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The Casket Letters (Mary Queen of Scots) - On This Day in History
The Tudor Society ^ | June 20 | Claire Ridgway

Posted on 06/21/2022 6:44:23 PM PDT by texas booster

On 20th June 1567, a few days after Scottish rebels apprehended Mary, Queen of Scots, servants of James Douglas, 4th Earl of Morton, allegedly found a silver casket of eight letters, two marriage contracts (which apparently proved that Mary had agreed to marry Bothwell before his divorce) and twelve sonnets. The casket was found in the possession of James Hepburn, 4th Earl of Bothwell and third husband of Mary, Queen of Scots.

What was important about these letters?

Well, the eight letters found in the casket were allegedly written by Mary to Bothwell and one was said to implicate the couple in the murder of Mary's second husband, Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, in February 1567.

Elizabeth I ordered a commission to investigate the matter of Mary's involvement in Darnley's murder and on the 14th December 1568 the letters were produced at the Royal Commission as proof against Mary.

In his excellent book on Mary Queen of Scots, My Heart is My Own, historian John Guy writes:

"The sole evidence that she was a part to the murder plot comes from them [the Casket Letters]. There is no other proof. Her guilt or innocence depends on whether the letters are true or false."

The Casket Letters no longer exist, so cannot be examined today, but we still have the transcripts and translations, complete with William Cecil's notes. It is these notes which Guy says give us a "glimpse" into Cecil's thoughts as he read letters that were "dynamite" in that if they were indeed genuine then "an anointed Queen could justifiably be deposed from her throne, Elizabeth's 'safety' would be guaranteed, and the threat of an international Guise conspiracy ended for ever".

However, if they were forgeries then Mary would have to be released because it could not be proved that she was complicit in Darnley's murder.

The Sonnets

John Guy writes of how the sonnets found in the casket "were said to be Mary's own reflections on her adultery" with Bothwell and proof "that her consuming passion for Bothwell gave her a powerful motive for murder."

However, Guy points out that they are highly unlikely to be genuine as "they are extremely clumsy and would pass only with the greatest difficulty as the work of a native French speaker" and they do not fit with the "genre of courtly love poetry" with which Mary was familiar. He also points out that they can be read as religious poetry.

The Marriage Contracts

One of the marriage contracts from the silver casket was said to be dated 5th April 1567 "at Seton", so over a month before Mary and Bothwell's marriage, but Guy points out that this is a "blatant forgery" because the wording of the contract included "extracts from the Ainslie's Tavern bond", a document which was produced after the gathering of the Lords at Ainslie's Tavern on the 19th April 1567.

The other contract Guy describes as "innocuous" because "it is less a 'contract' than a written promise by Mary to marry Bothwell".

The Casket Letters

Letters 1 and 2, "the short Glasgow Letter" and "the long Glasgow letter" were the most damning and the second letter, if genuine, was proof that Mary was Bothwell's lover before their marriage and that she had been involved in Darnley's murder.

Letter 2 contained "seemingly graphic allusions to the murder plot... interspersed with its author's protestations of longing and desire for her lover"9 and Guy explains that the case against Mary rested on seven key extracts from the letter.

You can read Guy's full thoughts on the letter in "The Casket Letters" chapters of his book, but he argues that only the fifth extract, which said "Think also if you will not find some invention more secret by physick, for he is to take physick at Craigmillar and the baths also. And shall not come forth of a long time", can be connected to a murder plot.

Guy explains that this extract was meant to prove that Mary wanted Darnley to be poisoned while he was at Craigmillar, but it is not evidence of the plot which actually killed Darnley at Kirk o'Field.

Also, Guy argues that "it has to be regarded as a later forged interpolation" because it was missed in the material that was sent by George Buchanan to William Cecil in June 1568 and only used in the final accusations laid against Mary by the Confederate Lords to prove that Darnley's illness, which was in fact syphilis, was caused by poisoning. This charge does not make sense though as Darnley was already ill at this time.

