page_title: Casket letters
section_title: Subsequent fate of the letters
hierarchical_section_title: Casket letters / Subsequent fate of the letters
context_page_description: The Casket letters were eight letters and some sonnets said to have been written by Mary, Queen of Scots, to the Earl of Bothwell, between January and April 1567. They were produced as evidence against Queen Mary by the Scottish lords who opposed her rule. In particular, the text of the letters was taken to imply that Queen Mary colluded with Bothwell in the murder of her husband, Lord Darnley. Mary's contemporary supporters, including Adam Blackwood, dismissed them as complete forgeries or letters written by the Queen's servant Mary Beaton. The authenticity of the letters, now known only by copies, continues to be debated. Some historians argue that they were forgeries concocted in order to discredit Queen Mary and ensure that Queen Elizabeth I supported the kingship of the infant James VI of Scotland, rather than his mother. The historian John Hungerford Pollen, in 1901, by comparing two genuine letters drafted by Mary, presented a subtle argument that the various surviving copies and translations of the casket letters could not be used as evidence of their original authorship by Mary.
context_section_description: The charges against Queen Mary, known as Hay's Articles, were drawn up in November 1568; they state that the Earl of Bothwell, while planning his escape from Scotland, sent his servant, George Dalgleish, to fetch the letters from Edinburgh Castle, so that the "ground of the cause should never come to light". However, after recovering the letters, Dalgleish was captured by Mary's enemies, among them James Douglas, 4th Earl of Morton. 
  Morton testified in December 1568 that on 20 June 1567, Dalgleish offered, under the threat of torture, to take his captors to a house in Potterrow, Edinburgh. Under a bed, they found a silver box engraved with an "F" (perhaps for Francis II of France), containing the Casket letters and a number of other documents, including the Mary-Bothwell marriage certificate. Morton passed the casket and letters into the keeping of Regent Moray on 6 September 1568. Morton declared he had not altered the contents and Moray promised to kept them intact and available to Morton and the Confederate Lords in order that they could explain their actions in future; "quhen-so-evir thai sal haif to do thair-with, for manifesting of the ground and equitie of their procedingis." 
  The letters seem to have been retained by the Douglas family after the sudden arrest and execution of Regent Morton in 1581. There were hints that George Douglas, brother of William Douglas of Lochleven, had merchandise of letters "worth the sight" in 1582, but this may refer to his attempts to negotiate for Queen Mary's return to Scotland at this time, called the "Association".
  In November 1582, the English diplomat Robert Bowes heard from James Douglas, Prior of Pluscarden, that both the coffer and the "originals of the letters betwixt the Scottish Queen and the earl of Bothwell" had been delivered to the Earl of Gowrie, who was leading the government of Scotland at that time. Bowes had been trying to find the whereabouts of the originals for Francis Walsingham.
  Bowes asked Gowrie if he would send them to Elizabeth, saying that he had made previous arrangements for this, and established that Gowrie got them from Sanders Jordan. Jordan was known as one of Regent Morton's confidential servants and had been forced to testify at Morton's trial. Gowrie explained that the letters were still relevant to those who deposed the Queen. Bowes argued that recent events and establishments were confirmed by acts of parliament and public instruments and the letters were not now significant. Gowrie would not give him the letters.
  Bowes asked Gowrie again later in November, and wrote to Walsingham saying he had told Gowrie that Queen Mary was now claiming they were forgeries, and was hoping to obtain them herself to deface and destroy them (perhaps to further the "Association".) Bowes argued that Mary had the means to steal them from Scotland and they would be safer in England. Gowrie said he would have to tell the King about the request and Bowes preferred not. In their next interview, Gowrie told Bowes that James VI already knew where the letters were.
  The originals of the letters were probably destroyed in 1584 by James VI. Only copies exist; one is in French, and the others are translations from the French into Scots and English. The nature of these documents – authentic, forged, or only partly forged – has been the subject of much discussion for more than four hundred years.
  Purportedly the silver casket itself was acquired by Mary Gordon, wife to the 1st Marquis of Douglas. Following her death, it was sold to a goldsmith, but was later reacquired by her daughter-in law, Anne Hamilton, 3rd Duchess of Hamilton. The casket originally had the Queen's arms engraved upon it, but was replaced successively by the arms of the Marchioness, then the Duchess. Together with other memorabilia related to the Queen, the casket is currently on display at Lennoxlove House, East Lothian, which was formerly "Lethington House", Maitland's family home.
caption: Francis Walsingham had an agent in Scotland looking for the letters
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