ADDITIONAL EVIDENCE KESPECTING MAKIE STUART. 65 



As regards the second letter, the close agreement between the 

 account it gives of the queen's interview with the king, and 

 Crawfurd's deposition on the same subject, is used by Hosack as 

 evidence against its genuineness. This, however, so far from 

 carrying such a conclusion, is maintained to be a more likely proof 

 of genuineness. The queen would, most likely, give a minute 

 account of everything as it took place to Bothwell, to enable 

 him to carry on the plot, and Crawfurd, Darnley's servant, would 

 have everything connected with his master's lust moments indelibly 

 stamped on his memory. Supposed cause of the ridiculous mis- 

 takes in some of the French and Latin copies of the letters. 

 Sergeant Barham, at the trial of the Duke of Norfolk, alludes to 

 the Queen of Scots occupying herself in re-translating into French, 

 English, or Scotch, copies of her letters, surreptitiously obtained 

 for her by Maitland, of Ledington. Barham speaks of "this 

 subtlety of practice, from some variance, coming to light." 



As to the third, fourth, and fifth letters, Hosack maintains their 

 genuineness, but that they were written to Darnley. The internal 

 evidence is not quite consistent with this theory. In proof of 

 letter "four" being Marie's, and to Darnley, Hosack alludes to the 

 passage where, according to Hosack' s rendering, she calls herself 

 "the second love of Jason, if her correspondent should still think 

 more of other ladies than herself." This Hosack supposes to be a 

 classical error not likely to be made bylBuchanan, and therefore to 

 be a woman's oversight. But the French shows the writer did 

 not call herself the second love of Jason, but a second love. Tliis 

 would only imply that she was a second Medea, or a second person 

 in a similar position to that of Medea, and not that Jason had a 

 second love, whose fate hers might resemble. Hosack's admission 

 respecting the occurrence of a suspicious passage in fifth letter, 

 where the writer says "she will get rid of some obstacle if she 

 does not receive his (her correspondent's) instructions." Hosack's 

 proposal to strike out the passage as "unintelligible" is not satis- 

 factory. 



As to the sixth, seventh, and eighth letters, Mr. Hosack quietly 

 ignores Froude's discovery of the original French of two letters. 

 The Book of Articles is referred to as evidence of the specific 

 charges laid against Marie Stiuirt, and much of it is found to 

 coincide with Buchanan's "Detcctio." The evidence from the 

 "minutes" supposed by Laing to be "lost," but now printed as 



K 



