At the stables, hacks were discarded, hunters were led out,

Transcribed from the 1902 Longmans, Green, and Co. edition by David

Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org

[Picture: The Gowrie Coat of Arms. In the 'Workman' MS.]

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

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 the country would take it,' as in the case of the Gunpowder Plot.

But just as Father Gerard has tried to show that the Gunpowder affair may

have been Cecil's plot, so modern historians doubt whether the Gowrie

mystery was not a conspiracy by King James himself. Mr. Hume Brown

appears rather to lean to this opinion, in the second volume of his

'History of Scotland,' and Dr. Masson, in his valuable edition of the

'Register of the Privy Council,' is also dubious. Mr. Louis Barbe, in

his 'Tragedy of Gowrie House,' holds a brief against the King. Thus I

have been tempted to study this 'auld misterie' afresh, and have

convinced myself that such historians as Sir Walter Scott, Mr. Frazer

Tytler, and Mr. Hill Burton were not wrong; the plot was not the King's

conspiracy, but the desperate venture of two very young men. The precise

object remains obscure in detail, but the purpose was probably to see how

a deeply discontented Kirk and country 'would take it.'

In working at this fascinatingly mysterious puzzle, I have made use of

manuscript materials hitherto uncited. The most curious of these, the

examinations and documents of the 'country writer,' Sprot, had been

briefly summarised in Sir William Fraser's 'Memorials of the Earls of

Haddington.' My attention was drawn to this source by the Rev. John

Anderson, of the General Register House, who aided Sir William Fraser in

the compilation of his book. The Earl of Haddington generously permitted

me to have copies made of the documents, which Lady Cecily

Baillie-Hamilton was kind enough to search for and rediscover in an

enormous mass of documents bequeathed by the learned first Earl.

On reading the Calendars of the Hatfield MSS. I had observed that several

letters by the possible conspirator, Logan of Restalrig, were in the

possession of the Marquis of Salisbury, who was good enough to permit

photographs of some specimens to be taken. These were compared, by Mr.

Anderson, with the alleged plot-letters of Logan at Edinburgh; while

photographs of the plot-letters were compared with Logan's authentic

letters at Hatfield, by Mr. Gunton, to whose acuteness and energy I owe

the greatest gratitude. The results of the comparison settle the riddle

of three centuries.

The other hitherto unused manuscripts are in no more recondite place than

the Record Office in London, and I do not know how they managed to escape

the notice of previous writers on the subject. To Dr. Masson's 'Register

of the Privy Council' I am indebted for the sequel of the curious

adventure of Mr. Robert Oliphant, whose part in the mystery, hitherto

overlooked, is decisive, if we accept the evidence--a point on which the

reader must form his own opinion. For copies made at the Record Office I

have to thank the care and accuracy of Miss E. M. Thompson.

To Mr. Anderson's learning and zest in this 'longest and sorest chase'

(as King James called his hunt on the morning of the fatal August 5) I am

under the deepest obligations. The allurements of a romantic conclusion

have never tempted him to leave the strait path of historical

impartiality.

I have also to thank Mr. Henry Paton for his careful copies of the

Haddington MSS., extracts from the Treasurer's accounts, and other

researches.

For permission to reproduce the picture of Fastcastle by the Rev. Mr.

Thomson of Duddingston, I have to thank the kindness of Mrs.

Blackwood-Porter. The painting, probably of about 1820, when compared

with the photograph of to-day, shows the destruction wrought by wind and

weather in the old fortalice.

My obligations to Sir James Balfour Paul (Lyon King of Arms) for

information on points of Heraldry ought to be gratefully acknowledged.

Since this book was written, the author has had an opportunity to read an

Apology for the Ruthvens by the late Andrew Bisset. This treatise is apt

to escape observation: it is entitled 'Sir Walter Scott,' and occupies

pp. 172-303 in 'Essays on Historical Truth,' long out of print. {0a} On

many points Mr. Bisset agreed with Mr. Barbe in his 'Tragedy of Gowrie

House,' and my replies to Mr. Barbe serve for his predecessor. But Mr.

Bisset found no evidence that the King had formed a plot against Gowrie.

By a modification of the contemporary conjecture of Sir William Bowes he

suggested that a brawl between the King and the Master of Ruthven

occurred in the turret, occasioned by an atrocious insult offered to the

Master by the King. This hypothesis, for various reasons, does not

deserve discussion. Mr. Bisset appeared to attribute the Sprot papers to

the combined authorship of the King and Sir Thomas Hamilton: which our

new materials disprove. A critic who, like Mr. Bisset, accused the King

of poisoning Prince Henry, and many other persons, was not an

unprejudiced historian.

