MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS.

Auckland Star, Volume LVI, Issue 125, 29 May 1925, Page 7

MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS.

RE-TRIAL BY SCIENCE. HER CHARACTER CLEARED. MR, MITCHELL'S INDUSTRY. (By Cable.—Press Association.— Copyright.) LONDON, May 28. The question as to whether or no Mary Queen of Scots was guilty of the charge of high treason for which she waa executed has intrigued historians for centuries. It is now claimed to have been definitely cleared up by means of impartial scientific investigations which were carried out by Mr. Ainsworth .Mitchell, editor of the newspaper "Analyst." He was assisted by a Home Office expertMr. Mitchell describes the investigations in the current number of the newspaper "Discovery." He says he has spent several yeare in collecting, examining, a.nd photographing original record?, documents, ink, parchment, seals, and handwriting, which he scientifically examined, exactly as though Mary were now under trial. The results of these researches, says Mr. Mitchell, definitely prove that Mary could not have written the letters upon which her guilt chiefly depended. The real guilty party whs William Maitland, the ill-fated Queen's secretary and betrayer. The evidence now found, remarks the investigator, would undoubtedly, in the present day, have cleared Mary and convicted Maitland.—(A. and N.Z. Cable.)