The most significant argument to explain William’s success in Hastings was because his Norman army was far more superior in cavalry and archery than Harold’s army. Cavaliers all fought in special units, the conroi, and were highly trained to follow strict specific orders without confusion. This disciplinary understanding amongst the Norman troops is crucial as it permitted them to enable these fake retreats[28]. In the Bayeux Tapestry, it is woven in great detail thousands of horsemen managing to draw the English away from their defensive line from the ridge only to hack them down at the bottom in the marshy valley. Also, the tapestry illustrates a perfect scene of the Norman army regrouping when William re-mounted his horse and lifted his helmet to show he was very much alive, and later on commissioned the feigned retreats. This, again, suggests William was fully capable of commanding a whole army, he was well organized and prepared for this battle, as the tapestry shows him embarking on the shores of England full of food supplies, weapons, and live horses. As a result the fake retreats at Hastings were enabled under the cunningness of William, commanding a well prepared, who proved their efficiency on the battlefield, as the Anglo-Saxon defensive line gradually disintegrated leading to Harold’s death.
Harold clearly had several weaknesses, as Pursor outlines, ranging from his own deficiencies as a leader to his decision to attack at a disadvantageous moment. Nevertheless, his defense does seem to have been strong enough to withstand the Norman cavalry. This is why it can be concluded that William’s tactics at the battle of Hastings were effective. Through his feigned retreat, inviting Harold's defensive shield to break and attack, he managed to fatally weaken the main advantage Harold enjoyed. Added to this was William's disciplined and well-prepared army, crucial to ensure Norman victory at Hastings, which can be seen in the Bayeux tapestry as it illustrates effectively the well-armed Norman cavaliers intercepting and decimating the undisciplined Anglo-Saxon soldiers.
Question: Do the bones found in the Tower prove Richard III’s involvement in the disappearance of the Princes in the Tower?
Source 1: Thomas More: The History of King Richard III (1519)
Published in 1519, this first biography of Richard is an unfinished account of his life and establishes the narrative of Richard's involvement in the princes’ deaths1. Much of the book centres around their fate, making it a crucial source for this investigation. Significantly, it was written during Henry VIII’s reign, reflecting the Tudor propagandist line of Richard the evil tyrant2. As a member of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s household, who deeply despised Richard, More probably overstated rumours of Richard’s role in the disappearance of the Princes to gratify his patrons' antipathy towards him3.This is reflected in More’s narrative, known more for its dramatic writing style than its historical accuracy, the former chairman of the Richard III Society describing it as “not history, but a literary exercise in the dramatic presentation of villainy”4 5. Such purpose is further reflected in content describing Richard as “malicious, wrathfull, [and] envious”, betraying clear subjective bias 6.Approximately one- third of it contains speeches invented by More for his characters which, though based on authentic source material, presents a tyrannical view of Richard 7. Furthermore, More’s history has its obvious flaws: some names and dates are incorrect or missing, and some of its content results from “divining upon conjunctures”8. Nevertheless, much of what More writes is substantiated by contemporary sources of the time like Mancini which More didn’t have access to, and, being a high member of Henry VIII’s court, More was able to obtain first-hand information from courtiers who had been alive during Richard’s reign, leading to Alison Weir arguing ‘there’s little reason to doubt its overall authenticity” 9 10.
Source 2: Paul Murray Kendall: Richard III (1956)
Runner up for the National Book Award in 1957, Kendall was praised for his “brilliantly successful [research], combining sound scholarship with literary distinction”11. Described by A.L.Rowse as ‘the best biography of Richard III,' Kendall sought to "portray what manner of man Richard was and what manner of life he led,’ helping fill in details about his character and motivations to truly assess his involvement in the disappearance of the princes12. By relying on “source material contemporary with Richard’s day”, Kendall casts doubt on Richard’s role.13 Nonetheless, his complete disregard of Tudor accounts severely limits his availability of sources 14. Kendall’s attempt to educate a general audience hinders depth as he spends much time providing context. Argumentation for the princes’ disappearance, however, remains easy to follow as he specifically devotes an entire section to the case. Nonetheless, with the mystery being over 500 years old, Kendall relies on his own interpretations of the sources, especially that of the bones, in order to assess motive15. Desmond Seward describes Kendall as a ‘romantic apologist’, who bases his interpretations on conjecture16. Yet, with the examinations of the bones found in the Tower of London twenty years prior, Kendall presents new evidence which sources like More’s weren’t able to access17.