CONTENTS

PAGE

INTRODUCTION vii

I. THE MYSTERY AND THE EVIDENCE 1

II. THE SLAUGHTER OF THE RUTHVENS 11

III. THE KING'S OWN NARRATIVE 35

IV. THE KING'S NARRATIVE. II 55

V. HENDERSON'S NARRATIVE 60

VI. THE STRANGE CASE OF MR. ROBERT OLIPHANT 71

VII. THE CONTEMPORARY RUTHVEN VINDICATION 80

VIII. THE THEORY OF AN ACCIDENTAL BRAWL 94

IX. CONTEMPORARY CLERICAL CRITICISM 99

X. POPULAR CRITICISM OF THE DAY 111

XI. THE KING AND THE RUTHVENS 118

XII. LOGAN OF RESTALRIG 148

XIII. THE SECRETS OF SPROT 168

XIV. THE LAIRD AND THE NOTARY 182

XV. THE FINAL CONFESSIONS OF THE NOTARY 201

XVI. WHAT IS LETTER IV? 232

XVII. INFERENCES AS TO THE CASKET LETTERS 240

_APPENDICES_

A. THE FRONTISPIECE 245

B. THE CONTEMPORARY RUTHVEN VINDICATION 252

C. FIVE LETTERS FORGED BY SPROT, AS FROM LOGAN 257

INDEX 265

ILLUSTRATIONS

_IN COLOURS_

GOWRIE'S COAT OF ARMS _Frontispiece_

_PHOTOGRAVURES_

JAMES VI. _to face p._ 4

_From the picture painted by Paul Van Somer_

(1621) _now in the National Portrait Gallery_

QUEEN ANNE 138

_From a painting by Paul Van Somer in Queen Anne's

Room_, _St. James's Palace_

_OTHER ILLUSTRATIONS_

FALKLAND PALACE 33

_From a Photograph by J. Valentine & Sons_,

_Dundee_

DIRLETON CASTLE 82

_From a Photograph by J. Valentine & Sons_,

_Dundee_

FALKLAND PALACE: THE COURTYARD 116

_From a Photograph by J. Valentine & Sons_,

_Dundee_

RESTALRIG HOUSE 150

_From a Photograph by W. J. Hay_, _Edinburgh_

RESTALRIG VILLAGE 150

_From a Photograph by W. J. Hay_, _Edinburgh_

FASTCASTLE (_circ._ 1820) 154

_From a picture by the Rev. Mr. Thomson_, _of

Duddingston_, _in the possession of Mrs.

Blackwood-Porter_

FASTCASTLE _to face p._ 176

_From a Photograph by J. Valentine & Sons_,

_Dundee_

FASTCASTLE

_From a Photograph by J. Valentine & Sons_,

_Dundee_

HANDWRITING OF LOGAN (_January_ 1585-6) 196

HAND OF LOGAN AS FORGED BY SPROT (second page of 202

Letter IV)

HANDWRITING OF SPROT (_July_ 5, 1608) 210

_PLANS_

SITUATION AND TOPOGRAPHY OF GOWRIE HOUSE 15

INTERIOR OF GOWRIE HOUSE 16

THE GALLERY CHAMBER AND THE TURRET, GOWRIE HOUSE 59

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 obscure, 'The Gowrie Conspiracy,' is our topic.

This affair is one of the haunting mysteries of the past, one of the

problems that nobody has solved. The events occurred in 1600, but the

interest which they excited was so keen that belief in the guilt or

innocence of the two noble brothers who perished in an August afternoon,

was a party shibboleth in the Wars of the Saints against the Malignants,

the strife of Cavaliers and Roundheads. The problem has ever since

attracted the curious, as do the enigma of Perkin Warbeck, the true

character of Richard III, the real face behind 'The Iron Mask,' the

identity of the False Pucelle, and the innocence or guilt of Mary Stuart.

In certain respects the Gowrie mystery is necessarily less attractive

than that of 'the fairest and most pitiless Queen on earth.' There is no

woman in the story. The world, of course, when the Ruthvens died, at

once acted on the maxim, _cherchez la femme_. The woman in the case, men

said, was the beautiful Queen, Anne of Denmark, wife of James VI. That

fair and frivolous dame, 'very very woman,' certainly did her best, by

her behaviour, to encourage the belief that she was the cause of these

sorrows. Even so, when the Bonny Earl Moray--the tallest and most

beautiful man in Scotland--died like a lion dragged down by wolves, the

people sang:

He was a brave gallant,

And he rode at the ring,

And the Bonny Earl Moray,

He might have been the King.

He was a brave gallant,

And he rode at the glove,

And the Bonny Earl Moray

He was the Queen's love.

On one side was a beautiful Queen mated with James VI, a pedant and a

clown. On the other side were, first the Bonny Earl, then the Earl of

Gowrie, both young, brave, handsome, both suddenly slain by the King's

friends: none knew why. The opinion of the godly, of the Kirk, of the

people, and even of politicians, leaped to the erroneous conclusion that

the young men perished, like Konigsmarck, because they were beautiful and

beloved, and because the Queen was fair and kind, and the King was ugly,

treacherous, and jealous. The rumour also ran, at least in tradition,

that Gowrie 'might have been the King,' an idea examined in Appendix A.

Here then was an explanation of the slaying of the Ruthvens on the lines

dear to romance. The humorous King Jamie (who, if he was not always

sensible, at least treated his flighty wife with abundance of sense) had

to play the part of King Mark of Cornwall to Gowrie's Sir Tristram. For

this theory, we shall show, no evidence exists, and, in 'looking for the

woman,' fancy found two men. The Queen was alternately said to love

Gowrie, and to love his brother, the Master of Ruthven, a lad of

nineteen--if she did not love both at once. It is curious that the

affair did not give rise to ballads; if it did, none has reached us.

