved how or through whose agency they would trace the letters into Bothwell's possession. 1 The late Mr Hill Burton had collected some information on this subject, which may perhaps be still among his papers. 2 In the copy made for me at the British Museum, a third character, I find, is assigned to the Declaration. It is, finally, "The copy of a letter gevin to Secretairie Cecill.' close what took place, and no person outside the Council Chamber knew what had taken place. The minutes of the meetings were confidential memoranda adjusted by Cecil, and kept under lock and key. There was no cross-examination. Morton, in short, was at absolute liberty, without fear of contradiction, to tell his own story. Assuming, however, that Morton substantially told the truth, is his story to be taken as demonstrating that the Glasgow letter was among the documents found in the casket? He affirmed that Athol and other noblemen, as well as Maitland, were present when he opened the box. He affirmed that the writings had been seen and examined by them. Mr Henderson obviously holds that Morton's assertion that Athol was present, and that he "sichtit" the writings, should be regarded as conclusive evidence that the documents afterwards produced were in the casket when it was opened. Even if we grant that Athol was present (he had no opportunity of assuring the Commissioners that he was not), are we constrained to conclude that the Glasgow letter was in the casket, and that Athol must have known that it was there? I do not see that we are. The whole circumstances must be closely considered. been sent to the castle for a box belonging to Bothwell. The box was brought to Morton during the evening of the 20th. It lay unopened all night in his house. (Much, of course, might have been done during the night.) It was opened on the 21st in presence of Morton, Athol, and the other nobles who had imprisoned the Queen, and who were then in arms against her. It was filled with papers. These were "sichtit." Mr Henderson dwells with evident emotion upon this word. It was a word of style among Scottish lawyers-a word in common use in deeds and pleadings. Morton's amanuensis of course would desire to make his statement as precise and impressive as possible; but to conclude from the formal use of a legal phrase that each of the numerous writings was scanned closely and attentively is palpably absurd. After the 'sichting" the casket was returned to Morton. It seems to me, therefore (even on the assumption that Morton's narrative is in substance true), that nothing happened on June 21 which could prevent him from producing at a later day, as a writing which had been found in the casket, a writing which had not been there.2 It is to be observed, moreover, that no minute of this remarkable meeting was taken at the time.3 Had the casket contained letters of such momentous import, some record would surely have been 1 Can it have been Dalglish? We have already seen what M. Philippson has to say as to the time when Dalglish was taken. 2 Or a writing which, having been there, had been altered "in some principal and substantious clauses" in the interval? This is what the Queen's Lords assembled at Dumbarton on 12th September 1568 seem to suggest. 3 The minute would have been signed by those who were present; and it would have contained, if not copies, at least an inventory of the documents recovered. Even an inventory would have been some check upon Morton, to whom the casket was immediately returned, and in whose custody it remained for the next fifteen months; for the letters which he afterwards produced varied in number, sometimes there were seven, sometimes eight, sometimes twenty made by men who (to use Charles II.'s words) "committed treason by advice of counsel." A deposition, moreover, would have been taken from Dalglish. We know, indeed, that his deposition was afterwards taken, but that strangely enough no question about the casket or its contents was put to him. All this goes to show that at the time when (as was afterwards alleged) the casket had been found, little importance was attached to its contents by the nobles themselves. If it contained diaries or memoranda or letters in Mary's handwriting as it possibly did), it does not seem to have occurred to them at the time that they could be used against her with effect.1 It is certain that one part of the Glasgow letter was not then in the casket-the part in which Crawford's deposition was slavishly followed. That undoubtedly must have been a later addition. It is not improbable that one document - the "band" for the murder of Darnley - which was not submitted to the English Council, and which, indeed, was never afterwards seen-except, to be sure, by the Edinburgh Reviewer! -was then in the casket. has said that Sir James Balfour 'I carefully examined the manuscript," Mr Henderson assures us, "and found it to contain statements of such vital consequence as practically to be decisive in regard to the authenticity of the documents." The rapidity with which Mr Henderson has solved a riddle which has baffled the finest wits is very creditable to himself; but I am unable, I regret to say, to congratulate him upon the care which he has bestowed on the examination of the manuscript. The 'Athenæum' has accused him of not understanding French; I am afraid I must accuse him of the still graver crime of not underWhat, in these circumstances, standing Scots. At all events, he are we to think of Morton's Decla- is quite unfamiliar with the Scots ration? It is not the Marian of the sixteenth century; and this alone who will reply,-Just what is the reason, I presume, why his we always thought. Robertson copy of a document on which so In short, look at it how we may, it is quite clear, even on Morton's showing, even on the assumption that a mass of papers in Mary's handwriting were inspected more or less thoroughly by Athol and others, that no precautions were adopted to prevent them from being afterwards tampered with. And afterwards tampered with, in some way or other, they unquestionably were. Athol never saw the documents after they had been "handled"; and even if he had, he might easily have failed to observe how and in what respects "emendations" had one ! been effected. I suggested in my apology that the persons who produced the letters might have got hold of some pages in Mary's handwriting - jottings, half-finished memoranda, leaves from journal or diary. Were these in the casket when it was opened? 