Section B: Investigation
In 2012, the skeleton of Richard III was found in a Leicester car park, DNA analysis proving it to be Richard’s “beyond reasonable doubt”18. Richard’s supporters said that they hoped the discovery would force academics to “re-examine history”, especially with the many ‘false claims’ surrounding him19. The bones’ discovery thus reignited debate about his role in the most controversial rumour surrounding his reign; the disappearance of the Princes. Ironically, nowadays this debate centres on a separate collection of bones found in the Tower of London in 167420. Traditionalists have maintained that Richard stands convicted of the crime, as asserted by Tudor historians and blazoned by Shakespeare’s melodrama. Revisionists, like Kendall, insist that the case against Richard is fraudulent, have either declared the case an enigma or blamed someone else21. Equally, none of the contemporary evidence, being based on the assumption that Richard was responsible for the deaths of the princes, conclusively proves his guilt22. The key therefore to answering this question is the analysis of forensic evidence presented by the bones since this is the only physical evidence available that, unlike contemporary sources, cannot be tampered with and it’s significant that they were found in the Tower, where the princes were under Richard’s protection23.
Dr Starkey argues that although the bones on their own don’t prove Richard’s involvement, the location where they were found does, since their discovery corroborates More’s account of the burial of the Princes25. The bones were where he had described them to be “at the stair foot, meetly deep under the ground”26. The fact that this information came from More, who served Henry VIII as Lord High Chancellor of England, gives its historical weight as the authority he represented would indicate that the information was accurate27.Being a valued member of court, More also had access to sources unavailable to the general public, and could interview members of court that were in the Tower during the princes’ disappearance, like John Argentine, the physician to Edward V28. The burial place is also significant, since this was a private passage for the King 29. Thus, the bones wouldn’t have been able to be buried without Richard knowing, as he frequently used the passage30. Furthermore, as argued by Starkey, “there would’ve been no possibility that Richard wouldn’t have known if someone else were involved in the murder”31. This was because the Tower’s constable, Sir Brackenbury, one of his most devoted followers, wouldn’t grant access to the Tower without Richard’s authority32. Richard was therefore the only person capable of allowing murder to take place in the Tower. Ultimately the bones, if they are the Princes, prove that Richard had to be involved simply due to the location of the burial site33.
Furthermore, the forensic evidence from 1933 highlights the likelihood that the bones are the Princes34. The bones were examined by Dr Tanner and Professor Wright. Using dental evidence they estimated that the elder child was twelve and the younger nine to eleven, the ages of the princes when they disappeared35. This evidences that the Princes would’ve died during Richard’s reign, when he was the only one able to access them.
However, Kendall questions a number of assumptions raised by traditionalists. In regard to the site where the bones were found, he argues that traditionalists who view More’s statements as the truth overlook More’s subsequent statement that the bones were later moved to a “better place”40. According to Kendall, if one were to believe More, the skeletons cannot have been those of the Princes41. Nevertheless, it’s difficult to invalidate More based on one statement. It’s also unclear what a ‘better place’ refers to; a better place wouldn’t even necessarily mean that the bones left the Tower. Furthermore, with regard to forensic evidence there are a few issues with the conclusions. These were founded on the basis of the Princes having been suffocated, yet as later forensics show “blood stains on the skull or jaw can’t support suffocation”42. Not only would this call into question the validity of the forensic research, but also that of More as he recorded how, under Richard’s orders, the princes were “smothered to death”43.
