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.

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).

This paper is written in a contemporary clerkly hand. It is not dated, but there can be little doubt that it belongs to the date assigned to it. The charges themselves are drawn almost verbatim from Mary's letter to Elizabeth of the 8th of November, 1582 (Labanoff, v. p. 318). On the 6th of April, 1583, when Elizabeth directed the Earl of Shrewsbury and Robert Beale to deal with Mary, she supplied them with a brief resumé of Mary's charges against her, together with answers to be made to them (S.P. Mary Q. of S. xii, nos. 48, 49 in R.O.). Very likely this paper dates from the same time, although it does not correspond in all points with the resumé supplied to Shrewsbury and Beale.

This paper, written in a contemporary clerkly hand, is undated. Like the paper foregoing, it probably formed part of the instructions given to Shrewsbury and Beale when they were directed to treat with the Queen of Scots in April 1583. In the paper in the Record Office endorsed;— “Instructions for the E. of Shrewsbury and Mr Beale,” which has been referred to above, these same “extraordinary favors” are more briefly enumerated in the same order as in the present paper. It is to be observed however, that the last paragraph, concerning the Earl of Morton, is omitted in the Record Office copy.

These two papers, though written in different hands and on different sheets, are embraced by a common indorsement and evidently belong together, The first is in a contemporary clerkly hand. It is a copy of certain offers made by Mary Stuart when a treaty for her release between her and Elizabeth was under consideration in 1583. Two other copies are preserved in the English Record Office (S.P. Mary Q. of S. xii. nos. 62, 63), upon one of which (no. 62) Sir Francis Walsingham, Elizabeth's Principal Secretary, has made marginal annotations indicating the answers which should be made to Mary's offers. These annotations are printed in Appendix II. For convenience of reference, the different articles of Mary's offers have been lettered and Walsingham's answers lettered to correspond.

These notes, written in Hatton's hand, are almost too brief to be intelligible. They are evidently short memoranda of matters concerning Scotland and the Scottish Queen, either for his own consideration or possibly for use in the Privy Council. They belong to a time when Scotland was more than ever estranged from England.

These arguments are in Hatton's own hand and bear his indorsement. They have reference to certain negotiations for a treaty between Elizabeth and Mary which contemplated Mary's liberation and which had been resumed in May, 1584. Apparently Elizabeth hoped to use Mary's influence in favor of the discomfited English party in Scotland and of the leaders of that party who had been forced to flee into England earlier in the year. Hatton's notes should not be interpreted to mean that he was in favor of liberating the Scottish Queen at this time. He simply sets down arguments in favor of such a policy just as the year before (cf. Document V) he had set down arguments opposing it.

This paper is in Sir Christopher Hatton's hand. It is undated and there is practically no internal evidence to assist in fixing its date. It reads like a brief for the introduction to a speech in favor of some measure for Elizabeth's safety. In December 1584 Hatten brought forward a bill in the House of Commons the object of which was to discourage conspiracy against the Queen's life especially on the part of those “that shall or may pretend title to this Crown.” It passed both Houses of Parliament and became law (27 Eliz. c. i.). These notes in Hatton's hand perhaps have some connection with the speech which he made in support of this bill. The bill had its first reading in the House of Commons on the 14th of December, 1584 (D'Ewes p. 339). The speech itself has not been preserved.

These are copies, in a contemporary clerkly hand, of all the letters which are recorded to have passed between Mary and Babington during the summer of 1586, together with a copy of one letter which Babington wrote to Nau. The text of the Mary-Babington letters corresponds exactly, except for a few insignificant verbal exceptions, to that printed by B. Sepp in “Maria Stuart's Briefwechsel mit Antony Babington,” (Munich 1886).

These letters are all written in Burghley's own hand. They fall within the period of time between the discovery of the Babington plot and the trial of Mary Stuart and they throw considerable light upon the attitude of Burghley towards the Scottish Queen at the time, upon the methods he and others of the Privy Council used in gathering evidence against her, and upon the reluctance of Elizabeth to come to any definite decision in regard to Mary's case.

These notes are in Hatton's hand. He was the spokesman for the government at the trial of Babington and his accomplices and probably he drew up these notes for use on that occasion. The various projects against the government enumerated here seem to have been entertained at one time or another by the conspirators, as appears from the summary of their confessions in the Record Office (S.P. Mary Q. of S. xix, no. 91). They were embodied by Hatton in the general charge which he made against Babington and his fellows at their trial (State Trials, I, p. 1140).

John Puckering, Speaker of the House of Commons in 1584 and again in 1586, was named Queen's Serjeant, probably in the latter year. He spoke for the crown in the trial of Babington and his colleagues and he may have been present at the trial of Mary Stuart, although his name is not mentioned in the official account of the trial. These notes would seem to indicate that he was present and that he assisted in the prosecution. It is to be observed that though they are written in a contemporary clerkly hand, they are endorsed by Hatton. Probably Puckering supplied Hatton with a copy of them to assist him in preparing the speech which he delivered against Mary in the House of Commons on the 3rd November, 1586.