In truth there was no woman in the case, and this of course makes the

mystery much less exciting than that of Mary Stuart, for whom so many

swords and pens have been drawn. The interest of character and of love

is deficient. Of Gowrie's character, and even of his religion, apart

from his learning and fascination, we really know almost nothing. Did he

cherish that strongest and most sacred of passions, revenge; had he

brooded over it in Italy, where revenge was subtler and craftier than in

Scotland? Did this passion blend with the vein of fanaticism in his

nature? Had he been biding his time, and dreaming, over sea, boyish

dreams of vengeance and ambition? All this appears not improbable, and

would, if true, explain all; but evidence is defective. Had Gowrie

really cherished the legacy of revenge for a father slain, and a mother

insulted; had he studied the subtleties of Italian crime, pondered over

an Italian plot till it seemed feasible, and communicated his vision to

the boy brother whom he found at home--the mystery would be transparent.

[Picture: James VI]

As to King James, we know him well. The babe 'wronged in his mother's

womb;' threatened by conspirators before his birth; terrified by a harsh

tutor as a child; bullied; preached at; captured; insulted; ruled now by

debauched favourites, now by godly ruffians; James naturally grew up a

dissembler, and betrayed his father's murderer with a kiss. He was

frightened into deceit: he could be cruel; he became, as far as he might,

a tyrant. But, though not the abject coward of tradition, James (as he

himself observed) was never the man to risk his life in a doubtful brawl,

on the chance that his enemies might perish while he escaped. For him a

treachery of that kind, an affair of sword and dagger fights on

staircases and in turrets and chambers, in the midst of a town of

doubtful loyalty, had certainly no attractions. Moreover, he had a sense

of humour. This has been the opinion of our best historians, Scott, Mr.

Tytler, and Mr. Hill Burton; but enthusiastic writers have always

espoused the cause of the victims, the Ruthvens, so young, brave,

handsome; so untimely slain, as it were on their own hearthstone. Other

authors, such as Dr. Masson in our own day, and Mr. S. R. Gardiner, have

abstained from a verdict, or have attempted the _via media_; have leaned

to the idea that the Ruthvens died in an accidental brawl, caused by a

nervous and motiveless fit of terror on the part of the King. Thus the

question is unsettled, the problem is unsolved. Why did the jolly hunt

at Falkland, in the bright August morning, end in the sanguinary scuffle

in the town house at Perth; the deaths of the Ruthvens; the tumult in the

town; the King's homeward ride through the dark and dripping twilight;

the laying of the dead brothers side by side, while the old family

servant weeps above their bodies; and the wailing of the Queen and her

ladies in Falkland Palace, when the torches guide the cavalcade into the

palace court, and the strange tale of slaughter is variously told, 'the

reports so fighting together that no man could have any certainty'?

Where lay the actual truth?

This problem, with which the following pages are concerned, is much

darker and more complex than that of the guilty 'Casket Letters'

attributed to Mary, Queen of Scots. The Queen did write these, in the

madness of a criminal passion; or she wrote parts of them, the rest being

garbled or forged. In either case, her motives, and the motives of the

possible forgers, are distinct, and are human. The Queen was in love

with one man, and hated another to the death; or her enemies desired to

prove that these were her moods. Absolute certainty escapes us, but,

either way, motives and purposes are intelligible.

Not so with the Gowrie mystery. The King, Mary's son, after hunting for

four hours, rides to visit Lord Gowrie, a neighbour. After luncheon,

that nobleman and his brother are slain, in their own house, by the

King's attendants. The King gives his version of the events instantly;

he never varies from it in any essential point, but the story is almost

incredible. On the other hand, the slain men cannot speak, and only one

of them, if both were innocent, could have told what occurred. But one

of their apologists, at the time, produced a version of the events which

is, beyond all doubt, boldly mendacious. It was easy to criticise and

ridicule the King's version; but the opposite version, hitherto unknown

to historians, destroys itself by its conspicuous falsehoods. In the

nature of the case, as will appear, no story accounting for such wild

events could be easily credible, so extraordinary, motiveless, and

inexplicable do the circumstances appear. If we try the theory that the

King wove a plot, we are met by the fact that his plot could not have

succeeded without the voluntary and vehement collaboration of one of his

victims, a thing that no man could have reckoned on. If we adopt the

idea that the victims had laid a trap for the King, we have only a vague

surmise as to its aim, purpose, and method. The later light which seemed

to fall on the affair, as we shall see, only darkens what was already

obscure. The inconceivable iniquity of the Government, at a later date,

reflects such discredit on all concerned on their side, that we might

naturally, though illogically, be inclined to believe that, from the

first, the King was the conspirator. But _that_, we shall find, was

almost, or quite, a physical impossibility.

Despite these embroilments, I am, in this case, able to reach a

conclusion satisfactory to myself, a thing which, in the affair of the

Casket Letters and Queen Mary, I was unable to do. {7} There is no

doubt, in my own mind, that the Earl of Gowrie and his brother laid a

trap for King James, and fell into the pit which they had digged.

To what precise end they had plotted to seize the King's person, what

they meant to do with him when they had got him, must remain matter of

conjecture. But that they intended to seize him, I have no doubt at all.

These pages, on so old and vexed a problem, would not have been written,

had I not been fortunate enough to obtain many unpublished manuscript

materials. Some of these at least clear up the secondary enigma of the

sequel of the problem of 1600. Different readers will probably draw

different conclusions from some of the other documents, but perhaps

nobody will doubt that they throw strange new lights on Scottish manners

and morals.

