History Of Scotland Vol. 2 - Part 16

( Originally Published 1909 )

Gowrie Conspiracy—Character of Gowrie and his Brother—Alexander Ruthven tells the King a singular Story to induce him to come to his Brother's Castle at Perth—James goes thither, and is coldly received—Alexander decoys him into a Cabinet and there assaults him—The King alarms his Retinue with his Cries—The Two Brothers are slain—The King is in Danger from the incensed Populace—He cannot convince the Clergy of the Reality of his Danger, and has great Difficulty in prevailing on them to return Thanks to Heaven for protecting him—Different Theories on the Subject, and that which acquits the Brothers Ruthven, or the elder of them, is shown to be attended with far more Improbability—Sprot's Letters—The History of that Discovery—They afford a consistent Clew for conjecturing the Purpose of the Conspiracy—Trial of Logan after Death—Execution of Sprot the Notary—An Attempt to civilize the Hebrides—It is unsuccessful

SINCE the king had attained a decisive victory over the discontented churchmen, Scotland had enjoyed, for so disorderly a country, an unusual degree of serenity. But an event was now to take place, most singular in all its circumstances, which, in the first place, placed James's life in extreme hazard, and has since, even down to the present day, entailed upon his memory, though most unjustly, a degree of doubt, as if some point of policy or purpose of revenge had induced him to hazard a very desperate crime for the purpose of destroying two persons of noble birth. In fact, the celebrated Gowrie conspiracy, which we are now approaching, is one of those mysterious transactions of which we can never expect a complete explanation; since those who calmly investigate or peruse history can never conceive the power of false views and erroneous motives acting on the minds of men who, from strong and peculiar excitement, engage in dangerous, secret, and criminal adventures. They are generally undertaken by persons whose minds are so much warped at the moment from the natural and moral bias, that the actors cannot be properly termed sane, nor are the principles upon which they act such as can be estimated by men who, undisturbed by passion or prejudice, are in the ordinary possession of their reasoning powers.

The reader must turn his recollection back to the Raid of Ruthven, a treasonable violence committed upon the king's person while he was yet a boy. The Earl of Gowrie, who lent his house for the purposes of the conspiracy, was considered as its principal conductor, and in the end became its victim, being executed at Dundee in the manner already related. He left a large family of sons and daughters, who, by their father's death and confiscation, were reduced to considerable necessity. The eldest son was, by the king's humanity, restored to the family estate and honors, in the 'year 1586, and died two. years afterward, in 1588: he was succeeded by his second brother, John, the third earl of Gowrie, who went abroad in August, 1594. This nobleman was a youth of quick parts and fine accomplishments, and made great proficiency in all the graceful and manly exercises, which were supposed to be best taught in France and Italy. Neither did the young earl neglect the pursuits of learning and science, though, it may be observed, those which he most eagerly followed were such as promised to extend the knowledge of man beyond its natural sphere, and to engage those who persevere in them in difficult and mysterious undertakings of precarious success. This may be gathered from some indications which appear in the proof concerning the earl's character. It was said, that a party with which he was hunting having found and slain an adder in the moors, the Earl of Gowrie told his companions that, had they not killed the reptile, he would have shown them the power of the cabala of the Jews, by pronouncing such a charm as should have arrested the adder and made it incapable of leaving the spot. He was known, besides, to carry upon him papers inscribed with spells and characters, containing, perhaps, the horoscope of his nativity, and was angry when they were meddled with, or questions asked concerning them. His conversation, at times, turned upon the subject of conspiracies against princes; upon which he was known to observe, that all such plots as were upon record were foolishly devised, too many people being admitted into a secret which can only be safe and successful while concealed within the breast of the deviser. The clergyman to whom he used this language advised him to lay aside such speculations, and betake himself to safer studies; but the discourse was not of a kind to attract much attention at the time. These things were considered as indicative of a turn to secrecy, and to machinations of a dangerous character. In the present age they can only be considered as traits of character.

The Earl of Gowrie's younger brother, Alexander Ruthven, was a young man of great hopes, and both were considered as possessing a share of the king's favor. Learned, handsome, young, and active, they belonged to the class of men which most readily attracted the king's notice; and generous, brave, and religious to a degree not common with men so young, they were the darlings of the people. Alexander Ruthven was made a gentleman of the bed-chamber; one of his sisters advanced to be a chief attendant upon the queen; a considerable post in the government was designed for Gowrie himself ; and no house in the kingdom appeared more flourishing, at the very time when a number of violent and mysterious circumstances brought on its total ruin.

