James VI And The Gowrie Mystery - free ebook by Andrew Lang

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James VI And The Gowrie Mystery

Andrew Lang

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JAMES VI and THE GOWRIE MYSTERY

JAMES VI and THE GOWRIE MYSTERY

by ANDREW LANG with gowrie’s coat of arms in colour , 2 photogravure portraits and other illustrations LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 39 paternoster row , london new york and bombay 1902 All rights reserved to THE LADY CECILY BAILLIE-HAMILTON this inquiry is gratefully dedicated...

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INTRODUCTION

INTRODUCTION

An old Scottish lady, four generations ago, used to say, ‘It is a great comfort to think that, at the Day of Judgment, we shall know the whole truth about the Gowrie Conspiracy at last.’ Since the author, as a child, read ‘The Tales of a Grandfather,’ and shared King Jamie’s disappointment when there was no pot of gold, but an armed man, in the turret, he had supposed that we do know all about the Gowrie Conspiracy, that it was a plot to capture the King, carry him to Fastcastle, and ‘see how t

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I. THE MYSTERY AND THE EVIDENCE

I. THE MYSTERY AND THE EVIDENCE

There are enigmas in the annals of most peoples; riddles put by the Sphinx of the Past to the curious of the new generations. These questions do not greatly concern the scientific historian, who is busy with constitution-making, statistics, progress, degeneration, in short with human evolution. These high matters, these streams of tendency, form the staple of history, but the problems of personal character and action still interest some inquiring minds. Among these enigmas nearly the most obs

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II. THE SLAUGHTER OF THE RUTHVENS

II. THE SLAUGHTER OF THE RUTHVENS

In the month of August 1600 his Majesty the King of Scotland, James, sixth of that name, stood in more than common need of the recreation of the chase. Things had been going contrary to his pleasure in all directions. ‘His dearest sister,’ Queen Elizabeth (as he pathetically said), seemed likely ‘to continue as long as Sun or Moon,’ and was in the worst of humours. Her minister, Cecil, was apparently more ill disposed towards the Scottish King than usual, while the minister’s rival, the Earl

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III. THE KING’S OWN NARRATIVE

III. THE KING’S OWN NARRATIVE

So far we have not gained any light on the occurrences of the mysterious interval between the moment when the King and Alexander Ruthven passed alone through the hall, after dinner, up the great staircase, and the moment when the King cried ‘Treason!’ out of the turret window. In the nature of the case, the Master being for ever silent, only James could give evidence on the events of this interval, James and one other man , of whose presence in the turret we have hitherto said little, as only o

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IV. THE KING’S NARRATIVE—II. THE MAN IN THE TURRET

IV. THE KING’S NARRATIVE—II. THE MAN IN THE TURRET

We left James entering the little ‘round,’ or ‘study,’ the turret chamber. Here, at last, he expected to find the captive and the pot of gold. And here the central mystery of his adventure began. His Majesty saw standing, ‘with a very abased countenance, not a bondman but a freeman, with a dagger at his girdle.’ Ruthven locked the door, put on his hat, drew the man’s dagger, and held the point to the King’s breast, ‘ avowing now that the King behoved to be at his will , and used as he list ;

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V. HENDERSON’S NARRATIVE

V. HENDERSON’S NARRATIVE

The man in the turret had vanished like a ghost. Henderson, on the day after the tragedy, was also not to be found. Like certain Ruthvens, Hew Moncrieff, Eviot, and others, who had fought in the death-chamber, or been distinguished in the later riot, Henderson had fled. He was, though a retainer of Gowrie, a member of the Town Council of Perth, and ‘chamberlain,’ or ‘factor,’ of the lands of Scone, then held by Gowrie from the King. To find any one who had seen him during the tumult was diff

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VI. THE STRANGE CASE OF MR. ROBERT OLIPHANT

VI. THE STRANGE CASE OF MR. ROBERT OLIPHANT

Suppose that men like the Ruthvens, great and potent nobles, had secretly invited their retainer, Andrew Henderson, to take the rôle of the armed man in the turret, what could Henderson have done? Such proposals as this were a danger dreaded even by the most powerful. Thus, in March 1562, James Hepburn, the wicked Earl of Bothwell, procured, through John Knox, a reconciliation with his feudal enemy, Arran. The brain of Arran was already, it seems, impaired. A few days after the reconciliatio

