held as the list. This separate paper is not mentioned, moreover, as having been sent along with the letter; it is not written by Bedford or Randolph, or by any Secretary of Randolph's, but, according to Mr. Tytler, it must have been by some clerk of Bedford's, whom Randolph must have hired for the occasion. There is not the slightest evidence that it was seen by either of the ministers. The whole bond of connexion between it and their letter is the pin, just as the sole connexion between one part of Mr. Tytler's argument and the rest is the binding. That it was written by Bedford's clerk, we have nothing but Mr. Tytler's guess as proof; that it was a jeu d'esprit of some of the clerks in the London office, we offer as another guess. It is an anonymous, unauthenticated, nameless, scrap of paper, gathered from a mass of similar rubbish, to be rendered by Mr. Tytler powerful enough to annihilate the concurring testimony of all contemporary history!

From all this, however, Mr. Tytler maintains, that " the inference is inevitable." John Knox, in "an authentic list," is described as privy to the murder. Having thus doggedly pronounced his decree, Mr. Tytler declines an examination of the list, with the view of ascertaining if it be consistent with other acknowledged facts, or even with itself. It contains, however, several blunders, in the only two lines of narrative with which it favours us. It professes to be "a list of names, of such as were consenting to the death of David," which is totally contrary to the character of the list which Bedford said Randolph was to send, for it was only to contain "the names of such as be gone abroad," a description which might apply to Knox, as he left Edinburgh on the Queen's return from Dunbar. There are only sixteen names given; but in the appendix to Keith, there is a list of those charged by the Privy Council as having been accessory to the crime, amounting in number to seventy-one; and in Pitcairn's Criminal Trials, there will be found thirty more. This is the first error, though it is not the greatest. It concludes with informing us that "all these were at the death of Davy, and privy thereunto, and are now in displeasure with the Queen, and their houses taken and spoiled." Here there are two gross mistakes. We never before heard it whispered, that either John Knox or John Craig was " at the death." Crawford and Blackwood, though they covered this part of history with the most impudent falsehoods, never crowned them by one like this; and Mr. Tytler's caution came to his aid. He will not believe the plain statement of his own authority, and he stops short of the charge, that Knox gave one of the fifty-three wounds. The paper is, however, too valuable to be rejected as unworthy of credit; it merely contains an error, and must be understood to

mean, "that all these were at the death of Davy, or privy thereto. After the crack has thus been soldered, another yawns, when we are informed, that the houses of all the persons named, were "taken and spoiled." This is unquestionably untrue as regards Craig, who remained in Edinburgh all the time labouring in his vocation; and we cannot in any authority, printed or unprinted, find the slightest warrant for saying, that such a fate overtook the establishment of Knox.

Thus, therefore, in whatever way we regard this scrap of paper, we find it like Falstaff's regiment, "ten times more dishonourable ragged than an old faced ancient." It leaks at every corner. It would have been held up to scorn and ridicule, had it been urged to support any of the charges against Mary; but with regard to Knox, where slight wounds are found, they are diligently aggravated, or scratched till they are made.

Mr. Tytler expends great industry in establishing that Randolph and Bedford were both in the full knowledge of all the facts relative to the conspiracy. Here also he entirely fails. With singular inconsistency, while he maintains the truth of the list, on the ground that "these two persons, the Earl of Bedford and Randolph, were intimately acquainted with the whole details of the conspiracy,"-(vol. vii. p. 357) he, in the next page, rejects this ground of credibility, and puts it on the information communicated to them after the event, "while it was yet new, and after the arrival of Lord Ruthven" at Berwick, from whom they received the whole details.-(Vol. vii., p. 360.) Again, in the following page, he makes another wheel, and after adopting his own list, because it was written "after the arrival of Lord Ruthven," he rejects a third list, to which we shall immediately refer (which omits the name of Knox,) because "the chief authorities of both account and list were Morton and Ruthven."-(Vol. vii., p. 361.) That these were not the chief authorities shall be immediately shown; but in the meantime, we rather think Mr. Tytler is more at home in describing death-bed scenes than in chopping logic.