The scheme adopted here is somewhat like that of Mr. Browning's poem,

'The Ring and the Book.' The personages tell their own stories of the

same set of events, in which they were more or less intimately concerned.

This inevitably entails some repetition, but I am unable to find any plan

less open to objection.

It must, of course, be kept in mind that all the evidence is of a

suspicious nature. The King, if he were the conspirator, or even if

innocent, had to clear himself; and, frankly, his Majesty's word was not

to be relied upon. However, he alone was cross-examined, by an acute and

hostile catechist, and that upon oath, though not in a court of justice.

The evidence of his retinue, and of some other persons present, was also

taken on oath, three months after the events, before a Parliamentary

Committee, 'The Lords of the Articles.' We shall see that, nine years

later, a similar Committee was deceived shamelessly by the King's

Government, he himself being absent in England. But the nature of the

evidence, in the second case, was entirely different: it did not rest on

the sworn testimony of a number of nobles, gentlemen, and citizens, but

on a question of handwriting, _comparatio literarum_, as in the case of

the Casket Letters. That the witnesses in 1600 did not perjure

themselves, in the trial which followed on the slaughter of the Ruthvens,

is what I have to argue. Next, we have the evidence, taken under

torture, of three of the slain Earl's retainers, three weeks after the

events. No such testimony is now reckoned of value, but it will be shown

that the statements made by the tortured men only compromise the Earl and

his brother incidentally, and in a manner probably not perceived by the

deponents themselves. They denied all knowledge of a plot, disclaimed

belief in a plot by the Earl, and let out what was suspicious in a casual

way, without observing the import of their own remarks.

Finally, we have the evidence of the only living man, except the King,

who was present at the central point of the occurrences. That this man

was a most false and evasive character, that he was doubtless amenable to

bribes, that he was richly rewarded, I freely admit. But I think it can

be made probable, by evidence hitherto overlooked, that he really was

present on the crucial occasion, and that, with all allowances for his

character and position, his testimony fits into the facts, while, if it

be discarded, no hypothesis can account for _him_, and his part in the

adventure. In short, the King's tale, almost incredible as it appears,

contains the only explanation which is not demonstrably impossible. To

this conclusion, let me repeat, I am drawn by no sentiment for that

unsentimental Prince, 'gentle King Jamie.' He was not the man to tell

the truth, 'if he could think of anything better.' But, where other

corroboration is impossible, by the nature of the circumstances, facts

corroborate the King's narrative. His version 'colligates' them; though

extravagant they become not incoherent. No other hypothesis produces

coherency: each guess breaks down on demonstrated facts.

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 of Essex, had been suggesting to James plans for a military

demonstration on the Border. Money was even more than normally scarce;

the Highlands were more than common unruly; stories of new conspiracies

against the King's liberty were flying about; and, above all, a

Convention of the Estates had just refused, in June, to make a large

grant of money to his Majesty. It was also irritating that an old and

trusted servant, Colonel Stewart, wished to quit the country, and take

English service against the Irish rebels. This gentleman, sixteen years

before, had been instrumental in the arrest and execution of the Earl of

Gowrie; the new young Earl, son of the late peer, had just returned from

the Continent to Scotland, and Colonel Stewart was afraid that Gowrie

might wish to avenge his father. Therefore he desired to take service in

Ireland.

With all these frets, the King needed the refreshment of hunting the buck

in his park of Falkland. He ordered his own hunting costume; it was

delivered early in August, and (which is singular) was paid for

instantly. Green English cloth was the basis of his apparel, and five

ounces of silver decorated his second-best 'socks.' His boots had velvet

tops, embroidered; his best 'socks' were adorned with heavy gold

embroidery; he even bought a new horse. His gentlemen, John Ramsay, John

Murray, George Murray, and John Auchmuty, were attired, at the Royal

expense, in coats of green cloth, like the King. {12a}

Thus equipped, the Royal party rose early on the morning of Tuesday,

August 5, left the pleasant house of Falkland, with its strong round

towers that had lately protected James from an attack by his cousin, wild

Frank Stewart, the Earl of Bothwell; and rode to the stables in the park;

'the weather,' says his Majesty, 'being wonderful pleasant and

seasonable.' {12b} 'All the jolly hunt was there;' 'Tell True' and the

other hounds were yelping at the limits of their leashes; the Duke of

Lennox and the Earl of Mar, friends of James from his youth, and

honourable men, were the chief nobles in the crowd; wherein were two or

three of the loyal family of Erskine, cousins of Mar, and a Dr. Herries,

remarkable for a club foot.

At the stables, hacks were discarded, hunters were led out, men were

mounting, the King had his foot in the stirrup, when a young gentleman,

the Master of Ruthven, rode swiftly up from the town of Falkland. He had

trotted over, very early, from the town house, at Perth (some twelve or

fourteen miles away), of his brother, the Earl of Gowrie. He was but

nineteen years of age, tall, handsome, and brother of the Queen's

favourite maid of honour, Mrs. Beatrix Ruthven. That he was himself one

of the Gentlemen of the Household has often been said, but we find no

trace of money spent for him in the Royal accounts: in fact he had asked

for the place, but had not yet obtained it. {13} However, if we may

believe the Royal word (which is a matter of choice), James 'loved the

young Master like a brother.'

