Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 7.djvu/521

 1567.] THE MURDER OF DARNLEY, 501 own handwriting, shed a light upon her proceedings as full as it is startling ; but the later sufferings of Mary Stuart have surrounded her name with an atmosphere of tenderness, and half the world has preferred to be- lieve that she was the innocent victim of a hideous con- spiracy. The so-called certainties of history are but proba- bilities in varying degrees ; and when witnesses no longer survive to be cross- questioned, those readers and writers who judge of truth by their emotions can believe what they please. To assert that documents were forged, or that witnesses were tampered with, costs them no effort ; they are spared the trouble of reflection by the ready-made assurance of their feelings. The historian, who is without confidence in these easy criteria of certainty, can but try his evidence by such means as remain. He examines what is doubtful by the light of what is established, and offers at last the conclusions at which his own mind has arrived, not as the demonstrated facts either of logic or passion, but as something which after a survey of the whole case ap- pears to him to be nearest to the truth. 1 1 The story in the text is taken from the depositions in ANDERSON and PITCAIBN ; from the deposition of Crawford, in the Rolls House ; and from the celebrated casket letters of Mary Stuart to Bothwell. The authenticity of these letters will be discussed in a future volume in con- nection with their discovery, and with the examination of them which then took place. Meantime I shall assume the genuineness of docu- ments, which, without turning his- tQryjmto .a. _niere_creation pf_imagin- ative ^svjnjjathies^ I do not feel at liberty to doubt. They come to us after having passed the keenest scrutiny both in England and Scot- land. The handwriting was found to resemble so exactly that of the