The Bardon papers : documents relating to the imprisonment & trial of Mary Queen of Scots / edited for the Royal Historical Society by Conyers Read ; with a prefatory note by Charles Cotton.

Date:
1909
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The Bardon papers : documents relating to the imprisonment & trial of Mary Queen of Scots / edited for the Royal Historical Society by Conyers Read ; with a prefatory note by Charles Cotton. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Upon these letters the case against Mary ultimately rested. The confessions of the conspirators and the confessions of the secretaries were merely used to prove the genuineness of them. It is generally admitted by sober writers on both sides the question that Mary actually sent and actually received many of the letters produced against her and that she was cognizant of and acquiescent to the plot for foreign invasion and domestic rebellion in her behalf. It is generally admitted also that she probably had some correspond- ence with Babington. But Mary’s defenders cannot agree that she wrote that letter to Babington, or at least those passages in that letter, in which she endorsed his plot to kill the Queen. They argue that the letter may have been forged or the incriminating passages interpolated by Walsingham’s agent, Thomas Phelippes, 1 * they discredit the concurring testimony of the conspirators and the secretaries on the grounds that it was given in all cases under constraint and in some cases under torture, and they challenge further proof. Further proof is not likely to be forthcoming. Indeed it is difficult to see how under the circumstances the government could have presented a stronger case than it did. Mary’s defenders have complained that the original of her incriminating letter to Babington was not produced. It is pretty clear that it was not produced for the very good reason that the attorneys for the prosecution could not lay hands upon it. Mary had advised Babington to burn it as soon as he had read it, and there is no good reason to believe that he did not follow her advice. * Lack- ing it, they made a careful search among Mary’s papers for her original draft of the letter. But this also eluded them. 3 Curie, the secretary, said it had been destroyed at Mary’s own command 4 and he may have told the truth. 1 This point is discussed in Appendix III. 1 Cf. the last sentence of Mary’s letter to Babington of July 17th, printed below p. 40. 3 Morris, p. 284. 4 Hardwicke State Papers, i, p. 237.