The skull and portraits of Henry Stewart, Lord Darnley, and their bearing on the tragedy of Mary, Queen of Scots / by Karl Pearson, F.R.S.; with frontispiece, forty-five plates, four figures in the text and six tissues of cranial contours.

  • Pearson, Karl, 1857-1936.
Date:
[1928]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The skull and portraits of Henry Stewart, Lord Darnley, and their bearing on the tragedy of Mary, Queen of Scots / by Karl Pearson, F.R.S.; with frontispiece, forty-five plates, four figures in the text and six tissues of cranial contours. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    or Matters before the said Commissioners in the Treatie otherwise than your own Consciences shall bear you wittnes afore Gode, to be honest, godlie, reasonable, just, and true. Nor yet shall ye withdraw, hide or conceale anie Thing or Matter from the said Commissioners, which is mete and requisite to be opened and declared for the better knowledge of the Troth of the saide Causes of Controversie. So help you God, etc.” * I do not know that it is really necessary to demonstrate further Moray’s false¬ hoods to the English Commissioners, but one other sample out of many may be given. When Darnley entered into a band with the Earl of Morton, Ruthven and others for the assassination of Rizzio, it was part of the scheme that Moray and his friends, banished from Scotland, should return that night, although the Queen’s marriage with Darnley had only been rendered possible by Mary’s driving Moray and his rebels out of Scotland. Moray and Morton were heads of the conspiracy to place Darnley in the position which Mary, after testing his wisdom, had refused to give him. That was to be the price Moray paid for permission to return to Scotland. Rizzio was murdered, Moray returned, and but for. Darnley’s turning “effeminate,” as Ruthven put it, the brutal proceedings would have been wholly successful. Darnley confessed to having brought Moray back without the Queen’s leave, but denied his band with Morton and Ruthven to murder Rizzio and seize the Queen’s person. Owing to Mary’s strategy she escaped and summoned her friends; Morton, Ruthven and their associates fled the country, were proclaimed rebels and deprived of their offices and lands. Actually Darnley spent a considerable part of the autumn of 1566 enjoying himself in Morton’s castle of Dalkeith. Thus Morton looked upon Darnley as a betrayer, and one of the reasons given for the retreat of Darnley from the court was the prospective pardon of Morton. At any rate Morton and Darnley were foes from the time of the murder of Rizzio. Now let us see how Moray describes these relations to Elizabeth and her Commis¬ sioners : Throw this hir [Mary’s] disdayn continewitt aganis the king hir husband not onely schew she this speciall and extraordinar fauour to his knawin enemy [Chatelherault] bot begouth to * Anderson’s Collections, Vol. iv. p. 39. Probably the “godly” Begent thought he avoided this oath by “being content privatlie to shew us such Matteir as they have to condempne the Quene of Scottes of the Murder of her Husband, to the intent they wold know of us, how your Majestie understanding the same, wolde judge of the sufficiency of the Matter; and whether in your Majesties Opinion the same will extend to condempne the Quene of Scottes of the said Murder. And so they sent unto us the Lord of Lethington, James Makgill, and Mr George Boqivannan, and an other being a Lord of the Session, which in private and secret Conference with us, not as Commyssioners as they protested, bot for our better Instruction after Declaration of such circumstances as led and induced to vehement Presumptions to judge her giltie of the said Murder.” (Letter of Norfolk, Sussex and Sadler to Queen Elizabeth, October xi, 1568, in the Cotton Collection, British Museum.) That is to say, the evidence against Mary was not given openly, and when it could be contradicted by Mary’s Commissioners, but in “private and secret conference” with Queen Elizabeth’s Commissioners, “not as Commyssioners,” by Maitland, Macgill and Buchanan, two of whom were hirelings of Moray and the third was known by Moray to have been active in the proposals to put away Darnley, and so in bondage to Moray. Suspicion as to the preparation of the Casket Letters has always and will always lie with those .three “ private and secret conferers.” t The “ continuation of disdain” appears to have been after the pardoning of the Duke of Chatel¬ herault (January, 1565—6) referred to in the previous paragraph.