Most substantially; the bones haven’t been dated and thus could’ve belonged to any historical period46. The princes weren’t the only children who disappeared in the Tower during the “turbulent age” and the white Tower, in which the bones were found, has stood for almost 900 years, during which “many secret bloody deeds have been enacted”47. Similar sets of bones have been found which could equally have been those of the Princes48. However, Kendall fails to recognise that the bones were discovered with “pieces of velvet about them”49. According to the Archaeological Resource Centre in York, velvet was invented in the 1400’s in Renaissance Italy and wasn’t made in England before the sixteenth century. In the 1480’s wearing imported velvet signified a higher rank, not only because of the price but also because of the social conventions50. Thus, the bones found in 1674 must have died in the fifteenth century at the earliest, and as no other pair of royal children had disappeared during the previous 200 years, it’s a fair assumption that these are the bones of the Princes51.
Overall, based on a combination of the forensic evidence, such as hypodontia, and the historical evidence, such as the velvet, and the place where the bones were found, it’s highly likely that the bones belong to the Princes. The bones thus confirm that the princes were dead by the end of 1483, therefore, it’s probable, that they were killed with Richard’s knowledge in 1483. Though Richard wasn’t present at the time of their disappearance, because the princes disappeared in the Tower and their bones were found there, he had to have known about it and thus per the question must have been involved.
Section C: Reflection
A challenge I faced was to understand the past given the paucity of objective information. Most contemporary sources are prejudiced against Richard and none indisputably certify Richard as the killer, nor mention the resting place of the Princes52. The lack of 15th documentation forced me to use Tudor accounts like More’s which are misleading and often biased, hostile towards Richard and contradictory. Previous accounts were hidden or destroyed, whilst those proclaiming Richard a tyrant were accepted 53.
The invalidity of history’s understanding through false claims hereby also creates grave danger. More created an image of Richard as a sadistic murderer, arguably the dominant factor in Richard’s legacy, paving the way for dramatists like Shakespeare’s characterisation. We should understand how the way history is told influences perception. Without More’s biography, we may never have known the “deformed and unfinished” tyrant from Shakespeare. The forensic analysis of the bones reflects this, conducted in the assumption that they belonged to the Princes and that Richard orchestrated their murder was, i.e. evidence of arguably historically inaccurate texts influencing not only historians, but also forensic scientists. An issue for historians relying on forensic evidence is that they have to trust the interpretations of experts in another field, meaning they’re unable to form conclusions on their own.
I found that historians, from different periods, disagreed over the same facts, and exhibited political, regional and cultural biases. A problem was identifying which speculative, and difficult to validate, theories, would likely be closes to the truth, taking into consideration not only the ‘selectivity’ in choosing sources, but the omissions, inferences and socio-political background of the historian. Tudor historians, writing after Henry’s ascension were unable to criticise him, and were thus heavily biased, partially incorrect or over-exaggerated.
I therefore focused on the objective scientific evidence of the bones, which also provided a likely burial site, although on their own, the bones cannot definitively prove Richard’s involvement, which isn’t helped from the heaps of competing theories arising from them. Even the chairman of the ‘Richard III Society’ didn’t feel able to provide a conclusion54.
Though the 1933 report adjudged the bones to be most likely those of the princes, this cannot be confirmed until further research, including DNA analysis, is carried out. No age or sex is established from the bones, rendering it difficult to unequivocally assert Richard’s complicity. This raises a question of morality; should the bodies be disinterred again to quell the curiosity of a small body of historians, or is the sanctity of one’s resting place more important?
1. “Appendix I: Who Murdered the Princes?” Richard III, by Paul Murray. Kendall, Fayard, 1956, pp. 1–52.
2. “Appendix 2: Tanner.” MYTHOLOGY OF THE 'PRINCES IN THE TOWER', by John Ashdown-Hill, AMBERLEY PUBLISHING, 2020, pp. 223–257.
