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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    II INSTRUCTIONS GIVEN TO THE LORD DE LA WARE AND OTHERS SENT TO MARY STUART, TOGETHER WITH HER PROTESTATION TO THEM. June ii and 16, 1572. [Egerton MSS. 2124, ff. 4-5.] This paper is written in a contemporary hand, but not in the same hand, as Document I. It appears to be the only surviving copy of the instructions given to Lord de la Warr and his colleagues when they were dispatched to Mary Stuart in June, 1572. By some slip of the pen it is dated 11 January 1572. There can be no doubt that it belongs to June of that year (cf. Cal. Scot. Papers, iv, pp. 324-5). The object of this commission was to make certain charges against Mary and to demand her answers to them. The charges were set down upon a separate paper which the commissioners took with them, a copy of which is preserved in the English Record Office (cf. Cal. Scot, iv, p. 324). This paper embodies substantially the same charges as those brought against Mary by Parliament (cf. Document I) except that they are stated more justly and with greater regard for the evidence at hand. A draft, in Burghley’s hand, of the letter which Eliza- beth sent to Mary by the commissioners is in the English Record Oftice (cf. Cal. Scot, iv, p. 325). Mary received the commissioners graciously and replied to them on the 17th of June. She first made her “ Protestation ” printed below, and then undertook to answer, point by point, the charges brought against her. There are copies both of her protestation and her detailed answer in the English Record Office (cf. Cal. Scot, iv, pp. 326, 330). The protestation has been printed in full in the Calendar of Scottish Papers, iv, p. 326. The copy of it in the Bardon collection is written in the same hand that copied the foregoing instructions to de la Warr and his colleagues. It is indeed merely tacked on to the end of those instructions and is included within the same indorsement.
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