The Master approached the King, and entered into conversation with him.

James's account of what he had to say must be given later. For the

present we may be content with the depositions on oath, which were made

later, at a trial in November, by the attendants of the King and other

witnesses. Among these was the Duke of Lennox, who swore to the

following effect. They hunted their buck, and killed him. The King, in

place of trotting back to lunch at the House of Falkland (to which the

progress of the chase had led the sportsmen round in a circle), bade the

Duke accompany him to Perth, some twelve miles away, 'to speak with the

Earl of Gowrie.' His Majesty then rode on. Lennox despatched his groom

for his sword, and for a fresh horse (another was sent after the King);

he then mounted and followed. When he rejoined James, the King said 'You

cannot guess what errand I am riding for; I am going to get a treasure in

Perth. The Master of Ruthven' ('Mr. Alexander Ruthven') 'has informed me

that he has found a man with a pitcher full of gold coins of great

sorts.' James also asked Lennox what he deemed of the Master, whose

manner he reckoned very strange. 'Nothing but an honest, discreet

gentleman,' said the Duke. The King next gave details about the

treasure, and Lennox said he thought the tale 'unlikely,' as it was, more

or less. James then bade Lennox say nothing on the matter to Ruthven,

who wanted it to be a secret. At about a mile from Perth, the Master

galloped forward, to warn his brother, the Earl, who met the Royal party,

on foot, with some companions, near the town. {14} This was about one

o'clock in the afternoon.

[Picture: Situation and topography of Gowrie House]

The Royal party, of thirteen nobles and gentlemen, then entered the

Earl's house. It faced the street, as the House of Falkland also does,

and, at the back, had gardens running down to the Tay. It is necessary

to understand the situation and topography of Gowrie House. Passing down

South Street, or 'Shoe Gait,' the chief street in Perth, then a pretty

little town, you found it crossed at right angles by a street called, on

the left, Water Gate, on the right, Spey Gate. Immediately fronting you,

as you came to the end of South Street, was the gateway of Gowrie House,

the garden wall continuing towards your right. On your left were the

houses in Water Gate, occupied by rich citizens and lairds. Many will

understand the position if they fancy themselves walking down one of the

streets which run from the High Street, at Oxford, towards the river.

You then find Merton College facing you, the street being continued to

the left in such old houses as Beam Hall. The gate of Gowrie House

fronted you, as does the gate-tower of Merton, and led into a quadrangle,

the front court, called The Close. Behind Gowrie House was the garden,

and behind that ran the river Tay, as the Isis flows behind Merton and

Corpus. Entering the quadrangle of Gowrie House you found, on your right

and facing you, a pile of buildings like an inverted L. The basement was

occupied by domestic offices: at the angle of the [inverted L] was the

main entrance. On your right, and much nearer to you than the main

entrance, a door opened on a narrow spiral staircase, so dark that it was

called the Black Turnpike.

[Picture: Interior of Gowrie House]

As to the interior, entering the main doorway you found yourself in the

hall. A door led thence into a smaller dining-room on the left. The

hall itself had a door and external stair giving on the garden behind.

The chief staircase, which you entered from the hall, led to the Great

Gallery, built and decorated by the late Earl. This extended above the

dining-room and the hall, and, to the right, was separated by a partition

and a door from the large upstairs room on the same flat called 'The

Gallery Chamber.' At the extremity of this chamber, on the left hand as

you advanced, was a door leading into a 'round,' or turret, or little

circular-shaped 'study,' of which one window seems to have looked to the

gateway, the other to the street. People below in the street could see a

man looking out of the turret window. A door in the gallery chamber gave

on the narrow staircase called 'The Black Turnpike,' by which the upper

floor might be reached by any one from the quadrangle, without entering

the main door, and going up the broad chief staircase. Thus, to quote a

poet who wrote while Gowrie House was extant (in 1638):

The Palace kythes, may nam'd be Perth's White Hall

With orchards like these of Hesperides.

The palace was destroyed, to furnish a site for a gaol and county

buildings, in 1807, but the most interesting parts had long been in

ruins. {18}

In 1774, an antiquary, Mr. Cant, writes that the palace, after the Forty

Five, was converted into artillery barracks. 'We see nothing but the

remains of its former grandeur.' The coats of arms of 'the nobility and

gentlemen of fortune,' who dwelt in Spey Gate and Water Gate, were, in

1774, still visible on the walls of their houses. A fragment of the old

palace is said to exist to-day in the Gowrie Inn. Into this palace the

King was led by Gowrie: he was taken to the dining chamber on the left of

the great hall; in the hall itself Lennox, Mar, and the rest of the

retinue waited and wearied, for apparently no dinner had been provided,

and even a drink for his thirsty Majesty was long in coming. Gowrie and

the Master kept going in and out, servants were whispered to, and Sir

Thomas Erskine sent a townsman to buy him a pair of green silk stockings

in Perth. {19} He wanted to dine comfortably.

Leaving the King's retinue in the hall, and the King in the dining

chamber off the hall, we may note what, up to this point, the nobles and

gentlemen of the suite had to say, at the trial in November, about the

adventures of that August morning. Mar had not seen the Master at

Falkland; after the kill Mar did not succeed in rejoining James till they

were within two or three miles of Perth.