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VII. THE CONTEMPORARY RUTHVEN VINDICATION

VII. THE CONTEMPORARY RUTHVEN VINDICATION

We now come to the evidence which is most fatally damaging to the two unfortunate Ruthvens. It is the testimony of their contemporary Vindication. Till a date very uncertain, a tradition hung about Perth that some old gentlemen remembered having seen a Vindication of the Ruthvens; written at the time of the events. [80] Antiquaries vainly asked each other for copies of this valuable apology. Was it printed, and suppressed by Royal order? Did it circulate only in manuscript? In 1812 a Mr. P

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VIII. THE THEORY OF AN ACCIDENTAL BRAWL

VIII. THE THEORY OF AN ACCIDENTAL BRAWL

So far, the King’s narrative is least out of keeping with probability. But had James been insulted, menaced, and driven to a personal struggle, as he declared? Is the fact not that, finding himself alone with Ruthven, and an armed man (or no armed man, if you believe that none was there), James lost his nerve, and cried ‘Treason!’ in mere panic? The rest followed from the hot blood of the three courtiers, and the story of James was invented, after the deaths of the Gowries, to conceal the trut

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IX. CONTEMPORARY CLERICAL CRITICISM

IX. CONTEMPORARY CLERICAL CRITICISM

The most resolute sceptics as to the guilt of the Ruthvens were the Edinburgh preachers. They were in constant opposition to the King, and the young Gowrie was their favourite nobleman. As to what occurred when the news of the tragedy reached Edinburgh, early on July 6, we have the narrative of Mr. Robert Bruce, then the leader of the Presbyterians. His own version is printed in the first volume of the Bannatyne Club Miscellany, and is embodied, with modifications, and without acknowledgment

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X. POPULAR CRITICISM OF THE DAY

X. POPULAR CRITICISM OF THE DAY

Calderwood has preserved for us the objections taken by sceptics to the King’s narrative. [111] First, the improbability of a murderous conspiracy, by youths so full of promise and Presbyterianism as Gowrie and his brother. To Gowrie’s previous performances we return later. The objection against a scheme of murder hardly applies to a plan for kidnapping a King who was severe against the Kirk. The story of the pot of gold, and the King’s desire to inspect it and the captive who bore it, perso

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XI. THE KING AND THE RUTHVENS

XI. THE KING AND THE RUTHVENS

Having criticised the contemporary criticism of the Gowrie affair, we must look back, and examine the nature of Gowrie’s ancestral and personal relations with James before the day of calamity. There were grounds enough for hatred between the King and the Earl, whether such hatred existed or not, in a kind of hereditary feud, and in political differences. As against James’s grandmother, Mary of Guise, the grandfather of Gowrie, Lord Ruthven, had early joined the Reformers, who opposed her in ar

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XII. LOGAN OF RESTALRIG

XII. LOGAN OF RESTALRIG

We now arrive at an extraordinary sequel of the Gowrie mystery: a sequel in which some critics have seen final and documentary proof of the guilt of the Ruthvens. Others have remarked only a squalid intrigue, whereby James’s ministers threw additional disgrace on their master. That they succeeded in disgracing themselves, we shall make only too apparent, but if the evidence which they handled proves nothing against the Ruthvens, it does not on that account invalidate the inferences which we ha

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XIII. THE SECRETS OF SPROT

XIII. THE SECRETS OF SPROT

The final and deepest mystery of the mysterious Gowrie affair rises, like a mist from a marsh, out of these facts concerning Sprot. When he was convicted, and hanged, persisting in his confessions, on August 12, 1608, no letters by Gowrie, or any other conspirator, were produced in Court. Extracts, however, of a letter from Gowrie to Logan, and of one from Logan to Gowrie, were quoted in Sprot’s formal Indictment. They were also quoted in an official publication, an account of Sprot’s case, p

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XIV. THE LAIRD AND THE NOTARY

