II. Instructions given to the Lord de la Warr and others sent to Mary Stuart, together with her Protestation to them. June 11 and 16, 1572

Extract

This paper is written in a contemporary hand, but not in the same hand, as Document I. It appears to be the only surviving copy of the instructions given to Lord de la Warr and his colleagues when they were dispatched to Mary Stuart in June, 1572. By some slip of the pen it is dated 11 January 1572. There can be no doubt that it belongs to June of that year (cf. Cal. Scot. Papers, iv, pp. 324–5). The object of this commission was to make certain charges against Mary and to demand her answers to them. The charges were set down upon a separate paper which the commissioners took with them, a copy of which is preserved in the English Record Office (cf. Cal. Scot, iv, p. 324). This paper embodies substantially the same charges as those brought against Mary by Parliament (cf. Document I) except that they are stated more justly and with greater regard for the evidence at hand. A draft, in Burghley's hand, of the letter which Elizabeth sent to Mary by the commissioners is in the English Record Office (cf. Cal. Scot, iv, p. 325).