Inside the £1.8m 'Casket of Letters' that linked Mary Queen of Scots to murder
The ‘Casket of Letters’ is on the move.
More than 450 years ago, its contents were said to implicate Mary Queen of Scots in the conspiracy to murder her second husband.
Today, it is a £1.8m treasure of the nation linked to the downfall of one of perhaps Scotland’s most enigmatic and troublesome queens.
The Casket of Letters’ held eight letters written by Mary to the Earl of Bothwell, plus a long love sonnet and two marriage contracts between the pair, who wed in May 1567.
The correspondence, it was alleged by her many political foes, linked her to the murder Lord Darnley, her second husband, just three months before.
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Darnley died following an explosion at Kirk O’ Field in Edinburgh, but it was not the impact from the blast that killed him. He had been strangled with his semi-naked body, along with that of his servant, found in an orchard near his lodgings.
Although Bothwell was considered to be the lead conspirator, he was acquitted at trial in April,1567.
Mary married Bothwell the following month. She had been known to say to an ally that she would follow Bothwell to the end of the world in her petticoat, a sentiment found in the casket letters.
The day after Darnley’s death, there was no sign of a grieving widow. Instead, she attended a wedding before heading off to Seton Palace, where she earlier spent her honeymoon.
The controversial letters were presented to a hearing arranged by Mary’s cousin, Queen Elizabeth, at Westminster in 1569. Like so much surrounding Mary, nothing was proven.
To some the letters were evidence that the monarch was a wanton murderess. To others, she was an innocent martyr, set up by her political foes who went to elaborate ends to forge the letters of love.
Whatever the truth, it is the case that the Casket of Letters is central to one of the great mysteries of Mary’s life and remains an object utterly secured to the downfall of the queen and her captivity in various English castles and homes for 19 years, until her execution in 1587.
Now, the epic piece of silverware is on the move. Secured by National Museums of Scotland in 2022 for £1.8million, it is now on show at Aberdeen Art Gallery and Museum for three months as part of a programme to disperse key historical objects around the country to bring them closer to the people and their country's history. Aberdeen is, understandably, “thrilled” to have the item on show.
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Dr Anna Groundwater, Principal Curator, Renaissance and Early Modern History at National Museums Scotland, said the casket has been “venerated as a relic of Mary Queen of Scots for centuries".
Dr Groundwater added: “I’m delighted that visitors to Aberdeen Art Gallery will get to see the casket up close. Beyond its connections to one of Scotland’s most famous figures, it is a rare and spectacular piece of historic silver in its own right.”
Made in Paris, probably between 1493 and 1510, the casket is a "superb and extremely rare" work of early French silver, very little of which survives, even in France. It is likely that its long-standing association with Mary has kept it preserved for over 450 years.
For three centuries, it was owned by the family of the Duke of Hamilton, following its acquisition, around 1674, by Anne, Duchess of Hamilton.
According to a handwritten note stored with it from the late 17th century, she bought the casket, previously owned by Mary, Marchioness of Douglas, on the understanding that it had belonged to Mary, Queen of Scots.
The note records the belief that this is the casket produced at the Westminster hearing ordered by Elizabeth I.
It is thought that the casket was given to Mary by her first husband, François II of France, and came to Scotland with her in 1561, a year after his death.
Her inventories from this time list multiple examples of precious jewellery and other such valuable objects.
The survival of this casket is particularly significant. In the late 1600s, the French King Louis XIV ordered valuable objects to be melted down in order to pay for his armies. The casket escaped this fate because it had probably left France with Mary.
A casket first appears in the records following Mary’s arrest in 1567 by the rebellious Confederate Lords, when it is discovered in the hands of Lord Bothwell’s servant.
It was brought before the Scottish Privy Council where its lock was struck off to reveal its contents.
Precisely what these were at that moment is unknown. However, a year later, when James, Earl of Moray, her half-brother James, dramatically produced the same casket at the Westminster hearing. He would almost certainly prosper if Mary was found guilty,
The debate over the authenticity of the letters still continues and will likely never be resolved.
The late historian Jenny Wormald, in her book Mary Queen of Scots, a Study in Failure, wrote: “The business of the historian is not to love or hate Mary Stuart, to judge her as a saint or a criminal, but to ask about the success or failure of her rule.
“ For example, it can be said at once - and briefly - that the probability that she was involved in the muder of Darnley is very strong. If she was not, then she must have been almost the only member of Edinburgh political society who managed to know nothing about it - and that in itself would be a comment on her political awareness."
Meanwhile, it cannot be categorically proven or unproven that the Mary, Queen of Scots Casket belonged to Mary, or that it was the ‘Letters’ Casket.
However, the Dukes of Hamilton have believed for at least 340 years that the casket was the ‘Letters’ casket, as did the Marchioness of Douglas before them.
Whatever the authenticity of the casket and the letters, it is a story worth re--telling - and telling again.
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