On the 5th of August, 1600, as the king, then residing at Falkland, had taken horse at daybreak to follow his favorite exercise of stag-hunting, he was joined by Alexander Ruthven, who requested a private audience, and communicated to James, as they rode together, apart from the other hunts-men, a story of a most extraordinary kind. He had been, he said, walking near his brother's house at Perth, when, in a retired spot, he encountered a fellow of a down-looking aspect, and altogether suspicious in his appearance, who was wrapped in a cloak, and seemed desirous to escape observation. Ruthven continued that, conceiving it his duty to lay hands on this man, he had, in so doing, discovered on his person a large pot full of gold pieces of foreign coinage. He then deemed it his duty, he said, to carry the stranger to his brother's castle, and privately imprison him, in a remote apartment, in order that his majesty might have the earliest information upon a subject so extraordinary; he urged the king, therefore, to ride with him instantly to his brother, the Earl of Gowrie's castle, in the town of Perth, examine the captive himself, and secure the treasure for his own royal use. The king replied that he saw no reason why the man should not be regularly examined by the magistrates of Perth, of whom the Earl of Gowrie was provost. This proceeding young Ruthven eagerly opposed; alleging the necessity that a matter so mysterious should be subjected to the king's own scrutiny, so much deeper than that of any subject, and stating eagerly the risk of the treasure being embezzled, if any inferior person was to be trusted with the examination. He, therefore, repeatedly urged James instantly to ride with him to Perth ; and this in a manner so hurried and vehement that the king was induced to ask some of his attendants whether Ruthven had ever been known to be affected with fits of insanity : they replied that they had never known him, save as a sober and sensible young man. Reassured by this information, feeling, it may be supposed, the compliment paid to his superior wisdom, and desirous to secure a windfall which did not often come in his way, James agreed that as soon as he had seen the buck killed he would accompany Alexander Ruthven to Perth, and examine the prisoner.

During the whole chase, which was a short one, Ruthven hung upon the king, and at every opportunity which it afforded plied him with earnest importunity to set out upon his journey. It must be observed that a person named Andrew Henderson, a dependent upon the Earl of Cowrie, and whose part in this affair is not the least extraordinary in the whole mystery, was then at a distance in attendance upon Alexander Ruthven, who, after his conferences with the king, ordered Henderson to ride back with the utmost speed to Perth, and announce to the Earl of Gowrie that the king was coming immediately to Gowrie House with a small company. Henderson reached Perth about ten o'clock in the morning. So soon as ever the earl saw him, he came apart from the persons with whom he was speaking, and inquired secretly what tidings he had brought him from his brother Alexander. Henderson delivered the message which he had received from Mr. Ruthven; adding, he had no letter to his brother, which the Earl of Gowrie seemed to have expected. Henderson then asked what service his lordship had for him to do, who, within an hour afterward, bid him put on his armor, as he had a Highlander to take prisoner in the town of Perth. It does not appear that the Earl of Gowrie at this time made any preparation to receive the king, al-though apprised of his approach, nor did he even put off the service of his own dinner until that of his majesty should be provided. On the contrary, he proceeded to his own meal, with one or two chance guests who happened to be in the castle, at the usual hour of half-past twelve o'clock. Their dinner was scarcely finished when notice was given of the king's near approach.

Upon the death of the stag, the king fulfilled his promise of riding to Perth with Mr. Ruthven; but before this, which is material, by the by, to the evidence of the case, he communicated to the Duke of Lennox the story of the treasure which had been found. The duke replied he did not think the tale a likely one. In consequence, perhaps, of this communication, the duke, the Earl of Mar, and a small train of gentlemen followed the king to Perth. They were met by the Earl of Gowrie, who, although he appeared surprised at the visit, conducted him to his mansion, a large Gothic building, walled in and defended by towers, and having a garden or pleasure-ground which extended straight down to the river 'lay. The king, according to etiquette, dined by himself. Lord Lennox, the Earl of Mar, and his train, had their repast served in another apartment. The dinner was cold and ill-arranged; and everything had the air of haste and precipitation, which need not have existed had the Earl of Gowrie been disposed to avail himself of the timely information which he had received from Henderson. The conduct of the entertainer himself was cold, abstracted, and unequal, unlike to that expected from a subject who is honored with the presence of his sovereign as a guest. When the king had dined, he good-humoredly reminded the Earl of Gowrie that he ought to go into the next room and drink a cup of welcome to the lords and gentlemen of his train. Gowrie did so; and upon his leaving the room, his brother Alexander whispered to the king that this was the fitting time to inquire into the business of the prisoner and the money pot. The king was, apparently, not altogether void of suspicion, though probably it extended no further than a floating idea that Ruthven, whose tale and conduct were so extraordinary, might possibly, after all, be distracted. He had, therefore, in the course of their journey to Perth, privately desired the Duke of Lennox to take notice where he should pass with Alexander Ruthven, and to follow him. But as they were in separate chambers, the duke had no opportunity to observe the charge given to him.

Alexander Ruthven conducted the king from chamber to chamber, until he introduced him into a large gallery, at the angles of which were two rounds or turrets, which gave room, as is usual in such buildings, the one to a small closet or cabinet, the other to a private passage called a turnpike stair. On Ruthven's opening that which constituted a cabinet, the king discovered, to his surprise, a man not bound or captive, but armed and at liberty.