This paper is evidently the copy of part of a letter written by someone at Fotheringay to someone at the English court, describing an interview with Mary Stuart upon the question as to whether or not she would submit to a trial. It is, perhaps, in the hand of Thomas Wilkes, one of the Clerks of the Privy Council. It has been described as a letter from Lord Burghley to Secretary Davison (Royal Hist. Soc. Trans. 1908, p. 185) but there appears to be no evidence in support of this theory. Burghley certainly conferred with Mary in reference to her trial after his arrival at Fotheringay early in October. There is record of more than one interview which he held with her upon the subject both in the official account of her trial and in the journal of Bourgoing, her physician. But neither of these sources bear testimony to an interview in any such terms as those related in this copy. More probably this is Poulet's account, sent perhaps to Walsingham who was the ordinary recipient of official communications, of an interview held with Mary sometime after she had been informed that she was to be brought to trial. The style resembles Poulat's and the general tone of the letter rather suggests his hand than the hand of a Lord High Treasurer writing to a Secretary, Furthermore, this report harmonizes with other reports which are preserved of interviews between Mary and Poulet in which he urged her to confess her fault and to throw herself upon Elizabeth's mercy (cf. Chantelauze, Procès de Marie Stuart, pp. 484, 494). Bourgoing speaks of such an interview as taking place on the 1st of October (Ibid. p. 494) and perhaps this letter contains Poulet's own account of it.

This paper is written in two separate columns. The right hand column contains a list of charges against Mary; the left hand column, which is evidently incomplete, contains a statement of the proofs for some of the charges made. The former is written in a clerkly hand in the ordinary Gothic script of the Elizabethan period, the latter, probably by the same hand, in Italian script. There is an exact copy of this paper written in the same manner and by the same hand among the papers relating to Mary Stuart in the Record Office (Vol. viii, no. 54) which has been wrongly calendared in the Scottish Calendar under the year 1577. It is impossible to fix the date of this paper exactly, but it certainly belongs sometime after the execution of Dr. Parry (March 2, 1584/5) and before the trial of the Scottish Queen (October 1586). Very likely it has some connection with the proceedings against Mary in 1586 although the charges which it lodges against her do not seem to have been brought forward at her trial. It is somewhat surprising to find in it no reference whatsoever to the Throgmorton plot, Mary's complicity in which was well known to the English government.

This paper is written in a contemporary clerkly hand. It was made use of by Sir Christopher Hatton in drawing up his brief of the case against Mary Stuart which perhaps formed the basis of his speech against Mary in the House of Commons on the 3rd of November 1586. For that reason, though it is undated in the original, it has been assigned to November 1586.

These notes, in a contemporary clerkly hand, are nothing more than an abstract of a portion of Mary's letter to Babington of July 17, 1586. Although there is no direct evidence to connect them with Hatten, it may be presumed that they also formed part of his collection of materials for his speech on November 3rd.

These notes are written in the same hand and probably designed for the same purpose as those foregoing. For the same reasons they have been assigned to November, 1586, although they are not dated in the original.

The principall partes be:

1583. Whilest she entertayned the Queenes Majestie with tretye for her libertye, she wrote to Francis Throgmerton about forren forces and styrring ayd at home.

1584. During the same treatye, she wrote to Sir Francis Inglefyld for thexecution of the great plot and former designement of the Pope and K[ing] of Spayne, to be doone in the spring 1586.

This paper is in Hatton's own hand. It contains a brief summary of the whole case against Mary Stuart, based not only upon her supposed complicity in the Babington plot but also upon her supposed complicity in the earlier plots of Norfolk, of Throgmorton and of Parry. It is apparent that Hatton drew most of his material for this brief from Documents XII, XIV and XV printed above. Indeed, it seems highly probable that he collected many of the foregoing papers for that express purpose. The question remains as to the use to which this brief was put. Hatton can hardly have prepared it for the actual trial of Mary Stuart because he had very little to do with the conduct of that affair, Burghley acting then as spokesman for the government. Most likely Hatton drew it up for the purposes of a speech against Mary which he delivered in the House of Commons on the 3rd of November, 1586 (D'Ewes p. 393). In support of this theory, it is to be observed in the first place that the paper begins, “First, her Majesty's instructions uttered by the Chancellor,” which accords with the order of proceeding in the House as set forth in D'Ewes (p. 391); and in the second place, that the second part of this paper, written across the back of the first part, is a briefer summary of the case against Mary, larded with appropriate Latin quotations and headed, “To acquaint the Parliament with the brief sum of the causes.”