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[0a] Longmans, Green, & Co., 1871.
[7] See The Mystery of Mary Stuart . Longmans, 1901.
[12a] Extracted from the Treasurer’s Accounts, July, August, 1600. MS.
[12b] The King’s Narrative, Pitcairn’s Criminal Trials of Scotland , ii. 210.
[13] The King’s Narrative, ut supra . Treasurer’s Accounts, MS.
[14] Lennox in Pitcairn, ii. 171–174.
[18] The description is taken from diagrams in Pitcairn, derived from a local volume of Antiquarian Proceedings. See, too, The Muses’ Threnodie , by H. Adamson, 1638, with notes by James Cant (Perth, 1774), pp. 163, 164.
[19] Pitcairn, ii. 199.
[23] The evidence of these witnesses is in Pitcairn, ii. 171–191.
[28] Cranstoun’s deposition in Pitcairn, ii. 156, 157. At Falkland August 6.
[30] The adversaries of the King say that these men ran up, and were wounded, later , in another encounter. As to this we have no evidence, but we have evidence of their issuing, wounded, from the dark staircase at the moment when Cranstoun fled thence.
[38] Quoted by Pitcairn, ii. 209. The Falkland letter, as we show later, was probably written by David Moysie, but must have been, more or less, ‘official.’ Cf. p. 100, infra .
[40] Many of these may be read in Narratives of Scottish Catholics , by Father Forbes-Leith, S.J.
[42] Carey to Cecil. Berwick, Border Calendar , vol. ii. p. 677, August 11, 1600.
[44a] Deposition of Craigengelt, a steward of Gowrie’s, Falkland, August 16, 1600. Pitcairn, ii. 157.
[44b] Pitcairn, ii. p. 185.
[44c] Pitcairn, ii. p. 179.
[45] Barbé, p. 91.
[48a] State Papers, Scotland (Elizabeth), vol. lxvi. No. 50.
[48b] Mr. S. R. Gardiner alone remarks on this point, in a note to the first edition of his great History. See note to p. 54, infra .
[52a] Apparently not Sir Thomas Hamilton, the King’s Advocate.
[52b] State Papers, Scotland (Elizabeth), vol. lxvi. No. 51.
[53] Pitcairn, vol. ii. p. 249.
[58] Mr. Scott suggested that a piece of string was found by Balgonie. The words of Balgonie are ‘ane gartane’—a garter. He never mentions string.
[59] According to a story given by Calderwood, Ruthven’s sword was later found rusted in its sheath, but no authority is given for the tale.
[60] Pitcairn, ii. 197.
[61a] The Tragedy of Gowrie House , by Louis Barbé, 1887, p. 91.
[61b] Mr. Barbé, as we saw, thinks that Robertson perjured himself, when he swore to having seen Henderson steal out of the dark staircase and step over Ruthven’s body. On the other hand, Mr. Bisset thought that Robertson spoke truth on this occasion, but concealed the truth in his examination later, because his evidence implied that Henderson left the dark staircase, not when Ramsay attacked Ruthven, but later, when Ruthven had already been slain. Mr. Bisset’s theory was that Henderson had never been in the turret during the crisis, but had entered the dark staircase from a door of the dining-hall on the first floor. Such a door existed, according to Lord Hailes, but when he wrote (1757) no traces of this arrangement were extant. If such a door there was, Henderson may have slunk into the hall, out of the dark staircase, and slipped forth again, at the moment when Robertson, in his first deposition, swore to having seen him. But Murray of Arbany cannot well have been there at that moment, as he was with the party of Lennox and Mar, battering at the door of the gallery chamber.—Bisset, Essays in Historical Truth , pp. 228–237. Hailes, Annals . Third Edition, vol. iii. p. 369. Note (1819).
[63a] Privy Council Register , vi. 149, 150.
[63b] Pitcairn, ii. 250.
[64] Mr. Panton, who, in 1812, published at Perth, and with Longmans, a defence of the Ruthvens, is very strong on the improbability that Henderson was at Falkland. Why were not the people to whose house in Falkland he went, called as witnesses? Indeed we do not know. But as Mr. Panton looked on the King’s witnesses as a gang of murderous perjurers, it is odd that he did not ask himself why they, and the King, did not perjure themselves on this point. ( A Dissertation on the Gowry Conspiracy , pp. 127–131.)