This was Henderson, already mentioned, whom the brothers had employed in their plan, though they had not deemed it safe to trust him with its purpose. His deposition bore, that after his return from Falkland, and his assuming his armor by the earl's orders, Gowrie had asked him for the key of the gallery chamber. It was not at first to be found, so little were things prepared for an attempt so dangerous, Being at length found, the earl commanded Henderson to go there, and to act as he should be directed by his brother Alexander. Henderson obeyed with the unresisting and ready submission of a vassal of the time; and Ruthven planted him in the little cabinet in which he was found, and locked him in. These preparations made, the man became afraid where all this might end. Left alone in the cabinet, he prayed to God to guard him from approaching evil; and after waiting about half an hour, Ruthven and the king appeared. The account of the extraordinary scene which followed rests upon the evidence of the king and Henderson. They agree in the main, but differ in several minute particulars. This is in no way surprising. Upon scarce any occasion do the witnesses of a perturbed, violent, and agitating scene agree minutely in narrating what has passed before their eyes; and there often exist circumstances of discrepancy much more remarkable than any that occur in the present case, which, nevertheless, are not considered as affecting the general truth and consistency of the evidence. The truth is, that the surprise or shock which the mind receives when an individual witnesses anything very extraordinary has an operation in preventing exact circumstantial recollection of what has passed, and the witness, insensibly on his own part, is, in the detail of minute particulars, extremely apt to substitute the suggestions of imagination for those of recollection. There may be also seen, in the varieties of the king's declaration and the evidence of Henderson, a desire on the part of each to set his own conduct in the best point of view; Henderson taking the merit of assisting the king in one or two instances, where James ascribes his safety to his own personal exertions.

The outline of the fact is this: So soon as Ruthven and the king entered the cabinet, the former exchanged the deference of a subject for the demeanor of an assassin: he threw his hat upon his head, snatched a dagger from the side of Andrew Henderson, and placing the point to the king's breast, said, "Sir, you must be my prisoner. Think on my father's death." Henderson pushed the weapon aside. As the king attempted to speak, Ruthven replied, "Hold your tongue, or, by Heaven, you shall die!"—" Alexander," replied the king, "think upon our intimacy, and remember that at the time of your father's death I was but a minor, and the council might have done anything they pleased. Even should you slay me you cannot possess the crown; for I have both sons and daughters, and friends, and faithful subjects, who will not leave my death unavenged. " Ruthven replied by swearing that he neither sought the king's life nor blood.—" What, then, is it you demand?" said the king. "It is but a promise," answered the conspirator, who seems to have been irresolute, or intimidated. "What promise?" demanded James; and added, with becoming spirit, "What though you were to take off your hat."—"My brother will tell you," replied Ruthven, uncovering, in obedience to the king's command.—"Fetch him hither," said the king. And Ruthven, having first taken James's word that he would not open the window or raise any alarm, left him, in order, as he pretended, to seek his brother, although, as Henderson says, he thinks that Ruthven never stirred from the gallery. He retired, most probably, only with the purpose of fortifying his own failing resolution, or preparing the means of binding the king. During his absence, the king demanded of Henderson how he came there. "As I live," answered the poor man, much alarmed by all that had passed in his presence, "I was shut up here like a dog." The king then asked if the Ruthvens would do him any injury. "As I live," answered Henderson, "I will die ere I witness it." The king, finding this person at his command, desired him to open the window of the turret. It had two, one of which looked down toward the castle gar-den and the river side, the other to the courtyard in front of the castle. The king, with the presence of mind which he seems to have maintained during the whole transaction, seeing that Henderson opened the former of those windows, from which no alarm could be given, called out that he undid the wrong window. Henderson was going to the other, when Ruthven again entered, with a garter in his hand, and laid violent hands upon his majesty, declaring there was no remedy. James, replying with indignation that he was a free prince, and would not be bound, resisted Ruthven manfully, and, though much inferior to him in strength and stature, had rather the better of the struggle. Henderson, who appears to have been confounded with terror, and divided between his respect for the king and for his feudal lord, took no part in the struggle, otherwise than by snatching the garter from Ruthven's hand, and, as he says, Alexander's hand from the king's mouth. Ruthven had expected his co-operation; for he exclaimed, "Woe worth thee! is there no help in thee?" Meantime the king, by violent exertion, dragged the conspirator as far as the second window, which Henderson opened. The king then, still struggling with Ruthven, called out "Treason!" and "Help!" and was heard by his followers in the courtyard below.

We must here give some account how the royal train came to be so opportunely within hearing of their master's cries. After drinking the pledge which had been recommended by the king, the Duke of Lennox and the rest of the royal retinue arose from table; the former recollecting the charge which he had to follow his majesty, when he should see him go out with Ruthven. The Earl of Gowrie, however, alleged that the king desired to be private for a few minutes; and calling for the key of his garden, carried his visitors to walk there until James should descend. They had stayed there but a few minutes when John Cranstoun, a retainer or friend of the earl, came into the garden, and said that the king was on horseback, and already past the middle of the South Inch, upon his return to Falkland. The Duke of Lennox and the other attendants of James, conceiving them failing in their duty, instantly hastened out of the garden toward the courtyard, and called to horse. The porter at the gate informed them the king had not passed. As they stood in surprise, the Earl of Gowrie entreated them to stay till lie should obtain sure information concerning the king's motions. He entered the house, and returning almost immediately, declared that the king was actually set forth.

The porter still contradicted the report of his master, replying to the royal attendants that the king must be still in the mansion, since he could not have gone out without his having seen him. "Thou liest, knave!" exclaimed the earl; and to reconcile his own account with that of his servant, Gowrie alleged that the king was gone forth at a postern-gate. "It is impossible, my lord," answered the porter, "for I am in possession of the key of that postern." During this dispute cries of treason and help were heard from, the turret. "That is the king's voice," said the Duke of Lennox, "be he where he will." James's attendants looked up to the window from whence the noise was heard, and perceived the head of the king partly thrust out at the window, inflamed by struggling, and a hand grasping him by the throat.