3. ASHDOWN-HILL, JOHN. MYTHOLOGY OF THE 'PRINCES IN THE TOWER'. AMBERLEY PUBLISHING, 2020.
4. “Chapter 5: The Fate of the Princes .” Richard III and the Princes in the Tower, by A. J. Pollard, Sutton, 2002, pp. 115–143.
5. “Early Stories of Richard III.” Richard III and the Princes in the Tower, by Anthony James Pollard, A. Sutton, 1996, pp. 1–22.
6. Lewis , Matthew. The Survival of the Princes in the Tower . The History Press , 2017.
7. Mackintosh, Eliza. “'Beyond Reasonable Doubt,' Bones Are the Remains of England's
King Richard III.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 4 Feb. 2013, www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/remains-of-king-richard-iii- identified/2013/02/04/d79e87b2-6ebb-11e2-ac36-3d8d9dcaa2e2_story.html. Accessed 20 Oct. 2020
8. Mancini, Dominic, and C. A. J. Armstrong. The Usurpation of Richard the Third: De Occupatione Regni Anglie per Riccardum Tercium Libellus. Oxford University Press, 1969
9. More, Thomas, and Richard Standish Sylvester. The History of King Richard III and Selections from the English and Latin Poems. Yale University Press, 1976.
10. “National Book Awards 1957.” National Book Foundation, 6 Mar. 2018, www.nationalbook.org/awards-prizes/national-book-awards-1957/?cat=nonfiction. Accessed 6. July 2020
11. Potter, Jeremy. “To Prove A Villain: The Real Richard III.” Richard III Society – American Branch, 1991, www.r3.org/links/to-prove-a-villain-the-real-richard-iii/. Accessed 14 Oct. 2020
12. Pronay , Nicholas, and John Cox. The Crowland Chroncile Continuations . Sutton Publishing Ltd, 1986.
13. Seward, Desmond. The Wars of the Roses: and the Lives of Five Men and Women in the Fifteenth Century. Constable, 1995.
14. “Sir Thomas More.” Tudor Times, 17 Sept. 2016, tudortimes.co.uk/people/sir-thomas- more-1. Accessed 28 Oct. 2020
15. Williams C. Graham The Trials of King Richard III, BBC, 21 Feb. 1984. BBC
16. “Thomas More's History of King Richard III.” The British Library, The British
Library, 8 Jan. 2016, www.bl.uk/collection-items/thomas-mores-history-of-king-
richard-iii.
17. “Tooth Agenesis.” NORD (National Organization for Rare Disorders), 9 Jan. 2019,
rarediseases.org/rare-diseases/anodontia/. Accessed 25 Oct. 2020 1018. Unwin, Richard. Westminster Bones: the Real Mystery of the Princes in the Tower . Richard Unwin , 2015.
19. Walker, Elsie. “[Editorial]: The Body of Richard and the Afterlife of
Shakespeare.” Literature/Film Quarterly, vol. 42, no. 2, 2014, pp. 410–413. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/43798975. Accessed 25 Oct. 2020. Accessed 14 Oct. 2020
20. Wegemer , Gerard. Thomas More on Statesmanship. Catholic University of America Press, 1996.
21. Weir, Alison. Richard III and the Princes in the Tower. Vintage Books, 2014.
22. Wilkinson, Josephine. The Princes in the Tower: Did Richard III Murder His
Nephews, Edward V & Richard of York? Baker & Taylor, 2014.
Did Mary, Queen of Scots, write the Glasgow Letter?