[67a] Pitcairn, ii. 222, 223.
[67b] Hudson to Cecil, Oct. 19,1600, Edinburgh. State Papers, Scotland (Elizabeth), vol. lxvi. No. 78.
[69a] James Hudson to Sir Robert Cecil .
‘. . . I have had conference of this last acsyon, first wth the King, at lenght, & then wth Henderson, but my speache was first wth Henderson befoar the King came over the watter, betwixt whoame I fynde no defference but yt boath alegethe takinge the dager frome Alexander Ruthven, wch stryf on the one part maie seame to agment honor, & on the other to move mersy by moar merit: it is plaen yt the King only by god’s help deffended his owin lyff wel & that a longe tyme, or els he had lost it: it is not trew that Mr. Alex spok wth his brother when he went owt, nor that Henderson vnlokt the door, but hast & neglect of Mr. Alex, left it opin, wherat Sr Jhon Ramsay entrid, & after hime Sr Tho. Ereskyn Sr Hew Haris & Wilsone. Yt it is not generally trustid is of mallice & preoccupassyon of mens mynds by the minesters defidence at the first, for this people ar apt to beleve the worst & loath to depart frome yt fayth.
. . . .
‘Edinborow this 19 of October 1600.’
[69b] Pitcairn, ii. 218.
[73] Privy Council Register , vi. 671.
[74a] State Papers, Scotland (Elizabeth), vol. lxvi. No. 107.
[74b] Cranstoun mentioned his long absence in France to prove that he was not another Mr. Thomas Cranstoun, a kinsman of his, who at this time was an outlawed rebel, an adherent of Bothwell (p. 155, infra ).
[75] State Papers, Scotland (Elizabeth), vol. lxvi. No. 107.
‘ George Nicolson to Sir Robert Cecil .
. . . . .
‘A man of Cannagate speaking that one Mr. Ro: Oliphant, lyeng at his house, should haue complayned and said that “there was no justice in Scotland, for favlters skaped fre and innocentis were punished. Mr. Thomas Cranston was execute being innocent, and Henderson saued. That therle of Gowry had moued that matter to him (Oliphant) in Paris and here, that he had wth good reasons deverted him, that therle thereon left him and delt wth Henderson in that matter, that Henderson vndertooke it and yet fainted, and Mr. Thomas Cranston knew nothing of it and yet was executed.” This I heare, and that this Oliphant that was Gowries servant is, vpon this mans speache of it, againe fled. The heades of Gowry and his brother are sett vpon the tolebuthe here this day. . . . .
‘Edenb. the 5 of Decemb. 1600.’
[76] The Captain was ‘a landless gentleman.’ His wife owned Ranfurdie, and the Captain, involved in a quarrel with Menteith of Kers, had been accused of—witchcraft! The Captain’s legal affairs may be traced in the Privy Council Register .
[77] The proceedings of the English Privy Council at this point are lost, unluckily. The Scottish records are in Privy Council Register , 1608–1611, s.v. Oliphant, Robert, in the Index.
[80] See the Rev. Mr. Scott’s Life of John , Earl of Gowrie . Mr. Scott, at a very advanced age, published this work in 1818. He relied much on tradition and on anonymous MSS. of the eighteenth century.
[81] State Papers, Scotland (Elizabeth), vol. lxvi. No. 52. For the document see Appendix B.
[83] James himself, being largely in Abercromby’s debt, in 1594 gave him ‘twelve monks’ portions’ of the Abbacy of Cupar.— Act. Parl. Scot. iv. 83, 84.
[93] Mr. Henderson, in his account of William, Earl of Gowrie, in the Dictionary of National Biography , mentions ‘The Vindication of the Ruthvens’ in his list of authorities. He does not cite the source, as in MS. or in print; and I know not whether he refers to ‘The Verie Manner &c.,’ State Papers, Scotland (Elizabeth), vol. lxvi. No. 52. The theory of Mr. Scott (1818) is much akin to that of ‘The Verie Manner,’ which he had never seen.
[94] Barbé, p. 124.
[96] State Papers, Scotland (Elizabeth), vol. lxvi. No. 64.
[97] State Papers, Scotland (Elizabeth), vol. lxvi. No. 64.
