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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    The Queen of Scottes swereth by hir fayth, and with no gretar othe, that it is not trew that she sent any lettres to Babyngton, and if Naw or Curie saye so, it is by constraynt of the rack. She justifyeth that she, being a prisonar, might practise hir scape and for the invasion by Catholicques, that she might leage with the Catholick princes as well as the Queenes Majesty hath doone with hir son, the King of Scottes. 1 And so, havyng my handes fullar than I can delyver by Mr Secretoryes infyrmite, 2 I am constreyned to scrible in hast, xv Sept., hora 2d post meridiem. Yours assuredly, W. Burgh ley. [Addressed by Burghley's clerk] :—To the Right honorable, my verie good frend, Mr Vicechamberlaine. [Indorsed] :—1586.Windsor, Sept., 15. The L. Threr. (f) Burghley to Hattox. i6 September, 1586. The first paragraph in this letter refers to the affairs of the Low Coun- tries where the Earl of Leicester, who commanded the English forces there, partly by reason of his own incapacity, and partly because he received no adequate support from home, was having a hard time of it. Early in September he had returned Thos. Wilkes, whom Elizabeth had earlier sent to investigate the situation in the Low Countries, with instruct- ions to lay the whole case before her. Wilkes arrived in London before the X2'h of the month (Leicester Correspondence, p. 411). Mary could accomplish her trial and return to London, so that the course of their proceedings might be submitted to Parliament (Cf. Burghley to Leicester, 15 Sept., 1586. Leicester Correspondence, Camden Soc. 1844). 1 This statement by Mary of her innocence was probably made to her keeper, Sir Amias Poulet. As yet, she had not been formally examined. 2 Secretary Walsingham wrote to Poulet on the 5th of September “ I am now absent from the Court by reason of an inflammation that 1 have in my right leg, grown of the pain of a boil that is risen in it ” (Morris, p. 2861.
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