2 October 23, 1889. much is said to depend absolutely bristles with blunders. "If time had so served" (to use Cecil's phrase), I would have printed an accurate copy of the Declaration. This being at present impossible, I can only warn the reader that Mr Henderson's version is ludicrously misleading. Here are a few of the blunders that stare us in the face. "Auldhamesokkes should be "Auldhamestokkes"; "ye Lord of Stirling" should be "ye Lord of Skirling"; "wer cuming to the wer cuming to the toun" should be " Iwer cummit to the toun"; "The same wt satisfeing him that gave ye intelligens for his pains" should be "The said Robert satisfeing him that gave ye intelligens for his pains"; "before Edin" should be "besid Edin"; "the Erll bothwill's infestments should be "the Erll Bothuill's infeftments"; "and of Orknay" should be "and of Orknay and Zetland"; "and divers coyris" should be "and divers utheris"; "to visit, etc., L. bothwell" should be to visite ye L. Bothuil ; "letters and evidences" should be "letters and evidentes"; "letters nor comdetes" should be "letters nor evidentes"; "seing ye pano should be "fering ye pane"; "vyris writtes " should be "dyvcris writtcs." There being in less than two pages close upon forty palpable errors, the whole character of the document is altered; and Mr Henderson is forced to supply marginal readings (which are extremely funny) to explain the obscurities of which he is the author. It must be admitted, I am afraid, that Mr Henderson has not fared any better than the rest of us. He has not solved the mystery of the casket. And in spite of all that he and others have written, only the via media which I have hitherto followed recommends itself to my judgment. It is difficult to hold that all the letters are spurious; it is difficult to hold that all the letters are genuine. I havo to thank Mr Froude for an admirably fair and candid examination of the argument I have advanced; but I venture to think that even his powerful advocacy will fail to resolve the doubts of those who, having carefully weighed the whole of the evidence, internal as well as external, feel that the singular documonts produced by the Lords at Westminster and Hampton Court have been insufficiently authenticated, and that the acute suspicion which attached to them from the first has not been dispelled. JOHN SKELTON. THE Ixt day broke damp and still. A reeking wetness hung over everything; sea and sky melted together into a cloud of powdery mist. The rolling thunder of the waves was muffled into a thick and heavy murmur, and upon the surface of the slowly heaving grey, long wreaths of stagnant foam floated lazily along the shore. Upon the solitary,black rocks in the sea the shags and the cormorants were sitting in compact masses, quietly huddled together just out of reach of the waves, while at the foot of the rock the water hissed in white circles. All along the coast the drizzly mist was hanging, letting the nearest cliff appear sharp and distinct, glistening black with moisture; then a cloud of mist filling the next hollow, then a second cliff, dim and featureless, another blot of mist, and what might be a third cliff, perchance, looming like a ghost upon the horizon. White mists rolled over the moor, and white mists hung in almost tangible fragments on the furze and bramble bushes. The grass was soaked and heavy, the very stones seemed mildewed and mouldy to their core. Lady Baby, wrapped once more in her cloak, and muffled once more in her veil, stole cautiously from the house. It was very much more trying to go on this expedition by daylight than in the darkness, but she dared not delay. She did not venture to risk 'losing the chance of those three words from Carbury, which she felt would be to her very much what the priest's absolution is to the true Catholic. A return of consciousness, she had been told, might or might not disperse the delirium; but at what moment such a return was to be looked for it was impossible to say. It was with this hungry craving that she stole from the house. Had she been calm enough to reflect, she would perhaps have found out that there existed no rational cause for doing this thing secretly. The need for concealment had in reality ceased, but by this time she had so worked herself up to the idea of a mystery being necessary, that it never even occurred to her to go to her father, and to say, "Mr Carbury is here, and he is dying, and I want his forgiveness before he dies." The shortest way from Gullyscoombe to Floundershayle led past the drowned Bluebell Mines; for by following what had once been the cart-track on which the sacks of ore had been carted from the mine, a very considerable angle of the highroad was cut off. Along the edges of this track, on which the ruts were still fresh enough to be visible, ran a border of flowerless furze, with here and there a yellow bush, flat-blown by the wind into the likeness of some wonderfully engraven shield, which wants only the sunshine to make it into gold. Lady Baby, pursuing this path had reached the Bluebell Mines this morning, when, on turning the corner of the closed-up engine |