Sir William Bowes to Sir John Stanhope , Sept. 2, 1600.
Sr I attending hir Mties embassadr toward Newcastle happened to meet wyth Mr Preston then on his waie from his king to hir Mtie. In renewing a former acquaintance I found hym verie willing to possesse me wyth his report of the death of Gowrie and his brother, in the circumstances wherof sundrie thingis occurring hardlie probable I was not curious to lett him see that wyse men wyth vs stumbled therat. And therfor I thought yt wysdom in the king to deliuer his honor to the warld and especiallie to her Mtie. And in this as in other albeit I am not ignorant that the actions of princes must chalenge the Fairest interpretation Yet because in deed truthe symplie canne doe no wrong And that we owe or dearest and nearest truthes to or soueraygnes in this matter so precisely masked lett me deliuer to youe what For myne own part I doe belieue.
The King being readie to take horse was wythdrawen in discourse with the Mr of Gowrie, a learned sweet and hurtles yong gentleman, and one other attending. Now were it by occasion of a picture (as is sayde) or otherwise, speech happening of Earle Gowrie his father executed, the king angrelie sayde he was a traitour, whereat the youth showing a greeved and expostulatorie countenance and happelie Scot-like Woordis, the King, seeing hymself alone and wythout weapon, cryed, Treason, Treason. The Mr abashed much to see the king so apprehend yt, whilest the king wold call to the Lords, the Duke, Marre, and others that were attending in the court on the king comming to horse, putt his hand with earnest deprecations to staie the king, showing his countenance to them wythout in that moode, immediatlie falling on his knees to entreat the King. At the K. sound of Treason, from out of the Lower Chamber hastelie running Harris the physician Ramsey his page and Sr Thomas Erskyn came to where the king was Where Ramsey runne the poore gentleman thorough, sitting as is saide vpon his knees.
At this stirr the earle wyth his Mr Stablere and somme other, best knowing the howse and the wayes, came first to the slaughter where finding his brother dead and the king retyred (For they had perswaded hym into a countinghouse) some fight beganne between the earle and the others. Mr Preston saies that vpon thar relation that the king was slayne the earle shronke from the pursuyte, and that one of the afornamed rushing sodainlee to the earle thrust hym through that he fell down and dyed. This matter seeming to haue an accidentall beginning, to gyve it an honorable cloake is pursued wyth odious treasons coniurations &c. imputed to the dead earle, wyth the death of the Mr Stabler, Wyth making knyghtis the actors, And manye others such as I know are notified to you long ere this. The ministers as I heare are asked to make a thankgyving to god, where they think more need of Fasting in Sackclothe and Ashes, to the kingis much discontenting. This I must not saie (as the scholers terme yt) to be categoricallie true, but heupatheticallie [98] I take yt so to be. Wherevpon maie be inferred that as the death of the twoe First maie be excused by tendering the verie showe of hazard to the King, so is the making of religion and iustice cloakes to cover accidentall oversightis a matter which both heaven and earth will iudge. . . .
From Bradley this 2de of Sept.
Yor poore Frend to commannd.
Will M. Bowes .
[98] Hypothetically?
[103] Calderwood, vi. 84.
[104] Pitcairn, ii. 248 et seq.
[105a] Calderwood, vi. 98.
[105b] Ibid. vi. 130.
[107a] Calderwood, vi. 147.
[107b] Ibid. vi. 156.
[110] Mr. Bruce appears to have gone to France in 1599–1600, to call Gowrie home. In a brief account of his own life, dictated by himself at about the age of seventy (1624), he says, ‘I was in France for the calling of the Master ’ (he clearly means Earl ) ‘of Gowrie’ (Wodrow’s ‘Life of the Rev. Robert Bruce,’ p. 10, 1843). Calderwood possessed, and Wodrow ( circ. 1715) acquired, two ‘Meditations’ by Mr. Bruce of August 3, 4, 1600. Wodrow promises to print them, but does not, and when his book was edited in 1843, they could not be found. He says that ‘Mr. Bruce appears to have been prepared, in Providence,’ for his Gowrie troubles, judging (apparently) by these ‘Meditations.’ But Mr. Henry Paton has searched for and found the lost ‘Meditations’ in MS., which are mere spiritual outpourings. Wodrow’s meaning is therefore obscure. Mr. Bruce had great celebrity as a prophet, but where Wodrow found prophecy in the ‘Meditations’ of August 3, 4, 1600, is not apparent (Wodrow’s ‘Bruce,’ pp. 83, 84. Wodrow MSS., Advocates’ Library, vol. xliv. No. 35).
