more interesting. Anyhow from the Orkneys I can easily get to Denmark and from there I can almost swim over to Sweden. I want to dig deep into Northern lore—there are unexplored tons of it, full of the most sublime poetry, and when I return to America and have time to look over my notes, there will be something doing, I promise you, my boy."
Returning to Bothwell. Field asked:
"By the way, I read somewhere that Mary was divorced from Bothwell while in English captivity."
"If you can get hold of the Vatican records about that divorce," I answered, "the fortune of your book amongst scholars is made. What do you suppose was the cause of the divorce granted by the Roman Court?"
"Why, the murder of Mary's second husband, the Earl of Darnley, at which she and Bothwell had connived."
"Wrong."
"Or the fact that Bothwell was a Protestant, a heretic."
"Wrong again."
"Then because Bothwell was still the husband of Ann Thorssen when he married the Queen."
"Wrong the third time. The divorce was granted on evidence that Bothwell had intercourse with Mary before marriage."
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