We do not know whether what Crawford now handed in on December 9, 1568, was an English version of his own written verbatim Scots report done in January, 1567; or a copy of it; or whether he copied it from Letter II., or whether he rewrote it from memory after nearly two years. The last alternative may be dismissed as impossible, owing to the verbal identity of Crawford’s report with that in the Scots version of the French Letter attributed to Mary. Another thing is doubtful: whether Lennox, at Chiswick, on June 11, 1568, did or did not possess the report which Crawford wrote for him in January, 1567. Lennox, on June 11, as we saw, wrote to Crawford asking ‘what purpose Crawford held with her’ (Mary) ‘at her coming to the town’ of Glasgow. He did not ask what conversation Mary then held with Darnley. Either he had that principal part of Crawford’s report, in writing, in his possession, or he knew nothing about it (which, if Crawford told truth, is impossible), or he forgot it, which is next to impossible. All he asked for on June 11 was Crawford’s recollection about what passed between himself and Mary ere she entered Glasgow, concerning which Crawford nowhere says that he made any written memorandum. Lennox, then, on June 11, 1568, wanted Crawford’s recollections of his own interview with the Queen, either to corroborate Letter II., if it then existed; or for secret purposes of Wood’s, who was with him.
It will be observed that Crawford’s account of this interview of his with Mary presents some verbal identities with Letter II. And this is notable, for these identities occur where neither Crawford nor the Letter is reporting the speeches on either side. _These_ might easily be remembered, for a while, by both parties. But both parties could not be expected to coincide verbally in phrases descriptive of their meeting, and its details. Thus, Crawford, ‘I _made my Lord, my Master’s humble commendations, with the excuse that he came not to meet her_.’ In Letter II. we read ‘_He made his_’ (Lennox’s) ‘_commendations, and excuses unto me, that he came not to meet me_.’
The excuses, in Crawford, are first of Lennox’s bad health (_not_ in the Letter); next, that he was anxious ‘because of _the sharp words that she had spoken of him to Robert Cunningham_, his servant,’ &c.