Paris is
mentioned, in the letters, as the bearer of them to Bothwell; when the
rest of Bothwell's servants were executed, clearing the queen in the
last moment, Paris, instead of suffering his trial, with the rest, at
Edinburgh, was conveyed to St. Andrew's, where Murray was absolute; put
into a dungeon of Murray's citadel; and, two years after, condemned by
Murray himself, nobody knew how. Several months after his death, a
confession in his name, without the regular testifications, was sent to
Cecil, at what exact time, nobody can tell.
Of this confession, Leslie, bishop of Ross, openly denied the
genuineness, in a book printed at London, and suppressed by Elizabeth;
and another historian of that time declares, that Paris died without any
confession; and the confession itself was never shown to Mary, or to
Mary's commissioners. The author makes this reflection:
"From the violent presumptions that arise from their carrying this poor
ignorant stranger from Edinburgh, the ordinary seat of justice; their
keeping him hid from all the world, in a remote dungeon, and not
producing him, with their other evidences, so as he might have been
publickly questioned; the positive and direct testimony of the author of
Crawfurd's manuscript, then living, and on the spot at the time; with
the publick affirmation of the bishop of Ross, at the time of Paris's
death, that he had vindicated the queen with his dying breath; the
behaviour of Murray, Morton, Buchanan, and even of Hay, the attester of
this pretended confession, on that occasion; their close and reserved
silence, at the time when they must have had this confession of Paris in
their pocket; and their publishing every other circumstance that could
tend to blacken the queen, and yet omitting this confession, the only
direct evidence of her supposed guilt; all this duly and dispassionately
considered, I think, one may safely conclude, that it was judged not fit
to expose, so soon, to light this piece of evidence against the queen;
which a cloud of witnesses, living, and present at Paris's execution,
would, surely, have given clear testimony against, as a notorious
imposture.
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