[111] Calderwood, vi. 49, 66–76.
[114] Pitcairn, ii. 196.
[118] Bain, Calendar , ii. 350; Nau, p. 59.
[121a] Form of certain Devices , &c. See Papers relating to William , Earl of Gowrie , London, 1867, pp. 25–29.
[121b] Form of examination and death of William, Earl of Gowrie. British Museum, Caligula, c. viii. fol. 23.
[126] Thorpe, Calendar , ii. 650
[127a] De Natione Anglica et Scota Juristarum Universitatis Patavinae Io. Aloys. Andrich. Patavii, 1892, pp. 172, 173.
[127b] Ottavio Baldi to the King, June 22, 1609. Record Office. Venice, No. 14, 1608–1610. See infra , Appendix A, ‘Gowrie’s Arms and Ambitions.’
[128a] Gowrie’s letters of 1595 are in Pitcairn.
[128b] State Papers, Scotland (Elizabeth), vol. lxiii. No. 85.
G. Nicolson to Sir Robert Cecil.
Edinborough, 25 December, 1598.
. . . . .
‘I heare Gowry is become a papist. But the K. takes little care to this, And yet sure it importes him most to se to it, vnlest he accompt otherwais of it than he hath cause, except he haue other pollicy than I will conjecture.’ Compare Galloway’s sermon, in Pitcairn, ii. 249, and A Short Discourse , ii. 231, 232.
[129a] Simancas, iv. pp. 653, 654, 677, 680, 715.
[129b] Compare note, p. 110, supra .
[130a] Winwood Memorials , pp. 1, 156. Hudson to Cecil. State Papers, Scotland (Elizabeth), vol. lxvi. No. 19.
[130b] Border Calendar , vol. ii. May 29, 1600. Carey to Cecil.
[131a] The whole proceedings are printed in Arnot’s Criminal Trials .
[131b] Nicholson to Cecil, June 22, June 29, 1600. Tytler, vol. ix. pp. 325, 326, 1843.
[131c] This date I infer from Cranstoun’s statement. On August 5 he had scarcely seen the Ruthvens, to speak to, for a fortnight.
[133] Border Calendar , vol. ii. p. 698, Oct. 21, 1600. Carey to Cecil.
[134a] Calderwood, vi. 71.
[134b] A defender of Gowrie, Mr. Barbé, has the following ‘observes’ upon this point. It has been asserted by Calderwood that, ‘while the Earl was in Strathbraan, fifteen days before the fact’ (say July 20), ‘the King wrote sundry letters to the Earl, desiring him to come and hunt with him in the wood of Falkland, which letters were found in my lord’s pocket, as is reported, but were destroyed.’ Mr. Barbé then proves that letters were sent to Gowrie and Atholl in the last days of July. It is certain that a letter was sent to Gowrie about July 20, possibly a sporting invitation, not that there was any harm in an invitation to join a hunting party. James is next accused of ‘trying to stifle the rumour’ about this ‘letter,’ by a direct denial. This means that Craigengelt, Gowrie’s caterer, was asked whether he knew of any man or boy who came to Gowrie from Court, and said that he did not, a negative reply supposed to have been elicited by the torture to which Craigengelt was certainly subjected. We only know that at the end of July letters were sent to Gowrie, to Inchaffray, to Atholl, and to Ruthven. Whether his reached Gowrie or not, and what it contained, we cannot know.
[137] Privy Council Register , vi. 194.
[140a] Cf. p. 110, note.
[140b] Border Calendar , i. 491.
[142] Tragedy of Gowrie House , pp. 29, 31.
[147] As to Bothwell’s whereabouts, in 1600, he left Brussels in March, nominally to go to Spain, but, in June, the agent of the English Government in the Low Countries was still anxious to hear that he had arrived in Spain. When he actually arrived there is uncertain. Compare Simancas, iv. p. 667, with State Papers, Domestic (Elizabeth) (1598–1600), p. 245, No. 88, p. 413 (March 24, April 3, 1600), p. 434, May 30, June 9, p. 509. Cecil meant to intrigue with Bothwell, through Henry Locke, his old agent with Bothwell’s party, Atholl, and Gowrie October 1593). Compare infra , p. 160.
