68 The sonnets have been counted differently by historians as twelve, eleven, or as one long poem. The ‘twelfth’ is only six lines in length, and is either an unfinished sonnet or else a ‘postscript’ to the others.

69 See references in the notes.

70 With a single exception, they are subdivided between class SP 53 at the Public Record Office and the Cecil Papers at Hatfield House: see references in the notes.

71 I have followed the numbers given to the Casket Letters by Henderson (1890), which are those most commonly used.

72 Nickname for Nicholas Hubert.

73 i.e. break his promises.

74 See chapter 18.

75 The innuendo is that Mary is tied to the Lennoxes by her marriage to Darnley just as Bothwell is to the Gordons, the family of his wife, Lady Jean.

76 See chapter 18.

77 See chapter 18.

78 His father, Patrick Earl of Bothwell, had no living brothers, and his uncle on his mother’s side, Alexander Earl of Buchan, had died in 1563.

79 i.e. investigation.

80 No one else could have been meant. Lord John of Coldingham, husband of Jane Hepburn, Bothwell’s sister, had died in December 1563, and Jane took as her second husband John Sinclair, Master of Caithness, who was loyal to Mary.

81 See chapter 20.

82 See chapter 20.

83 See chapter 24.

84 See chapter 26.