Facsimile of Grant to Oeorge Sinclair, made by Queen 

 Mary at Hermitage Castle, October 16th 1566. 



It has been known for some time — but apparently is not 

 very generally, even yet — that there is in existence the 

 register of an appointment made by Queen Mary at 

 Hermitage Castle, on the 16th of October 1566, the facsimile 

 of which is given. (Plate XIV.) It is so very unlike 

 anything that anyone would have supjjosed, as to go far 

 to bear out Hosack's contention of the business character of 

 Mary's ride to Hermitage, which, if she took the line 

 traditionally alleged from Jedburgh, was not much less than 

 sixty miles, there and back. 



The paper called Queen Mary at Jedburgh, by Mr Small, 

 a member of the Scotch Society of Antiquaries, and printed 

 in their Proceedings for (I think) 1881, gives the fact and 

 the date of the appointment ; but this does not fully convey 

 the curious irrelevancy of the document to the circumstances 

 as given in the official statement, namely, that she had 

 gone to Hermitage in desperate haste to see Bothwell, on 

 hearing of his being wounded. 



Even Claude Nau, Mary's faithful secretary, seems to 

 have known nothing of Hermitage being a royal fortress — 

 one of the most important castles on the Borders— but 

 supposes, naturally enough, that Mary's visit was an attention 

 to Bothwell, the Warden of the Marches, who had been 

 somewhat severely wounded in a hand-to-hand struggle with 

 one of the most conspicuous of the Border warriors, who 

 maintained a kind of independence of both England and 

 Scotland. 



One is inclined to think that Hermitage had probably 

 been intended as the next place on Mary's route after the 