After examination of the transcripts and translations, Guy concludes that, "in the absence of the original handwritten pages" of Letter 2, "around 1500-1800 words are likely to be genuine" and that 1000-1200 words are "likely to interpolations" from later letters or forgeries.

It could well be that "old and new pages were spliced together to make up a composite document" to convince Cecil and Elizabeth of Mary's guilt.

The controversy and debate over these letters still continues today and I would recommend John Guy's book "My Heart is My Own: The Life of Mary Queen of Scots" to anyone interested in The Casket Letters or Mary, Queen of Scots in general.


TOPICS: History; Society
KEYWORDS: ainsliestavernbond; ameshepburn; claireridgway; elizabethanengland; epigraphyandlanguage; godsgravesglyphs; henrystuart; jamesdouglas; jameshepburn; johnguy; lorddarnley; maryqueenofscots; renaissance; thecasketletters; williamcecil
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To: texas booster; SunkenCiv

Some people confuse this Mary, Queen of Scots, with “Bloody Mary” Queen of England & Ireland (predecessor of Elizabeth I), because they were contemporaries.........................


21 posted on 08/15/2022 6:32:20 AM PDT by Red Badger (Homeless veterans camp in the streets while illegal aliens are put up in hotels.....................)
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To: DoodleBob

“Oh, Intercourse the Penguin!”


22 posted on 08/15/2022 6:36:33 AM PDT by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)
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To: Red Badger
Not just UK history -- monarchy is not a valid form of gov't, neither is dictatorship, but both are part of the past and even the present.

23 posted on 08/15/2022 6:37:51 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (Imagine an imaginary menagerie manager imagining managing an imaginary menagerie.)
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To: SunkenCiv

Cream rises to the top.

Corollary:

Sh!t floats.........................


24 posted on 08/15/2022 6:39:29 AM PDT by Red Badger (Homeless veterans camp in the streets while illegal aliens are put up in hotels.....................)
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To: Red Badger
Yup, they were cousins. The only reason Bloody Mary didn't execute Mary, Q of S, is that didn't live long enough. The day that Liz signed the order and Mary Q of S was executed, she kicked out the staff, shut herself up in her chambers, and wailed and bawled so loud it could be heard throughout the building. It's not surprising, though, that she never quite trusted her father's side of the family. Her first cousins Catherine and Henry were kept close, but didn't last like she did.

25 posted on 08/15/2022 6:41:10 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (Imagine an imaginary menagerie manager imagining managing an imaginary menagerie.)
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To: Red Badger

Most people got rich the old fashioned way, by being born. That’s still the case.


26 posted on 08/15/2022 6:42:07 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (Imagine an imaginary menagerie manager imagining managing an imaginary menagerie.)
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To: SunkenCiv

But their ancestors got rich by taking it away from another powerful thief................


27 posted on 08/15/2022 6:44:30 AM PDT by Red Badger (Homeless veterans camp in the streets while illegal aliens are put up in hotels.....................)
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To: SunkenCiv

I’ve noticed that many monarchs and Lords died in their 40’s of ‘sudden illness’.

I know hygiene wasn’t very well practiced in those days and food spoilage was common as was plague, consumption (TB), etc, but I’m betting many were poisoned...................


28 posted on 08/15/2022 6:49:06 AM PDT by Red Badger (Homeless veterans camp in the streets while illegal aliens are put up in hotels.....................)
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To: Red Badger
Or, one ancestor got rich through hard work, or through the hard work of others.

29 posted on 08/15/2022 8:04:18 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (Imagine an imaginary menagerie manager imagining managing an imaginary menagerie.)
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To: Red Badger
They died of TB, Plague, probably influenza, measles, etc. Generally when someone was snuffed, it was under torture, or via knife in the ribs, smothering, strangling...

