XIV. Charges made against Mary Stuart. 1586
This paper is written in two separate columns. The right hand column contains a list of charges against Mary; the left hand column, which is evidently incomplete, contains a statement of the proofs for some of the charges made. The former is written in a clerkly hand in the ordinary Gothic script of the Elizabethan period, the latter, probably by the same hand, in Italian script. There is an exact copy of this paper written in the same manner and by the same hand among the papers relating to Mary Stuart in the Record Office (Vol. viii, no. 54) which has been wrongly calendared in the Scottish Calendar under the year 1577. It is impossible to fix the date of this paper exactly, but it certainly belongs sometime after the execution of Dr. Parry (March 2, 1584/5) and before the trial of the Scottish Queen (October 1586). Very likely it has some connection with the proceedings against Mary in 1586 although the charges which it lodges against her do not seem to have been brought forward at her trial. It is somewhat surprising to find in it no reference whatsoever to the Throgmorton plot, Mary's complicity in which was well known to the English government.