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MARY STUART, QUEEN OF SCOTS (1542-87).Letter Signed ("Marie R")to the Earl Marischal [William Keith] ("Traist cousing and counsalor"), urging his attendance at a Parliament, to be held in Edinburgh on April 14: There are various matters to be discussed touching the welfare of our realm, and...issues relating to the prosperity of our cousin the Earl of Huntly: ("Thair is divers effares to be intreated for the welffair of our realme and...thingis concernyng the weill of our cousing the erle of hwntlie"). Keith's "good counsel and advice" ("guid counsall and adwyis") will be most beneficial ("ze will do ws singular profit"). 1 page folio, in Scots, with transcription, address & later docket to reverse, Holyrood ("At our abbey of Halirudehous"), March 23, 1566/7, traces of red wax seal, slits from original string closure (one affecting two words), in nice condition.

William Keith (d. 1581), 3rd Earl Marischal, hereditary Grand Marshal of Scotland: "the wealthiest man in Scotland", a Protestant, but a moderate (he opposed those who wished to deprive Mary of the Mass), & a cautious man, who remained aloof from the plots of the day. Keith was the earl of Huntly's uncle, & was indeed present at the Parliament in April 1567.George Gordon, 5th Earl of Huntly (d. 1576): his father, the 4th Earl (d. 1562), the largest landowner in north-eastern Scotland, head of the Gordon clan, known as "Cock of the North", a Catholic, had rebelled against Mary, dying in arms against the royal authority, & as a result the family's estates had been forfeited; the 5th Earl, however, was a practised schemer. A Protestant, he was happy to trim when necessary. He successfully ingratiated himself with the Queen, who held him in high regard (although, typically, he eventually deserted her cause). He was Bothwell's most intimate associate & adviser (& his co-conspirator in Darnley's murder), the relationship being cemented by Bothwell's marriage to Huntly's sister, Lady Jean Gordon, in 1566.

Darnley had been murdered on February 10, 1567: Bothwell, whose ambition & ruthlessness were well known, was universally suspected of the crime & immediately accused of it by Darnley's father, the Earl of Lennox. Bothwell was tried on April 12, but he had packed Edinburgh with his armed supporters & Lennox feared to enter the city without adequate protection (& Mary had forbidden this). In the absence of his principal accuser, Bothwell was acquitted. When Parliament met on April 14, it declared Bothwell's trial to have been conducted lawfully. Meanwhile, Huntly had cynically persuaded his sister to divorce Bothwell (thus leaving him free to marry Mary): the price for his assistance (in this as in the murder of Darnley) being the restoration of the family estates (Mary had restored them unofficially two years earlier, but parliamentary approval was necessary for a formal restoration). On April 19, an Act of Parliament duly confirmed Huntly in his estates, as foreshadowed in our letter. Mary married Bothwell on May 15: her reputation was thereby destroyed, & she was forced to abdicate on July 23, 1567.