The greater part of the king's attendants reentered the mansion by the principal gate to hasten to their master's assistance, while Sir Thomas Erskine and others threw themselves upon the Earl of Gowrie, accusing him of treason. Gowrie, with the assistance of Thomas Cranstoun and others his retainers and servants, extricated him-self from their grasp, and at first fled a little way up the street; then halted, and drew two swords, which, according to a fashion of the time practiced in Italy, he carried in the same scabbard. "What will you do, my lord?" said Cranstoun, who attended with the purpose of seconding him. "I will either make my way to my own house," said the earl, adopting, it would seem, a desperate resolution, "or I will die for it." He rushed on, followed by Cranstoun and other friends and domestics, who also drew their swords. A lackey, named Crooshanks, threw a steel head-piece upon the earl's head as he passed. Cranstoun, for the least circumstance is of importance in a case of minute evidence, called to one Craigengelt to keep the back yett, meaning a postern giving exit to a secret staircase which descended from the gallery into the court. Craigengelt, accordingly, seconded by others, defended that door, which had already, however, given access to some of the king's retinue.

A dreadful scene in the meanwhile was taking place in Gowrie House. Lennox, Mar, and by far the greater part of the king's attendants, endeavored to find their way to the place of the king's confinement by the public staircase of the castle; but this only conducted them to the outer door of the gallery, within which, and from one of its extremities, opened the fatal cabinet in which the king and Alexander Ruthven were still grappling with each other.

It must be remembered that a scene, the details of which take some time in narrating, passed in the course of two or three minutes. Sir John Ramsay, a page of James, who had in keeping his majesty's hawk, had heard James's cry of distress; and while the other attendants of the king ran up the main staircase, he lighted by accident upon a small turnpike or winding stair which led to the cabinet in which the struggle was still taking place. Alarmed by the noise and shuffling of feet, he exerted his whole strength in such a manner as to force open the door at the head of that turn-pike, which introduced him into the fatal cabinet. The king and Ruthven were still wrestling together; and although James had forced his antagonist almost upon his knees, Ruthven had still his hand upon James's face and mouth. He also saw another form, that of the passive Andrew Henderson, who left the closet almost the instant he saw Ramsay enter.

The page, at the sight of his master's danger, cast the king's hawk from his hand, and drew his whinger, or hunting sword. The king, at that moment of emergency, called out, "Fie! strike him low, for he has a pine doublet'' meaning a secret shirt of mail under his garments. Ramsay stabbed Ruthven accordingly; and James lending his assistance, they thrust the wounded 'man down the turnpike by which Ramsay had ascended. Voices and steps were now heard advancing upward; and Ramsay knowing the accents called out to Sir Thomas Erskine to come up the turnpike stair, even to the head. Sir Thomas Erskine was accompanied by Sir Hugh Harris, the king's physician, a lame man, and unfit for fighting. Near the bottom of the turn-pike Sir Thomas Erskine in his ascent met Ruthven, bleeding in the face and neck, and called out, "Fie! strike! this is the traitor" ; on which Alexander Ruthven was run through the body, having only breath remaining to say, "Alas! I had no blame of it."

Sir Thomas Erskine pressed to the head of the staircase, where he found the king and Ramsay alone. "I thought," said Erskine, "your majesty would have trusted me so much as at least to have commanded me to await at the door for your protection, if you had not thought it meet to take me with you." James replied, and the words first spoken in such a moment of agitation are always worthy of notice, "Alas! the traitor deceived me in that as he did in the rest; for I commanded him to bring you to me, but he only went out and locked the door."

At this point of the extraordinary transaction the Earl of Gowrie entered with a drawn sword in each hand, a steel bonnet on his head, and six servants following him in arms. In the chamber there were only three of the king's retinue, Sir Hugh Harris, Sir John Ramsay, and Sir Thomas Erskine, with one Wilson, a servant. Of these, Sir Hugh Harris might be considered as unfit for combat. They thrust the king back into the turret closet, and turned to encounter Gowrie and his servants, exasperated as they were by the death of Alexander Ruthven, whose body they had found at the bottom of the turnpike stair. The battle was for a short time fierce and unequal on the part of the king's retinue; but Erskine having exclaimed to the Earl of Gowrie, "Traitor, you have slain our master, and now you would murder us!" the earl, as if astonished, dropped the point of his sword, and Erskine in the same moment ran him through the body. The thrust was fatal, and the earl fell dead, without a single word. His servants and assistants fled.

The king's composure during this dangerous tumult was marked by a singular circumstance. The hawk which Ram-say had, in the first moment of alarm, flung from his hand, was flying at large through the apartment; and the king, either from instinctive habit, which will sometimes govern men's motions in moments of great danger, or else from a presence of mind little consistent with his general character, put his foot upon the leash, and so kept the bird safe during the mortal scuffle.

The uproar was not yet over: a dreadful noise was heard at the door of the gallery. This proved to be the Duke of Lennox, the Earl of Mar, and the greater part of the king's attendants, who had come up the main stair of the castle, found the door of the gallery locked, and, hearing the clashing of swords and tumult within, were endeavoring to force their entrance by violence. Those within having learned who they were undid the door to admit them, and thus the king's retinue was assembled around him in the gallery.

