[MR] Wikipedia: The Casket Letters and Mary Queen of Scots

[Garth Groff and Sally Sanford]

Noble Friends, Especially Fellow Scots:

On this date in 1570, James Stewart, First Earl of Moray and Regent of
Scotland, was assassinated by a carbine shot from a window while his party
passed through Linlithgow. He was killed by James Hamilton of
Bothwellhaugh, an ardent supporter of deposed Mary Queen of Scots. It was
the first recorded political assassination by a firearm. I've posted about
this before, but never about the one of the chief causes of the
assassination, the Casket Letters. With recent release of the film MARY
QUEEN OF SCOTS, the letters have new relevance.

Moray was heavily involved with the Casket Letters:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casket_letters . These letters were
supposedly written in the Queen's own hand to her lover James Hepburn, 4th
Earl of Bothwell. They implicated both Mary and Bothwell in the murder of
the Queen's second husband, Henry Stewart, Duke of Albany (aka Lord
Darnley), at Kirk 'o Field on 10 February 1567. They were conveniently
found in a box "hidden" under a bed at a house in Edinburgh associated with
Bothwell that June after he had fled the country.

The original letters were passed to the Regent Moray who took copies to
England in 1568. The copies were presented to the English as evidence
against Mary, who by then was in English custody. Mary's supporters
denounced the Casket Letters as forgeries, or letters written by her
servant Mary Beaton. The English decided otherwise, based on the copies
themselves without ever having seen the originals. Several sets of
near-contemporary copies still exist, but there is considerable
disagreement over the authenticity of the now-lost originals. If only Moray
had owned a photocopier!

The original letters later disappeared from Scotland, possibly destroyed by
her son James VI in 1584. What is believed to be the original casket is
displayed at Lennoxlove House in East Lothian.

Yours Aye,

Mungo Napier, Laird of Mallard Lodge  🦆