When he gave it to the English commissioners, he had reason to think it would be canvassed with all the severity of able adversaries, interested in the highest degree to refute it.

It is probable, that he could have confirmed it by many circumstances and testimonies; since they declined the contest.
The sonnets are inelegant; insomuch that both Brantome and Bonsard, who knew Queen Mary's style, were assured, when they saw them, that they could not be of her composition.

Jebb, voL ii p.478.But no person is equal in his productions, especially one whose style is so little formed as Mary's must be supposed to be.

Not to mention, that such dangerous and criminal enterprises leave little tranquillity of mind for elegant poetical compositions.
In a word, Queen Mary might easily have conducted the whole conspiracy against her husband, without opening her mind to any one person except Bothwell, and without writing a scrap of paper about it; but it was very difficult to have conducted it so that her conduct should not betray her to men of discernment.

In the present case, her conduct was so gross as to betray her to every body; and fortune threw into her enemies' hands papers by which they could convict her.