XIV. THE LAIRD AND THE NOTARY

We have now to track Sprot through the labyrinth of his confessions and evasions, as attested by the authentic reports of his private examinations between July 5 and the day of his death. It will be observed that, while insisting on his own guilt, and on that of Logan, he produced no documentary evidence, no genuine letter attributed by him to Logan, nothing but his own confessed forgeries, till the cord was almost round his neck—if he did then. In his confessions he paints with sordid and squa

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XV. THE FINAL CONFESSIONS OF THE NOTARY

XV. THE FINAL CONFESSIONS OF THE NOTARY

On July 16, Sprot was again examined. Spottiswoode, Archbishop of Glasgow, the historian, was present, on this occasion only, with Dunfermline, Dunbar, Sir Thomas Hamilton, Hart, and other nobles and officials. None of them signs the record, which, in this case only, is merely attested by the signature of Primrose, the Clerk of Council, one of Lord Rosebery’s family. In this session Sprot said nothing about forging the letters. The Archbishop was not to know. Asked if he had any more reminis

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XVI. WHAT IS LETTER IV?

XVI. WHAT IS LETTER IV?

The crucial question now arises, What is Letter IV ? If it be genuine (in substance), then, whatever the details of the Gowrie Conspiracy may have been, a conspiracy there was. This can only be denied by ignorance. If the enterprise fails, says the author of Letter IV, the plotters will lose their lives, their lands and houses will be ‘wrecked,’ their very names will be extirpated; and, in fact, James did threaten to extirpate the name of Ruthven. The letter deliberately means High Treason.

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XVII. INFERENCES AS TO THE CASKET LETTERS

XVII. INFERENCES AS TO THE CASKET LETTERS

The affair of Sprot has an obvious bearing on that other mystery, the authenticity of the Casket Letters attributed to Queen Mary. As we know, she, though accused, was never allowed to see the letters alleged to be hers. We know that, in December 1568, these documents were laid before an assembly of English nobles at Hampton Court. They were compared, for orthography and handwriting, with genuine letters written by the Queen to Elizabeth, and Cecil tells us that ‘no difference was found.’ It

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APPENDIX A. THE FRONTISPIECE

APPENDIX A. THE FRONTISPIECE

Gowrie’s Arms and Ambitions The frontispiece of this volume is copied from the design of the Earl of Gowrie’s arms, in what is called ‘Workman’s MS.,’ at the Lyon’s office in Edinburgh. The shield displays, within the royal treasure, the arms of Ruthven in the first and fourth, those of Cameron and Halyburton in the second and third quarters. The supporters are, dexter, a Goat; sinister, a Ram; the crest is a Ram’s head. The motto is not given; it was Deid Schaw . The shield is blotted by tr

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APPENDIX B: THE CONTEMPORARY RUTHVEN VINDICATION

APPENDIX B: THE CONTEMPORARY RUTHVEN VINDICATION

(State Papers, Scotland (Elizabeth), vol. lxvi. No. 52) The verie maner of the Erll of Gowrie and his brother their death, quha war killit at Perth the fyft of August by the kingis servanttis his Matie being present. Vpone thurisday the last of July . . . . Perth from Strebrane . . . . bene ahunting accompainit wth . . . . purpose to have ridden to . . . . mother. Bot he had no sooner . . . . aspersauit fyn . . . . vpone such . . . . addressit thame selffis . . . thay continewit daylie . . . A

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APPENDIX C. FIVE LETTERS FORGED BY SPROT, AS FROM LOGAN

APPENDIX C. FIVE LETTERS FORGED BY SPROT, AS FROM LOGAN

[ Preserved in the General Register House , Edinburgh ] (1) Robert Logan of Restalrig to . . . Rycht Honorabill Sir,—My dewty with servise remembred. Pleise yow onderstand, my Lo. of Gowry and some vtheris his Lo. frendis and veill villeris, qha tendaris his Lo. better preferment, ar vpon the resolucion ye knaw, for the revenge of that cawse; and his Lo. hes vrettin to me anent that purpose, qhairto I vill accorde, incase ye vill stand to and beir a part: and befoir ye resolve, meet me and M.A.

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