MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19311, 24 October 1924, Page 11

MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS.

INTERESTING LETTERS. Interesting facts concerning the 12 letters and documents relating to Mary, Queen of Scots, which’ were recently bought for tho Scottish nation, were given by Dr W. Set on, Lecturer in Scottish History’, to an audience at University College, London, recently. llr Seton said tho documents were a series covering the period from tho time when Mary was 10 months old up to the closing years of her life. One of the documents was the officially attested marriage articles of Mary and Francis. It was not signed by either Mary or Francis, but by three secretaries. It was dated April 19, 1558, a few days after the marriage took place. This was an open and official document, and in it the independence of 'Scotland was satisfactorily safeguarded. But it is now Jcnown that 15 days before the document was executed Mary had been induced to sign three other documents. By the first of these Scotland was to be made over as a free gift to the French King if Mary died without heirs. By the second the French King was t 6 remain master of Scotland until a bill for the maintenance of the young Princess in France had been cleared off. The third letter was the most important of all. It was an undertaking that the other documents were to have an overriding force over any public treaties or documents whatever.