A: Plan of the Investigation
In June 1567 the Casket Letters were seized by Mary, Queen of Scots’ political opponents, but they disappeared around 1584. Among them was the Glasgow Letter, which, if written by Mary, proves Mary’s guilt in murdering Henry, Lord Darnley. ‘Did Mary, Queen of Scots write the Glasgow Letter?’ is the question this investigation answers. To do so, the copies and translations of the Letter made in 1568 will be used to compare its style with that of known works of Mary’s, alongside an assessment of the manner of the Letters’ discovery and presentation to Queen Elizabeth I and an evaluation of the motives of other suspected authors of the Letters. The 1568 copy and translation of the Glasgow Letter and Mary, Queen of Scots and the Casket Letters by A.E. MacRobert will be evaluated because the 1568 copy is the only current record of the Letter, and MacRobert’s book offers a contemporary analysis of the question.
B: Summary of Evidence
In
November 1566, leading Scottish nobles and Mary probably swore to get
rid of Darnley, Mary’s second husband. In 1567, he recuperated from an
illness in Kirk O’ Field, where, on 9 February, Mary visited him. Mary
was “suddenly reminded” to attend wedding celebrations in Edinburgh.
That night, an explosion killed Darnley, to which Mary’s first reactions
were “horror and shock”. She then married the chief suspect, Lord
Bothwell, was forced to abdicate, and fled to England, where her cousin
Queen Elizabeth I ordered an inquiry into whether or not Mary was guilty
of murdering Darnley.
This inquiry took the form of two conferences
in York and Westminster from October 1568 to January 1569, at which
Mary’s half-brother, the Earl of Moray, presented the Casket Letters
–eight unsigned letters allegedly from Mary to Bothwell– to the English
commissioners. Mary denied writing them, arguing they were forgeries,
and that her handwriting could easily have been duplicated.
According
to Moray’s diary, the letters were acquired on 20 June 1567. The Earl
of Morton, the most prominent Scottish noble against Mary, declared at
Westminster that he received a tip-off from Sir James Balfour regarding a
casket of letters that Bothwell, who was planning his escape from
Scotland, was anxious to retrieve. He sent his servant, George
Dalgleish, to do so, but Dalgleish was intercepted by a servant of
Morton’s, and produced the silver casket after being subjected to
interrogation. Morton kept the Casket overnight and opened it the
following morning. According to A.E. MacRobert, “there is no certainty
that the contents were not… manipulated… between 15 June and 20 June”.
It was “distinctly affirmed” by those who took up arms and captured Mary
on 15 June that it was from the Letters they derived knowledge of her
responsibility for Darnley’s death. On 26 June, however, Morton issued a
proclamation blaming Bothwell for Darnley’s death, and that he had
forced Mary into marriage.
Contrastingly, the Glasgow Letter’s
contents, if accurate, reveal Mary’s love for its recipient, including
the phrase “Being gon, from the place where I had left my harte” (see
Appendix A) when referring to Edinburgh where Bothwell lived. It also
contains something resembling a table of contents. Like the other Casket
Letters, there is no existing copy of the original letter, and the
contents must be analysed using the English and Scottish translations,
first supplied by Moray to Queen Elizabeth in 1567. Noteworthy are the
differences between the English and Scottish versions: the last six
lines of the Scottish version do not appear in the English version.
These lines instruct the reader, allegedly Bothwell, to “Remember you…Of
the Erle of Bothwell” (See Appendix A). John Guy points out that the
contents and fluidity of the Letter is highly disjointed and that the
French grammar used in the Letter is rather too poor for a woman of
Mary’s education, especially given her having lived in France for
thirteen years.
Queen Elizabeth wrote to Moray in May 1568 after
Mary had fled to England, enquiring into his reasons for his conduct
towards his Queen. Moray replied in June by sending Scottish
translations of the Letters, although Elizabeth had assured him she
spoke better French than Scottish. During the conferences, furthermore,
the original Letters in French were not produced. The enquiry was ended
with the majority of the commissioners accepting the Letters as genuine
after comparing them with examples of Mary’s handwriting, but Queen
Elizabeth concluded that nothing was proven.