It appears from all the evidence we possess, to be perfectly manifest, that neither Randolph nor Bedford knew anything of the details of the conspiracy, except what they obtained from the flying reports of the refugees who were daily flocking to Berwick. This can be clearly established without relying upon any admissions we might draw from Mr. Tytler's language. Besides the list contained in the body of Randolph's letter of 21st March, and the scrap of paper which Mr. Tytler found pinned to that letter, there exists a third list not written by a clerk, not unsubscribed, not unauthenticated; but in the handwriting of Randolph himself, and authenticated by the subscriptions of him and Bedford; and in this list also the name of Knox does not occur.

This

list was sent on the 27th of March, with a minute account of the conspiracy, to the Council of England, and after every means had been adopted for arriving at the truth.

*

We have this important document printed elsewhere than in Mr. Tytler's history. From it, it appears that both Randolph and Bedford were in the dark in regard to the whole matter, and resorted to every expedient to collect information. They state, that "hearing of so many matters as we do, and finding such variety in the reports, we have much ado to decern the verity, which maketh us the slower and loather to put anything in writing." [This uncertainty as to facts, be it observed, existed no less than six days, after Mr. Tytler's famous "authentic list" is said to have been sent off by Bedford's clerk to London.] The writers then state, that " we would not that your honours, and and by you the Queen's Majesty, our Sovereign, should be advertised but of the very truth, as near as we can possible." How did they proceed? "To this end, we thought good to send up Captain Carewe, who was in Edinburgh at the time of the last attempt, who spoke there with diverse, and after that with the Queen's self and her husband."

Thus, therefore, on the 27th of March, eighteen days after the murder, when the usual exaggerations and falsehoods that attend the first report of a startling event had died away, and when the English ministers had derived their information from the sure source of a special envoy, they sat down to write a deliberate account" of the very truth," "willing to our utmost part to inform you the truth." We beg attention to the data on which their statement is founded, on account of a perversion of fact by Mr. Tytler. They distinctly state, that their information is "conform to that which we have learned by others, and known by his (Captain Carewe's) report; we find the same confirmed by the parties selves that were there present, and assisters unto those that were executors of the deed."-(Ellis' Letters, vol. ii., p. 208.) In defiance of this explicit declaration, that "the chief authorities" were authentic statements made by the special commissioner and others, "confirmed" merely by Morton and Ruthven, we have Mr. Tytler, for a purpose of his own, risking the extraordinary assertion, (we will not characterize it more severely,) that Morton and Ruthven were the "chief authorities." The object of this is, to take away from the list the character of being impartial, by rendering it entirely the work of Morton and Ruthven, who, Mr. Tytler again most gratuitously, and without a shadow of evidence, tells us, wished, with Roman generosity, to screen Knox by sacrificing themselves.

* ELLIS' Letters, vol. ii., p. 207.

VOL. IV. NO. VII.

C

In this list of 27th March, we have "the names of such as were doers, and of counsel in this last attempt;" and neither the name of Knox nor of Craig appears. Mr. Tytler accordingly very naturally cross-examines himself in the following style :-"Why do you reject the evidence of this second list, and why are we not to believe this solemn declaration absolving the ministers of Scotland, and of course Knox with them, from all participation in the murder?"—(Vol. vii., p. 360.) His answer to this sensible question, and the reply of his opponent, reminds one of the remark of Bishop Horne, that "by the writers of dialogues matters are often contrived, as in the combats of the Emperor Commodus, in his gladiatorial capacity, where the antagonist of his imperial majesty was allowed only a leaden weapon." He first asserts that Randolph and Bedford, in direct contradiction to their own averment oftentimes repeated in their letter, made up the list under the dictation of Morton and Ruthven, and that these two worthies had some inexplicable interest to conceal Knox's concern in the transaction. That they had any such interest, farther than the interest of truth, we again affirm to be destitute of proof, and has been invented solely to meet the exigencies of Mr. Tytler's argument. Again, Mr. Tytler not feeling secure on this point, makes another gratuitous assertion, when he says, that Randolph would be more precise on delicate matters in his private letter to Cecil of the 21st March, sending the scrap of paper, (assuming that he sent it, of which there is no evidence,) than he and Bedford would be to the Council in their letter of the 27th. That they felt any such delicacy is also contradicted by the very letter in question; for, in mentioning the insinuations against Mary's honour, they write in the margin thus:

