They assured Throckmorton that du Croc ‘carried with him matter little to the Queen’s’ (Mary’s) ‘advantage:’ possibly, though not certainly, an allusion to his copies of the Letters of her whom they spoke of ‘with respect and reverence,’ and promised ‘to restore to her estate’--if she would abandon Bothwell.[225]
‘I never saw greater confusion among men,’ says Throckmorton, ‘for often they change their opinions.’ They were engaged in ‘continual preaching and common prayer.’ On July 21, they assured Elizabeth that Mary was forced to be Bothwell’s wife ‘by fear and other unlawful means,’ and that he kept his former wife in his house, and would not have allowed Mary to live with him for half a year. Yet Mary was so infatuated that, after her surrender, ‘he offered to give up realm and all, so she might enjoy him.’ This formula, we shall see later, the Lords placed thrice in Mary’s mouth, first in a reported letter of January, 1567 (never produced), next in a letter of Kirkcaldy to Cecil (April 20), and now (July 21).[226]
At this time of Throckmorton’s mission, Lethington posed to him thus. ‘Do you not see that it does not lie in my power to do that I would fainest do, which is to save the Queen, my mistress, in estate, person, and in honour?’ He declared that the preachers, the populace, and the chief nobles wished to take Mary’s life.[227] Lethington thus drove his bargain with Throckmorton. ‘If Elizabeth interferes,’ he said in sum, ‘Mary dies, despite my poor efforts, and Elizabeth loses the Scottish Alliance.’ But Throckmorton believed that Lethington really laboured to secure Mary’s life and honour. His true object was to keep her immured. Randolph, as we saw, accuses him to his face of advising Mary’s execution, or assassination. By his present course with Throckmorton he kept Elizabeth’s favour: he gave himself out as Mary’s friend.
The Lords at last made up their minds. On July 25, Lindsay was sent to Loch Leven to extort Mary’s abdication, consent to the coronation of her son, and appointment of Moray, or failing him, other nobles, to the Regency. ‘If they cannot by fair means induce the Queen to their purpose, they mean to charge her with tyranny for breach of those statutes which were enacted in her absence. Secondly they mean to charge her with incontinence with Bothwell, and others. Thirdly, they mean to charge her with the murder of her husband, _whereof they say they have proof by the testimony of her own handwriting_, which they have recovered, as also by sufficient _witnesses_.’ The witnesses were dropped. Probably they were ready to swear that Mary was at the murder in male costume, as in a legend of the Lennox Papers! Lethington brought this news to Throckmorton between ten and eleven at night.[228] It was the friendly Lethington who told Throckmorton about the guilty Letters.