ster, December 1568) "refreshed his memory by the
letter." (Letter II., _Mary Queen of Scots_, p. 650.)

Mary did not need a particularly good memory; if she wrote, she wrote
unchecked her recollections of the day's talk. But no human memory of a
conversation reported on the 22nd of January 1567, could be so nearly
"word perfect" as Crawford's must have been two years later. If Crawford
"refreshed his memory by the letter," he exposed himself, and the entire
case, by copying whole passages, often with few verbal changes. If he
had access to his original notes of the 21st and 22nd of January 1567,
then he was safe--that is, if Darnley's memory of the conversations
tallied so exactly with Mary's. Whether that could be, Darnley dictating
while still hot from the exciting interchange of words which he meant to
report, is a question for psychologists. Experiments made by a person
who possesses a good memory seem to show that the thing is very
possible, especially if Darnley revised Crawford's notes.

Thus the probabilities are delicately balanced. But if any one compares
Crawford's whole declaration with Letter II. in Scots, he will find that
Crawford has sources of information not yielded by Letter II.; while
Letter II. abounds in matter spoken by Mary and Darnley which could not
be borrowed by the hypothetical forger from Crawford's Declaration, for
it does not contain the facts. These facts, again, in Letter II., are
worthless to a forger, because they concern matters never alluded to in
any of the records; never employed in any indictment (though Lennox's
are copious in private talk between Darnley and Mary, "reports of her
servants "), and totally useless for the purposes of the accusers. Here
is one of several examples. Letter II. has, and Crawford has not, the
statement that Darnley "showed me, amongst other talk, that he knew well
enough that my brother had revealed to me what he (Darnley) had spoken
at Stirling. Of this he (Darnley) denies half, and above all that he
(the brother?) ever came to his (Darnley's) chamber."

Nothing is known about this matter. The Lennox papers are full of
reports of bitter words that passed between Darnley and Mary at Stirling
(December 1566), where Darnley was sulking apart while the festivities
of the baptism of his son (later James VI.) were being held. But nothing
is said in the Lennox papers of words spoken by Darnley to Mary's
brother (probably Lord Robert of Holyrood) and revea