C: Evaluation of Sources
Mary,
Queen of Scots and the Casket Letters by A.E. MacRobert offers a
contemporary analysis of who wrote the Casket Letters, published in
2002. Its purpose is to identify what truly occurred between 1567 and
1568 and offer a re-examination and interpretation of existing evidence.
Being a secondary source, and having been published well after the
Letter’s publication, it is of value as its author has access to most
documents relating to the case (the official state papers regarding Mary
having been published in 1900). The author is therefore able to collate
and build upon other historians’ views, with the benefit of hindsight.
However, his argument can only be classified as an interpretation of
documents relating to the case – the state papers which included the
minutes from the York and Westminster conferences; Moray’s diary – but
cannot draw an absolute conclusion since the original Letter has been
lost and his interpretation comes long after the event. MacRobert is a
Cambridge graduate also the author of “The 1745 Rebellion and the
Southern Scottish Lowlands” - he is well acquainted with Scottish
history of this time period. However, not much further information about
him is available. The source’s purpose is valuable since it answers the
question specifically, focuses on a very specific time period
(1567-1568), considers solely the events in this period which pertain
directly to the Letter and has access to all evidence currently
available to do so.
The 1568 copy and translation of the
Glasgow Letter was transcribed by Scottish translators in Moray’s
service, and was sent to Queen Elizabeth following Elizabeth’s
questioning of Moray’s treatment of Mary, with the purpose of providing
evidence to Elizabeth that the Scottish nobles’ actions against Mary
were justified. Being a primary source, and having been used in the
actual enquiry in 1568, it is of great value because it contains those
contents that were used against Mary, and influenced decisions made
against her. Furthermore, it is the only record of the document.
However, having been transcribed by those in service of Mary’s greatest
antagonist, the source presents limitations in that it cannot be
considered an accurate representation of the contents of the original
Letter. It having been transcribed by clerks, furthermore, presents a
limitation as the handwriting of the copy is not representative of that
of the original. The copy’s purpose also presents a limitation in that
its contents may have been altered for this purpose, as contemporary
historians (Fraser, Guy and MacRobert) argue.
D: Analysis
The
Scottish Lords that took up arms against her used the assertion that
Mary killed Darnley as justification. By forcing her abdication, they
allowed her son, James, to ascend the throne – that throne which became
united with that of England in 1603. If, however, the Scottish Lords
fabricated the Glasgow Letter, their assertion of Mary’s murdering
Darnley is unsupported, and their actions, against her and in crowning
James, unjustifiable.
The discovery of the casket and the time
between this event and the Letter’s publication, firstly, raises doubts
on its authenticity. The Glasgow Letter was, as they affirmed, the
reason for the Scottish Lords taking up arms against her on 6 June 1567
and capturing Mary on 15 June, but according to Moray’s diary, the
letters were not acquired until 20 June. The Letter, thus, is highly
unlikely to have been the true reason for the Lords’ political
agitation, unless they had prior knowledge of its contents or had
fabricated the Letter after capturing Mary to justify their unlawful
actions. The latter theory fits with the Lords’ curious approach to
presenting the Letter to Queen Elizabeth in 1568 after she requested a
reason for the Lords’ motivations against their Queen: after a month’s
delay, the Letter was sent in a Scots, not even English, translation
rather than the ‘original’ French, which Elizabeth had requested. If the
Letter had been sent in the original French, it could have been argued
Moray was merely “wary of Elizabeth’s reaction”, as Henderson argued in
1889. Contrastingly, MacRobert, perhaps the most capable current expert
on this age, concludes the Scots translation “raises question-marks
against [Moray’s] integrity”. The Lords’ integrity may further be
questioned as Morton, having acquired the Casket on 20 June, kept it
overnight and only opened it officially the following morning,
substantiating MacRobert’s assertion that “there is no certainty that
the contents were not… manipulated”. Furthermore, Morton issued a
proclamation blaming Bothwell for Darnley’s death on 26 June 1567,
though the Letter subsequently used as evidence for Mary’s guilt in
murdering him was discovered on 20 June.
