[Sidenote: July 29] A still more drastic step was taken when Parliament declared Mary guilty of murder [Sidenote: December 15] and formally deposed her from the throne.

That Mary really was guilty in the fullest degree there can be no reasonable doubt.

An element of mystery has been added to the situation by a dispute over the genuineness of a series of letters and poems purporting to have been written by Mary to Bothwell and known collectively as the Casket Letters.

They were discovered in a suspiciously opportune way by her enemies.

The originals not being extant, some historians have regarded them in whole or in part as forgeries, but Robertson, Ranke, Froude, Andrew Lang and Pollard accept them as genuine.