ght have contained truth, though not all the truth; but as
the second corrects the first by diminution, the first cannot be cleared
from falsehood.

In October, 1568, these letters were shown at York to Elisabeth's
commissioners, by the agents of Murray, but not in their publick
character, as commissioners, but by way of private information, and were
not, therefore, exposed to Mary's commissioners. Mary, however, hearing
that some letters were intended to be produced against her, directed her
commissioners to require them for her inspection, and, in the mean time,
to declare them _false and feigned, forged and invented_, observing,
that there were many that could counterfeit her hand.

To counterfeit a name is easy, to counterfeit a hand, through eight
letters very difficult. But it does not appear that the letters were
ever shown to those who would desire to detect them; and, to the English
commissioners, a rude and remote imitation might be sufficient, since
they were not shown as judicial proofs; and why they were not shown as
proofs, no other reason can be given, than they must have then been
examined, and that examination would have detected the forgery.

These letters, thus timorously and suspiciously communicated, were all
the evidence against Mary; for the servants of Bothwell, executed for
the murder of the king, acquitted the queen, at the hour of death. These
letters were so necessary to Murray, that he alleges them, as the reason
of the queen's imprisonment, though he imprisoned her on the 16th, and
pretended not to have intercepted the letters before the 20th of June.

Of these letters, on which the fate of princes and kingdoms was
suspended, the authority should have been put out of doubt; yet that
such letters were ever found, there is no witness but Morton who accused
the queen, and Crawfurd, a dependent on Lennox, another of her accusers.
Dalgleish, the bearer, was hanged without any interrogatories concerning
them; and Hulet, mentioned in them, though then in prison, was never
called to authenticate them, nor was his confession produced against
Mary, till death had left him no power to disown it.

Elizabeth, indeed, was easily satisfied; she declared herself ready to
receive the proofs against Mary, and absolutely refused Mary the liberty
of confronting her accusers, and making her defence. Before such a
judge, a very little proof would be sufficient. She gave the accusers of
Mary leave to go to Sc