The contents of the
letter itself, secondly, should be evaluated. The issue, of course, is
that the actual contents of the original Letter (if it existed) cannot
be examined because it disappeared around 1581 – instead, only the 1568
copy made by Moray’s translators can be used. The divergences between
the English and Scottish translations (most notably the exclusion of the
last six lines of the Scots version from the English version), could
reveal the substandard accuracy of the translators at this time and
shows the letter is a poorly constructed forgery (why would Mary ask
Bothwell to remember himself of himself?), as MacRobert argues, but
contrastingly, Henderson concluded these last six lines were not
important enough to be included in the English translation as he
supposed these were but a list of things for the messenger to remember.
The disjointed structure of the Letter, furthermore, is curious: towards
the middle, it includes a list of things resembling a table of
contents. More recent historians (Fraser, Guy and MacRobert) conclude
from this that the Letter was either a letter written by Mary with
incriminating passages inserted, or that Mary had sent this letter to
someone other than Bothwell. Henderson, however, argues that the
structure of the letter supports either Mary having written it herself
completely, or that the Letter was “founded on some original composition
of hers”, which is a logical conclusion as most paragraphs that do not
include incriminating details are compatible with other writings of
Mary’s.
It was clearly in the Lords’ interest to either
completely fake the Letter, or insert incriminating passages into a
letter of Mary’s: they only published it in 1568 when asked for a
justification for their actions towards their Queen even though the
Letter had been found in 1567. Furthermore, the Lords gained from Mary’s
abdication: firstly, Morton himself became Regent of Scotland in 1572,
and secondly, the Protestant Lords had disagreed heavily with Mary’s
Catholicism during her reign.
E: Conclusion
Though it
is impossible to conclude with absolute certainty that Mary wrote the
Letter because it has disappeared, the evidence collected in this
investigation suggests that Mary wrote an original composition, which
the Scottish Lords modified to include incriminating passages. Including
incriminating passages in a letter of Mary’s will have served the Lords
well, as those passages actually written by Mary would have convinced
the English commissioners of her guilt. This is supported by the
disjointed structure of the Letter, with some passages resembling Mary’s
style well, while others (including incriminating details) do not. The
Casket’s discovery would have been a pleasant surprise for the Lords
after they had taken up arms against Mary – here was an opportunity to
‘legalise’ their actions. The delay between the Casket’s discovery and
its opening will have given the Lords time to insert the passages, and
sending Elizabeth a Scottish translation can be explained by the Lords’
proficiency in that language over French. It can be concluded, then,
that Mary wrote certain parts of the Letter, but she is not the author
of the whole.
Works Cited
Bain, Joseph. "Calendar of
State Papers, Scotland: Volume 2 - 1563-69." 1900. General Register
Office (Scotland). Edinburgh. British History Online. Web. 14 Oct. 2012.
Chalmers,
George. The Life of Mary, Queen of Scots; Drawn from the State Papers
with Six Subsidiary Memoirs. London: John Murray, 1818. Print.
Fraser, Antonia. Mary Queen of Scots. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1969. Print.
Guy, John. "My Heart is my Own": The Life of Mary Queen of Scots. London: Fourth Estate, 2004. Print.
Henderson, T.F. The Casket Letters and Mary Queen of Scots: With Appendices. Edinburgh: Adam and Charles Black, 1889. Print.
MacRobert, A.E. Mary Queen of Scots and the Casket Letters. London: I.B. Taurus, 2002. Print.
N., J.F. Mary Stuart and the Casket Letters. Edinburgh: Edmonston and Douglas, 1870. Print.
Weir, Alison. Mary, Queen of Scots and the Murder of Lord Darnley. London: Random House, 2003. Print.
Wormald, Jenny. Mary, Queen of Scots. London: George Philip, 1988. Print.
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