Drummond of Inchaffray had nodded to the Master, at Falkland, before the

Master met the King at the stables. He later saw the Master in

conference for about a quarter of an hour with James, outside the

stables. The Master then left the King: Inchaffray invited him to

breakfast, but he declined, 'as his Majesty had ordered him to wait upon

him.' (According to other evidence he had already breakfasted at

Falkland.) Inchaffray then breakfasted in Falkland town, and next rode

along the highway towards his own house. On the road he overtook Lennox,

Lindores, Urchill, Hamilton of Grange, Finlay Taylor, the King, and the

Master, riding Perthwards. He joined them, and went with them into

Gowrie House.

Nobody else, among the witnesses, did anything but agree with Lennox's

account up to this point. But four menials of James, for example, a

cellarer and a porter, were at Gowrie House, in addition to the nobles

and gentlemen who gave this evidence.

To return to Lennox's tale: dinner was not ready for his hungry Majesty,

as we have said, till an hour after his arrival; was not ready, indeed,

till about two o'clock. He had obviously not been expected, or Gowrie

did not wish it to be known that he was expected, and himself had dined

before the King's arrival, between twelve and one o'clock. A shoulder of

mutton, a fowl, and a solitary grouse were all that the Earl's caterer

could procure, except cold meat: obviously a poor repast to set before a

king. It is said that the Earl had meant to leave Perth in the

afternoon. When James reached the stage of dessert, Gowrie, who had

waited on him, entered the hall, and invited the suite to dine. When

they had nearly finished, Gowrie returned to them in the hall, and sent

round a grace-cup, in which all pledged the King. Lennox then rose, to

rejoin the King (who now passed, with the Master, across and out of the

hall), but Gowrie said 'His Majesty was gone upstairs quietly some quiet

errand.' Gowrie then called for the key of the garden, on the banks of

the Tay, and he, Lindores, the lame Dr. Herries, and others went into the

garden, where, one of them tells us, they ate cherries. While they were

thus engaged, Gowrie's equerry, or master stabler, a Mr. Thomas

Cranstoun, who had been long in France, and had returned thence with the

Earl in April, appeared, crying, 'The King has mounted, and is riding

through the Inch,' that is, the Inch of Perth, where the famous clan

battle of thirty men a side had been fought centuries ago. Gowrie

shouted 'Horses! horses!' but Cranstoun said 'Your horse is at Scone,'

some two miles off, on the further side of the Tay. Why the Earl that

day kept his horse so remote, in times when men of his rank seldom

walked, we may conjecture later (cf. p. 86, _infra_).

The Earl, however (says Lennox), affected not to hear Cranstoun, and

still shouted 'Horses!' He and Lennox then passed into the house,

through to the front yard, or Close, and so to the outer gate, giving on

the street. Here Lennox asked the porter, Christie, if the King had

gone. The porter said he was certain that the King had not left the

house. On this point Lindores, who had been with Gowrie and Lennox in

the garden, and accompanied them to the gate, added (as indeed Lennox

also did) that Gowrie now explained to the porter that James had departed

by the back gate. 'That cannot be, my Lord,' said the porter, 'for I

have the key of the back gate.' Andrew Ray, a bailie of Perth, who had

been in the house, looking on, told the same tale, adding that Gowrie

gave the porter the lie. The porter corroborated all this at the trial,

and quoted his own speech about the key, as it was given by Lindores. He

had the keys, and must know whether the King had ridden away or not.

In this odd uncertainty, Gowrie said to Lennox, 'I am sure the King has

gone; but stay, I shall go upstairs, and get your lordship the very

certainty.' Gowrie thereon went from the street door, through the court,

and up the chief staircase of the house, whence he came down again at

once, and anew affirmed to Lennox that 'the King was forth at the back

gate and away.' They all then went out of the front gate, and stood in

the street there, talking, and wondering where they should seek for his

Majesty.

Where was the King? Here we note a circumstance truly surprising. It

never occurred to the Earl of Gowrie, when dubiously told that the King

had 'loupen on'--and ridden off--to ask, _Where is the King's horse_? If

the Royal nag was in the Earl's stable, then James had not departed.

Again--a thing more astonishing still--it has never occurred to any of

the unnumbered writers on the Gowrie conspiracy to ask, 'How did the

Earl, if guilty of falsehood as to the King's departure, mean to get over

the difficulty about the King's horse?' If the horse was in the stable,

then the King had not ridden away, as the Earl declared. Gowrie does not

seem to have kidnapped the horse. We do not hear, from the King, or any

one, that the horse was missing when the Royal party at last rode home.

The author is bound, in honour, to observe that this glaring difficulty

about the horse did not occur to him till he had written the first draft

of this historical treatise, after reading so many others on the subject.

And yet the eagle glance of Mr. Sherlock Holmes would at once have

lighted on his Majesty's mount. However, neither at the time, nor in the

last three centuries (as far as we know), was any one sensible enough to

ask 'How about the King's horse?'

We return to the question, 'Where was the King?'

Some time had elapsed since he passed silently from the chamber where he

had lunched, through the hall, with the Master, and so upstairs, 'going

quietly a quiet errand,' Gowrie had explained to the men of the retinue.

