These arguments are set down in a contemporary clerkly hand. No doubt they belong to the period between the passing of sentence upon Mary Stuart and her execution, but it is impossible to fix the precise date.

This paper is written in a clerkly hand of the period. It is undated, but it evidently belongs to the time when Mary Stuart was a prisoner in England and probably after the year 1580 when her friends at home and abroad were beginning to manifest something like a concerted aggressive policy in her behalf. From its association with other papers of Sir Christopher Hatton's it may be presumed to belong to him although it bears no evidence of his handling. It looks like brief notes for a speech or part of a speech in Parliament. One is tempted, on very little evidence, to connect it with the speech Hatton made in the House of Commons on the 22nd February 1586/7, in which he set forth the dangers to which the realm was exposed (cf. D'Ewes p. 408).

This paper, which is written in a contemporary clerkly hand, is evidently the copy of an apology which the English government called upon the editors of the second edition of Holingshed's Chronicles to make for certain passages in that edition which concerned the Earl of Shrewsbury. The passage referred to ocurs in the Continuation of the Annals of Scotland (1571–86) which was written by Francis Thynne and was added to the original text of Holingshed as published in 1577 when the second edition was brought out ten years later.

This extract is written in a contemporary clerkly hand. The original letter from which it was taken is missing. There is a portion of a letter among the Hatfield MSS. (cf. Cal. Hatfield MSS. iii, p. 282) of the same date from Richard Douglas at Falkland to Archibald Douglas of which this extract may originally have formed a part. At all events Richard Douglas was no doubt the writer of it. He was at that time acting as a sort of intermediary between his uncle Archibald and the King of Scotland. Archibald himself was living in London. He occupied no official position and was nominally in disfavor with the Scottish king because of his double dealing against the king's mother when her fate hung in the balance in the autumn of 1586. Nevertheless it is apparent from this extract and from other letters of Richard Douglas of the same time that James was really disposed to overlook Archibald's offences and in some semi-official manner to make use of his services at the English Court.

This paper, written in a contemporary hand (possibly the hand of Thos. Phelippes), appears to be a kind of index to a collection of documents relating to Mary Stuart. It is not dated, the date here ascribed to it being simply that of the most recent paper enumerated. All the papers it mentions are printed in the foregoing collection except the first, the second, the fourth and the sixth. Two of these, the second and the fourth, being proclamations, are printed by Dyson in his Collection of Proclamations ff. 238, 242. The “Subjects Petition,” the first paper referred to, is no doubt that one presented by both houses of Parliament to Elizabeth in 1586 urging the execution of the Queen of Scots. It is printed in the State Trials i, p. 1190. Serjeant Puckering's speech, the sixth reference, is probably that one which he made to Elizabeth when he presented to her the petition just referred to, an abstract of which is printed by D'Ewes p. 400 seq.

This is a copy, in a contemporary clerkly hand, of an account of a statement upon the subject of an Anglo-Scottish alliance made to Robert Ashby, the representative of Elizabeth in Scotland, by Sir John Maitland, the Lord Chancellor of Scotland, a brother of the famous Maitland of Lethington and perhaps the most influential man in Scotland at this time. The account was probably sent to Elizabeth or to some one of her privy councillors by Ashby in one of his letters, but the original of it appears to be missing. This copy is endorsed by Sir Christopher Hatton.

This paper is written in Hatton's hand. It is pretty evidently an abstract for a speech in Parliament urging that measures of defense be taken. Hatton delivered such a speech in the House of Commons on the 4th of February, 1588/9 (D'Ewes p. 428). This paper contains, perhaps, his notes for a part of that speech.