But the adventures of the day were not yet closed, nor its dangers ended. The deceased Earl of Gowrie had been exceedingly beloved in the town of Perth, of which he was provost. His retainers, who had seen him fall, and probably knew nothing more than that he had been slain by the king's attendants, spread a wild alarm through the town, calling out, Murder and revenge! A furious multitude was speedily assembled, who ran headlong to Gowrie House; some carrying a large beam to be used as a battering-ram, others calling for powder to blow up the mansion; and all declaring that if their provost was not delivered to them in safety the king and his green-coats should smoke for it. The domestics of Gowrie were among the populace, calling loudly that they were all unworthy of such a provost who would not fight in revenge of his death. The moment seemed extremely critical; for the king's retinue had no weapons but hunting-knives, and especially had no firearms. The magistrates of the town, however, threw themselves among the rioters, and by their remonstrances assuaged their fury. The king himself spoke to them from the window gave some information of the circumstances in which he was placed, and succeeded in pacifying the tumult and dispersing the rioters. After all was quiet he returned to Falkland, having passed through a day of great peril and violent excitation.

The scene which had passed was of a most unintelligible description, and for a length of time nothing seemed to render it explicable. Henderson, who had played so strange and passive a part, surrendered on promise of pardon, but his evidence threw very little light upon the extraordinary transaction. According to his own account, he knew nothing earthly about the traitorous transaction to which he had so strangely been a witness. Three friends and servants of the Earl of Gowrie who had assisted him in his battles with the king's retinue, and were afterward officious and active in the tumult, were tried, condemned, and executed, pro-testing with their last breath they knew nothing about the transactions of the day further than that they took part with their master.

Viewed in every light, the conspiracy seemed to the public one of the darkest and most extraordinary which ever agitated the general mind; and it cannot be wondered that very different conclusions were formed concerning it. The king was particularly touched in point of honor in making good his own story ; but experienced no small difficulty from the mystery which hung over the bloody incident. Faction and religious prejudice lent their aid to disturb men's comprehension of what was in itself so mystical. Many doubted the king's report altogether, and conceived it more likely that the brothers should have fallen by some deceit on the part of the king and court, than that they should have attempted treason against the life or liberty of the sovereign in circumstances so very improbable. Many of the clergymen, particularly, continued to retain most absolute incredulity upon the subject; and he was thought no bad politician who found an evasion by saying that he believed the story because the king told it; but that he would not have given credit to his own eyes had he seen it.

The ministers of Edinburgh were peculiarly resolute in refusing to give avowed credit to the king's account of the conspiracy, and took the most public measures to show their incredulity. The council having required them to return solemn thanks from their pulpits for the deliverance of James, they excused themselves, saying that they had no acquaintance with the particulars of the danger which the king was said to have escaped. It was replied to them that their minute acquaintance with the affair was not necessary; it was enough for them to know that the king had been delivered from a great danger. They answered, with imperturbable pertinacity, that the pulpit being the chair of truth, nothing ought to be said from thence of which the speaker was not himself perfectly convinced. This mode of appealing to his subjects being intercepted, the king caused the privy council to appear in public at the market-cross, where the bishop of Ross, after a narrative of the king's danger and deliverance, expressed a public thanksgiving, in which the populace seemed frankly to join. On the Monday following, the king attended in person at the market-cross, where a sermon was preached by his own minister, Mr. Patrick Galloway, in which he dilated on all the particulars of the conspiracy. An order for a solemn and public thanks-giving on a day fixed was then sent forth, and the divines who should scruple to perform the duty of the day were threatened with banishment. Most of the recusants submitted, after some altercation. "You have heard me, you have heard my minister; what assurance can you desire more?" said the king.

"Your majesty," said one of these reverend men, "ought not to have been so hasty as to have slain the master of Ruthven upon the spot : you should have had the fear of Heaven before your eyes."

The king, irritated beyond patience, replied, "I tell thee, man, I had neither heaven nor hell before my eyes: I was in mortal fear of my life."

All the clergy at length submitted to the king's pleasure, except the Reverend Robert Bruce, who could be brought no further than to say he would reverence his majesty's reports of the accident ; but could not say he was persuaded of the truth of it. He was banished for his incredulity, and repaired to France.

The parliament, by giving the fullest credit to the king's account of the accident, may be supposed to have designed to console him for the incredulity of the clergy. They heard the witnesses upon the trial, and not only pronounced sentence of forfeiture against the deceased brothers, but disinherited their whole posterity, and proscribed the very name of Ruthven. Honorable rewards and titles were bestowed on Sir Thomas Erskine, Sir John Ramsay, and Sir Hugh Harris, who had been the instruments of James's preservation. Alms were dispersed, and every other means adopted which could impress upon the people the reality of the king's danger and the sincerity of his gratitude to Heaven for a providential deliverance. But it is an observation of Tacitus that one of the misfortunes of princes is that conspiracies against them are not believed until they are carried into fatal effect.