The gentlemen had then strolled in the garden, till Cranstoun came out to

them with the news of the King's departure. Young John Ramsay, one of

James's gentlemen, had met the Laird of Pittencrieff in the hall, and had

asked where his Majesty was. Both had gone upstairs, had examined the

fair gallery filled with pictures collected by the late Earl, and had

remained 'a certain space' admiring it. They thence went into the front

yard, the Close, where Cranstoun met them and told them that the King had

gone. Instead of joining the gentlemen whom we left loitering and

wondering outside the front gate, on the street, Ramsay ran to the

stables for his horse, he said, and, as he waited at the stable door

(being further from the main entrance than Lennox, Mar, and the rest), he

heard James's voice, 'but understood not what he spake.' {23}

The others, on the street, just outside the gate, being nearer the house

than Ramsay, suddenly heard the King's voice, and even his words. Lennox

said to Mar, 'The King calls, be he where he will.' They all glanced up

at the house, and saw, says Lennox, 'his Majesty looking out at the

window, hatless, his face red, and a hand gripping his face and mouth.'

The King called: 'I am murdered. Treason! My Lord of Mar, help, help!'

Mar corroborated: Inchaffray saw the King vanish from the window, 'and in

his judgment, his Majesty was pulled, perforce, in at the same window.'

Bailie Ray of Perth saw the window pushed up, saw the King's face appear,

and heard his cries. Murray of Arbany, who had come to Perth from

another quarter, heard the King. Murray seems to have been holding the

King's falcon on his wrist, in hall; he had later handed the bird to

young Ramsay.

On beholding this vision of the King, hatless, red-faced, vociferous, and

suddenly vanishing, most of his lords and gentlemen, and Murray of

Arbany, rushed through the gate, through the Close, into the main door of

the house, up the broad staircase, through the long fair gallery, _and

there they were stopped by a locked door_. They could not reach the

King! Finding a ladder, they used it as a battering-ram, but it broke in

their hands. They sent for hammers, and during some half an hour they

thundered at the door, breaking a hole in a panel, but unable to gain

admission.

Now these facts, as to the locked door, and the inability of most of the

suite to reach the King, are denied by no author. They make it certain

that, if James had contrived a plot against the two Ruthvens, he had not

taken his two nobles, Mar and Lennox, and these other gentlemen, and

Murray of Arbany, into the scheme. He had not even arranged that another

of his retinue should bring them from their futile hammer-work, to his

assistance, by another way.

For there _was_ another way. Young Ramsay was not with Lennox and the

rest, when they saw and heard the flushed and excited King cry out of the

window. Ramsay, he says, was further off than the rest; was at the

stable door: he heard and recognised James's voice, but saw nothing of

him, and distinguished no words. He ran into the front yard, through the

outer gate. Lennox and the rest had already vanished within the house.

Ramsay noticed the narrow door in the wall of the house, giving on the

quadrangle, and nearer him than the main door of entrance, to reach which

he must cross the quadrangle diagonally. He rushed into the narrow

doorway, ran up a dark corkscrew staircase, found a door at the top,

heard a struggling and din of men's feet within, 'dang open' the door,

_caught a glimpse of a man behind the King's back_, and saw James and the

Master 'wrestling together in each other's arms.'

James had the Master's head under his arm, the Master, 'almost upon his

knees,' had his hand on the King's face and mouth. 'Strike him low,'

cried the King, 'because he wears a secret mail doublet'--such as men

were wont to wear on a doubtful though apparently peaceful occasion, like

a Warden's Day on the Border. Ramsay threw down the King's falcon, which

he had taken from Murray and bore on his wrist, drew his dagger or

_couteau de chasse_, and struck the Master on the face and neck. The

King set his foot on the falcon's leash, and so held it. Ramsay might

have spared and seized the Master, instead of wounding him; James later

admitted _that_, but 'Man,' he said, 'I had neither God nor the Devil

before me, but my own defence.' Remember that hammers were thundering on

a door hard by, and that neither James nor Ramsay knew who knocked so

loud--enemies or friends.

The King then, says Ramsay, pushed the wounded Master down the steep

narrow staircase up which the young man had run. The man of whom Ramsay

had caught a glimpse, standing behind the King, had vanished like a

wraith. Ramsay went to a window, looked out, and, seeing Sir Thomas

Erskine, cried, 'Come up to the top of the staircase.'

Where was Erskine, and what was he doing? He had not followed Lennox and

Mar in their rush back into the house. On hearing James's cries from the

window, he and his brother had tried to seize Gowrie, who had been with

the party of Lennox and Mar. If James was in peril, within Gowrie's

house, they argued, naturally, that Gowrie was responsible. Not drawing

sword or dagger--daggers, indeed, they had none--the two Erskine brothers

rushed on Gowrie, who was crying 'What is the matter? I know nothing!'

They bore him, or nearly bore him, to the ground, but his retainers

separated the stragglers, and one, a Ruthven, knocked Sir Thomas down

with his fist. The knight arose, and ran into the front court, where Dr.

Herries asked him 'what the matter meant.' At this moment Erskine heard

Ramsay cry 'Come up here,' from the top of the narrow dark staircase, he

says, _not_ from the window; Ramsay may have called from both. Erskine,

who was accompanied by the lame Dr. Herries, and by a menial of his

brother's named Wilson, found the bleeding Master near the foot of the

stair, and shouted 'This is the traitor, strike him.' The stricken lad

fell, saying, 'Alas, I had not the wyte of it,' and the three entered the

chamber where now were only the King and Ramsay. Words, not very

intelligible as reported by Erskine (we consider them later), passed

between him and the King. Though Erskine does not say so, they shut

James up in the turret opening into the chamber where they were, and

instantly Cranstoun, the Earl's equerry, entered with a drawn sword,

followed by Gowrie, with 'two swords,' while some other persons followed

Gowrie.

