These letters, thus timorously and suspiciously communicated, were all
the evidence against Mary; for the servants of Bothwell, executed for
the murder of the king, acquitted the queen, at the hour of death. These
letters were so necessary to Murray, that he alleges them, as the reason
of the queen's imprisonment, though he imprisoned her on the 16th, and
pretended not to have intercepted the letters before the 20th of June.
Of these letters, on which the fate of princes and kingdoms was
suspended, the authority should have been put out of doubt; yet that
such letters were ever found, there is no witness but Morton who accused
the queen, and Crawfurd, a dependent on Lennox, another of her accusers.
Dalgleish, the bearer, was hanged without any interrogatories concerning
them; and Hulet, mentioned in them, though then in prison, was never
called to authenticate them, nor was his confession produced against
Mary, till death had left him no power to disown it.
Elizabeth, indeed, was easily satisfied; she declared herself ready to
receive the proofs against Mary, and absolutely refused Mary the liberty
of confronting her accusers, and making her defence. Before such a
judge, a very little proof would be sufficient.
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