[152] Privy Council Register , ii. 217, 218.
[153] Privy Council Register , ii. 622, 699.
[155a] Privy Council Register , vi. 73, 74.
[155b] State Papers, Scotland (Elizabeth), vol. lxvi. No. 13, No. 21.
[156] Hatfield Calendar , viii. 147, 399.
[157] For these letters of Logan’s, see Hatfield Calendar , vols. iii. iv. under ‘Restalrig,’ in the Index.
[158] Privy Council Register , vol. v., s. v. ‘Logan’ in the Index.
[159] Border Calendar , vol. ii. Willoughby to Cecil, January 1, 1599.
[160a] Pitcairn, ii. 405–407.
[160b] See Thorpe’s Calendar , vol. ii., s. v. ‘Mowbray, Francis’ in the Index.
[161] He had sold Nether Gogar in 1596.
[162] Some of the papers are in the General Register House, Edinburgh.
[164] The evidence for all that occurred to Sprot, between April and July 1608, is that of a manuscript History of the Kirk of Scotland , now in the Advocates’ Library. It is written in an early seventeenth-century hand. Calderwood follows it almost textually up to a certain point where the author of the MS. history says that Sprot, on the scaffold, declared that he had no promise of benefit to his family. But Calderwood declares, or says that others declare, that Sprot was really condemned as a forger (which is untrue), but confessed to the Gowrie conspiracy in return for boons to his wife and children.
We have, of course, no evidence that anything was done by Government, or by any one, for Mrs. Sprot and the children. The author of the MS., which Calderwood used as he pleased, avers that Sprot denied on the scaffold the fact that he had any promise. Neither draft nor official account confirms the MS. history on the point of no promise. The official draft of his last moments (from its interlineations, each signed by the Clerk of Council) appears to have been drawn up on the spot, or hurriedly, as soon as Sprot was dead. This is the aspect of the draft of the account; the official printed account says that there was ‘no place of writing on the scaffold, in respect of the press and multitude of people’ (Pitcairn, ii. 261).
[169] Vol. ii. pp. 282–7.
[170] Letter I is a peculiar case, and was not, perhaps, spoken of by Sprot at all.
[183] Laing, Charters , Nos. 1452, 1474–76, 2029.
[198] Hatfield Calendar , iv. 659.
[199a] Pitcairn, iii. Appendix vii.
[199b] Border Calendar , i. 486, 487.
[202] Thorpe, ii. 614, 616, 617. Border Calendar , i. 457.
[203] Privy Council Register , viii. 150–2, 605.
[206a] Pitcairn, ii. 287, n 2.
[206b] Neville to Cecil, Paris, Feb. 27, 1600. Willoughby to Cecil, Berwick, April 22, 1600. Winwood Memorials , p. 166. Border Calendar , ii. 645.
[217] The peculiarities of spelling are those recognised as Logan’s, and easily imitated by the forger.
[221] He had not the letter before him at this moment, and may have forgotten.
[222] Spottiswoode, vol. iii. pp. 274, 282.
[224] Cromarty, An Historical Account , &c. , 92 (1713).
[227a] Calderwood, vi. 780.
[227b] In the Auchendrane case (1615), the public, partisans of the murderers, wished the only witness to be hanged, just to see if he would persevere in his confession.
[239] Melrose Papers , vol. i. pp. 72, 73.
[243a] Pitcairn, ii. 289–290.
[243b] Ibid. ii. 292.
[247] State Papers , Venice, R.O., No. 14, 1608–10. Hill Burton, History of Scotland , vol. vi. pp. 135, 136. Note. Edition of 1870.
[248] This information I owe to Mr. Anderson, with the reference to Crawfurd, and other details.
[249] Burnet’s History of his Own Time , vol. i. pp. 24, 25, mdccxxv.
[250a] Papers relating to William , first Earl of Gowrie , p. 30. (Privately printed, 1867.)
[250b] Sanderson, p. 226.
[251a] Scott, pp. 282, 284.
[251b] Border Calendar , vol. i. p. 491.