A considerable party in James's kingdom, thinking, perhaps, better of his audacity and worse of his morals than either the one or the other deserved, still refused to believe that the king's danger had been real, or the death of Gowrie and his brother on the memorable 5th of August excusable. Their arguments rested upon the string of improbabilities of which it is impossible to divest the story, and which, indeed, can only be refuted by opposing to them the greater difficulties which attend the embracing a different solution. It was said to be grossly improbable that, meditating so violent an action, a principal part should have been intrusted to a man like Henderson, totally unacquainted with the deep purpose in which he was engaged, and, as it appeared, of too vacillating and hesitating a character to give the support required and expected; it was noticed that his evidence, though in general it agreed with the narrative of James himself, differed, as we have already observed, in some more minute particulars.

It was also remarked that, supposing the conspiracy to be real, every circumstance necessary to carry it into effect was left unprovided till the very last moment. The key of the gallery chamber, the designed place of the attack on the king's person, had to be sought for only an hour or two be-fore James's arrival at Perth; and so little preparation seemed to be made for any deed of violence that, when Ruthven wanted to intimidate James into submission, he was obliged to snatch out Henderson's dagger, having no weapon of his own but a walking rapier. Their train were no less unprovided. Craigengelt, Lord Gowrie's steward, sought his own room and his master's ere he could light on the two-handed sword which he used in the fray. In short, all was so ill prepared that huntsmen might be said to take more pre-caution and make greater preparation for destroying a stag than these men thought necessary to the murder of a king.

Others have been disposed to allow a hypothesis, inferring that Alexander Ruthven, actuated by some wild passion of his own, was actually guilty of the attack upon the king's person, but that his brother was not conscious of it, nor accessory to it. They who hold this opinion insist that the earl's own conduct is to he very naturally explained by the circumstances as they arose. When Sir Thomas Erskine, say they, assailed the Earl of Gowrie before the gate of his house, nothing was so natural as that he should shake him off, or that, having freed himself from Erskine's gripe, he should attempt to regain his own castle; or, finally, that, finding his brother's dead body lying across the threshold, the earl should have attempted to revenge it upon those of the king's retinue whom he found with hands and swords bloody from the recent slaughter. They found, too, on these the minute circumstance of Gowrie's death; and remark, that when he was charged with the king's murder he sunk his sword's point in astonishment, and omitted to parry the fatal thrust which was in that moment dealt to him.

We shall mention what occurs in confutation of this last hypothesis, before noticing the opinion of those who deem both brothers alike innocent.

The conduct of Alexander Ruthven, mysterious enough under any circumstances, approaches the verge of madness, if we suppose him acting without instructions and the cooperation of Gowrie. What end could his conspiracy in such a case have aimed at? If merely to the king's death, many modes of effecting it would have been preferable to doing the deed in a house not his own, and where the only servant whom he could get to assist him in the execution was of such a complexion as Henderson, alike ignorant of the conspiracy and without the will to assist him in it.

If it was Alexander Ruthven's only object to deprive the king of his liberty, what benefit could he have derived, or by what force have executed such a purpose? If we suppose him to have acted alone in the affair, we can only suppose his motive to have been Some sudden fit of insanity; a supposition not to be resorted to when any less violent mode of solution remains.

But ceasing to argue upon presumptions, there is positive evidence enough in the case to show that the Earl of Gowrie was acquainted with, and consequently the principal conductor of, the whole of the enterprise. This appears from the following circumstances of real evidence: First, when Henderson brought word to the Earl of Gowrie that the king was coming with a small train to dine with him, he told him nothing but what Gowrie seemed to expect. He questioned Henderson how the king received Alexander, and seemed well acquainted with his brother's morning expedition to Falkland. Yet, instead of making provision to receive the intended honor, he commanded his own dinner to be served up, and made no preparations for that of the king; evidently to impress upon all who should witness this event the idea that the king arrived at Gowrie House totally unexpected by the owner. Secondly, it was Gowrie himself who commanded the key of the gallery chamber to be produced; and it was he, no less, by whose orders Henderson put on his armor, and attended upon the commands of Alexander Ruthven, by whom he was placed in the fatal closet; he was, therefore, active in preparing the scene, and disposing the actors in the drama which followed. Lastly, the conduct of the Earl of Gowrie, at the moment when Lennox and the other lords arose from table, was decisive, as to his acquaintance with and accession to the conspiracy. He imposed upon them a story that the king had withdrawn for an interval, and led them into the garden, where presently afterward a cry arose that the king was already on horse-back, and half way through the Inch on his return to Falk-land.

It is remarkable that Mr. Thomas Cranstoun was the most active in propagating this false report. On hisexamination he stated that he caught it up from some persons who were buzzing such a rumor around him; but it is more probable he received it from the earl himself. At least it is certain that when Gowrie's porter contradicted the report of the king having gone off, the earl was very angry with his servant, and continued to assert that the king was gone, having passed through a small postern-gate. Contradicted in this circumstantial falsehood, also, the Earl of Gowrie undertook to procure the lords genuine information of the king's motions, and ran, under that pretext, into the castle; and although he neither did nor could have seen the king, who was at that moment grappling with his brother, he returned to his guests, who were becoming anxious, with the positive assurance that James had actually left the castle. This chain of real evidence plainly evinces that the Earl of Gowrie was apprised of his brother's conspiracy, and took measures, in turn, for disguising its commencement, and for carrying through the perpetration. If he had succeeded in his last attempt, to get rid, namely, of the king's retinue, the coast would have been clear, for an hour at least ; and that space would have been time enough to dispose of 'ais majesty's person in the manner which it is most probable the conspirators had in view.