"It is our parts to pass this over in silence, than to make any such rehearsal of things committed unto us in secret; but we know to whom we write." (Ellis, vol. ii., p. 229, note.)

But secondly, Mr. Tytler having thus argued that the list of 27th March was concocted at Berwick by Randolph, Bedford, Morton, and Ruthven, absolutely forgets what he had written, flounders into a new contradiction, and transfers the locus delicti and the culprits to London, where he makes Cecil, "the secretary of Elizabeth, modify and recast the story, after the failure of the conspiracy, and with the approbation and by the directions of Elizabeth."-(Vol. vii., p. 360.) of these arguments must be false. It is clear that the very same act could not be done at Berwick and at London; and that, too, by different people. On the authority of the Italian manuscript which Mr. Tytler cites, he may maintain à l'outrance, if it please him, that Cecil concocted the most enormous falsehoods

One

on the subject; but it is absolutely amazing how he imagines that, in consequence of this, Cecil had prepared the list of 27th March, when that very list itself now lies in the British Museum, patent to all the world, and, as he himself states, "in the handwriting of Randolph."!!!

So much for this third list. We now come to a fourth, as contained in another letter by Randolph. He here informs us, that "there are privy in Scotland these; Argyle, Morton, Boyd, Ruthven, and Liddington. In England these; Moray, Rothes, Grange, myself.”—(Tytler, vol. vii., p. 25.) The name of Knox does not here occur. Nor does it in the fifth list, preserved in

the appendix to Keith.

But this is not all. Morton and Ruthven wrote from Berwick a letter of their own to Cecil, in which they say that"It is come to our knowledge that some Papists have bruited, that these our proceedings have been at the instigation of the ministers of Scotland. We assure your Lordship, upon our honour, that there were none of them art nor part of that deed, nor were participate thereof." -(Tytler, vii., p. 360.)

Mr. Tytler again puts himself through the catechism. "Why not believe Morton [where is Ruthven?] when he states upon his word of honour that none of the ministers of Scotland were art and part of that deed?" IIe answers, that Morton did not know the meaning of art and part, seeing that on his own trial, he denied that he was art and part of the King's murder, though he admitted foreknowledge of it. But if this be the case, what does the other statement, that none of the ministers were participate in the murder mean; and in order to render this absurd hypercritical argument effectual, be it observed, that it is necessary to leave out of view that the letter is not Morton's only, but the joint production of him and Ruthven, and that the latter must have been equally obtuse in matters of philology.

There are still, however, some arguments remaining which we ask indulgence for examining also, as the matter involves so much the credit of an illustrious name.

"Another corroboration," says Mr. Tytler," of his accession to this conspiracy was his precipitate flight from Edinburgh, with the rest of the conspirators, upon the threatened advance of the Queen to the city. Knox fled precipitately, and in extreme agony of spirit, to Kyle; and as we have already seen, did not venture to return till the noblemen rose against the Queen after the death of Darnley. If he was not implicated, why did he take guilt to himself by flight?"-Vol. vii, p. 359.

There is an extreme and ludicrous rapidity in a conclusion, which is neither morally just nor consistent with the facts. Flight by Knox before the Queen, marching on Edinburgh at the head of troops, was only a common measure of prudence in