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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 December 2009
This paper, written in a contemporary hand, contains a brief resume of the charges made against Mary Stuart in a petition presented to Elizabeth by Parliament in May, 1572. The petition will be found printed in full in Appendix I. It seems probable that this resume was made for the benefit of Lord de la Warr and his colleagues who were sent to Mary in June 1572 for reasons which will be made clear in Document II.
page 1 note 1 A copy of the coat-of-arms assumed by Mary will be found among the Cotton MSS. in the British Museum (Caligula B x, f, 17), endorsed by Cecil, “the fals armes of Scotland, France, England, Julij, 1559” (cf. Cal. Scot. Papers i PP. 235–6).
page 2 note 1 The efforts of Elizabeth to secure Mary's ratification of the Treaty of Edinburgh which provided, among other things, that Mary should abstain from using the arms and style of Queen of England, may be followed in detail in the Calendars Foreign, Elizabeth, 1561 seq. Mary in fact never ratified the treaty although she offered to do so in 1583 when a treaty for her liberation was afoot (cf. Document III below).
page 4 note 1 The charges against Mary in connection with the Norfolk plots and the Rising of the North are based chiefly upon the confessions of Norfolk, of his servants Barker, Higford and Wilkinson and of the Bishop of Ross, which will be found calendared in the Calendar of Hatfieid MSS. i and ii, and in the Cal. Scottish Papers, iii and iv. The most important of them are printed in extenso by Haynes and Murdin from the originals at Hatfieid House. Although these confessions were no doubt elicited by torture or the fear of torture, the truth of the general charges which they make against Mary is attested by the reports of the Spanish ambassador in England at the time (cf. Cal. Spanish, Eliz. i, passim). There can be no doubt that she was deeply implicated both in the schemes, of Norfolk and in the Rising of the North. It is quite another matter, however, to say that she was the original instigator of Norfolk and his sympathizers to their rebellious purposes. Parliament has somewhat strained the evidence at hand in making that accusation.
Of the eleven charges made here against Mary, all except those numbered 7, 8 and 10 are of a more or less general character and are drawn from the confessions, of various witnesses. Charges 7 and 8 are based upon Barker's confession of 7 Nov. 1571. (Murdin, p. 125). The “divers books” which form the basis for charge io were no doubt copies of a book written by John Leslie, Bishop of Ross, entitled; “A defence of the honour of the right high mightye and noble Princesse Marie, Queene of Scotland and dowager of France, with a declaration of her right, title and intereste to the succession of the crowne of Englande, as that the regimente of women ys conformable to the lawe of God and nature.” The first edition of this book was printed in London in 1569. A second edition appeared at Liége in 1571 (cf. J. Scott. Bibliography of Works relating to Mary, Queen of Scots, 1544–1700).