More generally, if we incline to disbelieve King James's account of the Gowrie conspiracy, we shall find ourselves obliged to adopt a system beset by more and greater improbabilities, and far less supported by anything like evidence. Some scraps of tradition are indeed quoted as contradictory of the king's report, and there are two or three incoherences in the evidence, as we have endeavored to show is often the case where various eye-witnesses give an account of the same agitating scene; but what species of suppositions are we to receive if we are to adopt the idea that the king was laying a snare for Gowrie and Alexander Ruthven, instead of his being exposed to one at their hands? We must suppose that a monarch remarkable for timidity, and by no means thirsty of blood, had devised a scheme for murdering two noble individuals to whose whole family, and especially to themselves personally, he had shown great marks of favor. For the execution of this purpose, we must hold James to have repaired suddenly to Cowrie House, a strong building, filled with the servants of the earl, and situated in a town where he was provost, and greatly beloved by the citizens. Far from selecting any part of his train, a few attendants_ follow him at random, with their hunting equipage and armed only with hangers for hunting. Was this a retinue with which James, or a much more valiant man, would have thought of attempting the slaughter of two noblemen? Such an idea cannot be entertained without reversing every notion which we have, not only of James's constitutional timidity and the natural lenity and humanity of his disposition, but of his common sense and share in the instinct of self-preservation.

The argument founded on the absurdity of the accusation might be carried still further; for how is it possible to account for the king's going apart, without an attendant, into the recesses of an unknown house, himself the sole companion of one of the men whom he meant to murder, who, as it is proved, was supported by a retainer in complete armor, the king himself not having even a sword at his side? These are suppositions too gross to be admitted. Again, if we admit the conspiracy to have been the king's stratagem, we must suppose the Earl of Gowrie to have been the object of the royal hatred in the principal degree, and his death chiefly intended. Yet the earl's death happened only incidentally, in the course of a general brawl, which might either never have happened or have terminated in a very different manner; and he must resign the Gowrie conspiracy as totally inexplicable who shall decline to receive the account given by the king himself.

Nine years after the death of the two brethren, a discovery was made which seemed tolerably to prove the general scope and tendency of the plot, though it leaves in uncertainty the nature of those machinations by which it was to be accomplished.

One Sprot, a notary, who appears to have been a busy, intermeddling man, suffered it to be understood through some oblique hints, by which persons of his character love to indicate that they are wiser than their neighbors, that he was acquainted with matters relating to the Gowrie conspiracy. Being seized and examined before the privy council, he made the following deposition, which was partly voluntary, partly extorted by torture. Logan of Restal Rig, a person of a wild, fierce, turbulent disposition and dissolute morals, had, according to Sprot, been in correspondence and intimacy with Cowrie during the whole concoction of the conspiracy, and had been privy to it in every stage,

The fortress called Fastcastle is a strength which then belonged to Logan, and overhangs the German Ocean, occupying almost the whole projecting cliff on which it stands ; connected with the land by a very narrow path, and of such security that, manned with a score of desperate men, it must in those days have been impregnable, save by famine. Logan, who had squandered away a large estate, designed, by means of this fortress, to recover his wealth, or obtain an ample indemnification; he was, therefore, according to Sprot's account, deeply engaged in desperate schemes. He wrote five letters, three of them without any direction, one to Gowrie, and one to an old man called Laird Bour, who was trusted with this dangerous secret. Being ignorant himself of the art of writing and reading, this Bour was in the custom of carrying to Sprot such letters and papers as he was charged with, for the sake of learning the con-tents; and the busy notary was unable to resist the temptation of stealing from the laird the five letters which concerned the conspiracy, They are written half in an earnest and passionate, half in a species of satirical or drolling style. Mention is made of revenge to be had for the death of Graysteel, a name given to the Earl of Gowrie's father, beheaded at Stirling in 1584: the strength of Fastcastle is commended; "in which," says Logan, whose principles we may estimate by his friendships, "I have sheltered the Earl of Bothwell in his greatest necessities, let the king and council say what they would." Allusion is made to an important captive; to a signal to be made by a vessel and answered from the castle, with several other hints, which were, doubtless, distinctly understood between the parties. Above all, secrecy was recommended, and the burning of such letters as should pass on the subject. It is singular to remark that, in spite of Logan's repeated cautions on this subject, and no less in spite of the closeness and reserve of the Earl of Gowrie, who the thought most conspiracies failed by being intrusted to confidants, the impertinent curiosity of a newsmonger like Sprot, and the stupid carelessness of an old fool like Bour, were the means of preserving these letters of such deadly import.