Where had Gowrie been since the two Erskines tried to seize him in the

street, and were separated from him by a throng of his retainers? Why

was Gowrie, whose honour was interested in the King's safety, later in

reaching the scene than Erskine, the limping Dr. Herries, and the serving

man, Wilson? The reason appears to have been that, after the two

Erskines were separated from Gowrie, Sir Thomas ran straight from the

street, through the gateway, into the front court of the house, meeting,

in the court, Dr. Herries, who was slow in his movements. But Gowrie, on

the other hand, was detained by certain of Tullibardine's servants, young

Tullibardine being present. This, at least, was the story given under

examination by Mr. Thomas Cranstoun, Gowrie's master stabler, while other

witnesses mention that Gowrie became involved in a struggle, and went

'back from' his house, further up or down the street. Young

Tullibardine, present at this fray, was the heir of Murray of

Tullibardine, and ancestor, in the male line, of the present Duke of

Atholl. He later married a niece of the Earl of Gowrie. His father

being a man of forty in 1600, young Tullibardine must have been very

young indeed. The Murrays were in Perth on the occasion of the marriage

of one of their clan, an innkeeper.

Some of their party were in the street, and seeing an altercation in

which two of the King's gentlemen were prevented from seizing Gowrie,

they made an ineffectual effort to capture the Earl. Gowrie ran from

them along the street, and there 'drew his two swords out of one

scabbard,' says Cranstoun. {28} The Earl had just arrived in Scotland

from Italy, where he had acquired the then fashionable method of fencing

with twin-swords, worn in a single scabbard. Gowrie, then, had retreated

from the Murrays to the house of one Macbreck, as Cranstoun and Macbreck

himself declared. Cranstoun too drew his sword, and let his cloak fall,

asking Gowrie 'what the fray was.' The Earl said that 'he would enter

his own house, or die by the way.' Cranstoun said that he would go

foremost, 'but at whom should he strike, for he knew not who was the

enemy?' He had only seen the Erskines collar Gowrie, then certain

Murrays interfere, and he was entirely puzzled. Gowrie did not reply,

and the pair advanced to the door of the house through a perplexed

throng. A servant of Gowrie's placed a steel cap on his head, and with

some four or five of Gowrie's friends (Hew Moncrieff, Alexander Ruthven,

Harry Ruthven, and Patrick Eviot) the Earl and Cranstoun entered the

front court.

Here Cranstoun saw the body of a man, whether dead or wounded he knew

not, lying at 'the old turnpike door,' the entry to the dark narrow

staircase up which Ramsay had run to the King's rescue. 'Who lies

there?' asked Cranstoun. Gowrie only replied, 'Up the stair!' Cranstoun

led the way, Gowrie came next; the other four must have followed, for

several witnesses presently saw them come down again, wounded and

bleeding. Cranstoun found Erskine, Ramsay, and Herries with drawn swords

in the chamber. The King, then in the turret, he did not see. He

taunted Herries; Ramsay and Gowrie crossed swords; Cranstoun dealt, he

says, with Herries, Erskine, and perhaps Wilson. But, though Cranstoun

'nowise knew who followed him,' the four men already named, two Ruthvens,

a Moncrieff, and Eviot, were in the fray, though there was some

uncertainty about Eviot. {30}

The position of the King, at this moment, was unenviable. He was shut up

in the little round turret room. On the other side of the door, in the

chamber, swords were clashing, feet were stamping. James knew that he

had four defenders, one of them a lame medical man; who or how many their

opponents might be, he could not know. The air rang with the thunder of

hammers on the door of the chamber where the fight raged; were they

wielded by friends or enemies? From the turret window the King could

hear the town bell ringing, and see the gathering of the burgesses of

Perth, the friends of their Provost, Gowrie. We know that they could

easily muster eight hundred armed men. Which side would they take? The

Murrays, as we saw, had done nothing, except that some of them had

crowded round Gowrie. Meanwhile there was clash of steel, stamping of

feet, noise of hammers, while the King, in the turret, knew not how

matters were going.

Cranstoun only saw his own part of the fight in the chamber. How Ramsay

and Gowrie sped in their duel he knew not. Ramsay, he says, turned on

_him_, and ran him through the body; Herries also struck him. Of Gowrie

he saw nothing; he fled, when wounded, down the turret stair, his

companions following or preceding him. Gowrie, in fact, had fallen,

leaving Ramsay free to deal with Cranstoun. Writers of both parties

declare that Ramsay had cried to Gowrie, 'You have slain the King!' that

Gowrie dropped his points, and that Ramsay lunged and ran him through the

body. Erskine says that he himself was wounded in the right hand by

Cranstoun; Herries lost two fingers. When Ramsay ran Gowrie through, the

Earl, says Erskine, fell into the arms of a man whom he himself knew not;

Gowrie's party retreated, but it seems they returned to the head of the

narrow staircase, and renewed hostilities by pushing swords and halberts

under the narrow staircase door. This appears from the evidence of

Lennox.