30 posted on 08/15/2022 8:14:41 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (Imagine an imaginary menagerie manager imagining managing an imaginary menagerie.)
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To: SunkenCiv

I’m currently reading Dickens’ “A Child’s History of England” and he mentions that there are currently (at the time of his writing, 1850’s) many wealthy families in the UK that can trace their ancestry (and wealth) back to the Norman Invasion when William killed most all the English nobles and distributed their estates to his Norman knights, and are quite proud of it!...................


31 posted on 08/15/2022 8:15:42 AM PDT by Red Badger (Homeless veterans camp in the streets while illegal aliens are put up in hotels.....................)
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To: SunkenCiv

smothering...... ‘pressed between two mattresses’ As Dickens described one snuffing.....................


32 posted on 08/15/2022 8:18:30 AM PDT by Red Badger (Homeless veterans camp in the streets while illegal aliens are put up in hotels.....................)
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To: Red Badger

Well, they can try. About five miles from here there’s a sarcophagus where the dead guy had part of his genealogy carved on the side, and there’s about an 800 year gap, but he shows one of the Companions and immediate descendants.

There’s not a single list of them and what happened to them, unless it’s been done recently online. There was an ad hoc metal plaque on the Battle Abbey, but that vanished (probably pried off by some metal scavenger) a couple hundred years ago, and probably didn’t antedate the 16th c anyway.

Add to that, the posh tended to crawl all over each other like a box of drunken hamsters, making the paper pedigree not 100% reliable. On paper, and like probably everyone on here, I’m descended from Wm the Conqueror, Alfred the Great, Charlemagne, etc, but there isn’t a big archive full of birth certificates, nor is there (usually) any DNA to be sequenced, and almost definitely none from the generations of hardworking commoners who carried the line for three, four, five hundred years from the “gateway ancestors”.


33 posted on 08/15/2022 8:22:40 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (Imagine an imaginary menagerie manager imagining managing an imaginary menagerie.)
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To: SunkenCiv
There was an ad hoc metal plaque on the Battle Abbey, but that vanished (probably pried off by some metal scavenger) a couple hundred years ago, and probably didn’t antedate the 16th c anyway.

Apparently his descendants are still with us: https://www.fox10tv.com/2022/08/11/bronze-service-seals-stolen-veterans-memorial-cemetery-vandalized-over-weekend/

34 posted on 08/15/2022 8:40:42 AM PDT by Red Badger (Homeless veterans camp in the streets while illegal aliens are put up in hotels.....................)
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To: SunkenCiv

Dickens mentioned the Battle Abbey, and reported that it was an old, broken down, ivy-covered mess of stones..............


35 posted on 08/15/2022 8:45:24 AM PDT by Red Badger (Homeless veterans camp in the streets while illegal aliens are put up in hotels.....................)
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To: Red Badger

That guy got around.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__uGWY9eqeU


36 posted on 08/15/2022 3:33:10 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (Imagine an imaginary menagerie manager imagining managing an imaginary menagerie.)
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To: crz

Watch it! We deer-wallowers are a private but vengeful bunch.


37 posted on 08/19/2022 11:11:18 AM PDT by wildbill (The older I get, the less the term 'life in prison" scares me)
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To: SunkenCiv
monarchy is not a valid form of gov't

Throughout human history, monarchy has been the most common form of government. I'll grant that it has tended to produce a lot of really crummy leaders ... democracy (whether direct or republican) has also produced a lot of crummy leaders. Man is fallen and corrupt; as a result, government always tends toward kakistocracy.

38 posted on 08/19/2022 11:20:13 AM PDT by NorthMountain (... the right of the peopIe to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed)
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To: NorthMountain
It has been a common form. It is still not a valid one.

39 posted on 08/20/2022 7:29:59 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (Imagine an imaginary menagerie manager imagining managing an imaginary menagerie.)
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To: SunkenCiv

Then there is no valid form. Government is simply some people using force to control everybody else. If you try to hold up a “Constitutional Representative Republic” as a valid form of government I’ll laugh in your face.


40 posted on 08/20/2022 8:28:53 AM PDT by NorthMountain (... the right of the peopIe to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed)
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