According to the tenor of the correspondence, and the explanations of Sprot, the king, being secured in Gowrie Castle, was to be embarked upon the Tay, and the vessel which bore him, standing out of that estuary, was to make Fastcastle, on the coast of Berwickshire, and there to land the king as in a place of safe custody. The eventual intention, no doubt, must have been to have delivered him into the hands of Elizabeth, who had always been desirous of exercising sovereignty in Scotland. Perhaps she desired little more than that the brothers, attached by principles and family descent to the English interest, should renew the attempt to secure the king's person, and conduct his administration thereafter according to their own pleasure, always subservient to her interest. This was the part which their father endeavored to act, encouraged also by the queen of England; and although he had failed in it, Elizabeth still continued to regard his memory with respect, to protect his accomplices, and to be generous to his family. If we look at the attempt of the brethren as connected with some such issue as we have stated, it removes a great part of the difficulty and obscurity attending the conspiracy. If the king was only to be secured, not slain, the brothers might have the better reason to rely upon the assistance of Henderson. He does not appear to have been, in ordinary circumstances, a man of irresolution, having been in the habit of being employed by Gowrie in arrests and other dangerous services. Little more seems to have been expected of him than that he should have looked bold, and by the terrors of his armed presence should have intimidated the king into silence. We can easily conceive that the brothers, judging from James's ordinary character, might have expected that the king would have been browbeaten into submission more easily than they found to be the case; and that the courage with which James behaved himself was as unexpected as the extremity of Henderson's consternation and hesitation. Alexander Ruthven seems, from the expressions he used, to have reckoned on this man's assistance in the moment of the struggle. If James had come, as Ruthven desired, altogether without followers, or if Gowrie had succeeded in dismissing the royal retinue, there could have been little difficulty in executing the rest of the plot : the condemned turnpike, or secret stair, so often mentioned, would have given access to the gardens of the castle stretching down to the river Tay; the king might have been conveyed to the water's edge without difficulty, and placed in a well-manned boat. With wind and tide to favor her voyage, the vessel in which he was embarked might have soon left the Tay and reached the fortress of Fastcastle, engrafted, as it were, upon the precipitous rocks which stretch north-ward from St. Abb's Head. The issue of the enterprise must have been under the management of Elizabeth.

But ere this explanation of their mysterious schemes had been afforded, the two brethren had been slain, and Logan, and Bour, his messenger, had been long dead. The discovery of these letters, however, occasioned some singular law proceedings; nor did the memory of Logan escape prosecution for treason, as if even the grave could not protect those who were liable to be charged with this state crime. A peculiar process, borrowed from the civil code, was used on such occasions. In order to satisfy the letter of the law, ordaining that each party accused of high treason should be present upon his trial and conviction, a legal fiction introduced the production in open court of the dead body, or the bones of the accused person, in order to obtain conviction against him. Under these ghastly circumstances, the memory of Logan was attainted of treason. His estate was forfeited; and as some property near Edinburgh, which formerly had belonged to him, was afterward found in possession of the Earl of Murray, a cry has been raised, as if Logan's letters, found in Sprot's possession, must have been forged, in order to procure the means of enriching a favorite courtier. Later researches have proved this to be wellnigh impossible; for the operations of the law, enforcing the demands of creditors, had stripped Logan of his large possessions before his death, and left none to tempt the cupidity of the crown; there is little room, therefore, to challenge the authenticity of these letters, though the circumstances of their preservation are so singular and extraordinary.

Sprot's idle curiosity proved fatal to himself : he was brought to trial upon a charge of having concealed the treasonable enterprise, the knowledge of which he had so strangely become possessed f. He was condemned to die for this misprision of treason, and was executed. He adhered to his confession to the last; and to give the people a sign that it was true, he even in his mortal agony clapped his hands three times, after he was thrown off, on the gibbet. This last circumstance is attested by the historian Spottiswoode, who, nevertheless, seems very sceptical upon the subject of Sprot and his discoveries. However, as the reverend historian chiefly rests his incredulity on the improbability that a youth of Gowrie's character would unite with such a man as Logan was known to be, his argument would carry him further than he intended. Having admitted that Cowrie was actually engaged in a conspiracy, the inference must be that he was necessarily obliged to stoop to communicate with the desperate or depraved characters whose agency was necessary to carry it on. Treason, like misery, makes a man acquainted with strange companions. Leaving this dark metter to time and the further researches of antiquaries, we return to what remains to be said of the HISTORY OF SCOTLAND VOL. 2.

King James, about the commencement of the seventeenth century, undertook an object of considerable policy, which would have rendered great honor to his memory had he been able to achieve it. The Highlands, torn to pieces during the civil war by domestic feuds, were become as lawless as they had been for many ages; and to add to the confusion which their wildness occasioned, the state of the Hebrides was still more savage than that of the mainland. James VI., as a wise prince, was desirous of finding a remedy for this increasing evil: but a better did not occur to the king and his counsellors than to commit the task of civilizing the islands to associations of gentlemen, chiefly proprietors in Fife, with their friends and kinsfolk, who undertook to settle in the Lewis, Uist, and other isles convenient for the fisheries, where these gentlemen, called the Undertakers, proposed to expel or subdue the natives, to build towns, to cultivate manufactories, and to do all that could have the effect of introducing civilization into these wild regions. Amid all this, it was never asked who were the patriarchal chiefs to whom the country belonged, or by what authority the king gave away, or the Fife undertakers accepted, the settlements of the Hebrides? Most of them, no doubt, might be liable to a doom of forfeiture; but it was for transgressing laws of which they had never known the tenor or experienced the benefit, and of which, therefore, they ought not to have experienced the rigor. But the rights of the natives were as little thought of as if the settlement intended had been in India or America, and the persons who were to be dispossessed had been savage heathens. The undertakers, there-fore, proceeded on their adventure, without troubling them-selves with any doubt upon the subject of the real right of property. _