ich in them; therefore that paper is not the "Bill of Supplication" of
the 28th of May.

Thus the question remains, why, if Wood about the 11th of June showed to
Lennox Letter II. in Scots, did Lennox follow Moray's erroneous version
of July 1567? Because in June 1568 that version, forged, was in the
Scots collection of the Casket Letters? If so, there was time for Lennox
to lend to the accusers certain notes which a retainer of his, Thomas
Crawford of Jordan Hill, swore (December 9, 1568) that he had made for
Lennox (about January 22, 1567) of secret conversations between Darnley
and Mary. Lennox (June 11, 1568) asked Crawford for his reminiscences,
_not_ of Darnley's reports of his talks with Mary, but of Crawford's own
interview with her as she entered Glasgow to visit Darnley, probably on
the 21st of January 1567. It follows that Lennox possessed Crawford's
written notes of the Darnley and Mary conversations. If he had not
possessed them on the 11th of June 1568, he must have asked Crawford
for his reminiscences of these talks. But he did not ask.

Crawford's evidence was all-important, because it corroborated Mary's
own account of her interviews with Darnley in Letter II. That part of
the letter then, it is argued by many, is a forged interpolation based
on Crawford's notes and memories. The force of this contention lies in
the close verbal identities between Crawford's account of the
Darnley-Mary interviews (see Crawford's Declaration of December 9, 1568,
in Lang's _Mystery of Mary Stuart_, pp. 428-431; from _State Papers
Scotland_, Elizabeth vol. xiii. No. 14. Record Office) and the
corresponding passages in Letter II. (_Mystery of Mary Stuart_, pp.
396-398). The verbal identities can only be explained in one of the
following ways. Either Letter II. is here based on Crawford; or Crawford
has copied Letter II. by way of corroborating it (a fatal step, if the
case came before a modern English court of justice); or Darnley's memory
of his conversation with Mary was so fresh, when he dictated his
recollection of it to Crawford on 21st-22nd January 1567, that he
reported speeches in almost the very same words as Mary used in writing
Letter II. Henderson prefers the hypothesis that Lennox had lost
Crawford's notes; and that the identities are explained by the
"remarkably good memories of Crawford and Mary, or by the more likely
supposition that Crawford, before preparing his declaration for the
conference" (at Westmin