Brown (a servant of James's, who had brought the hammers) round to
discover another way of reaching the King. Brown, too, now went up the
narrow staircase, and in the gallery chamber he found the King, with
Herries, Erskine, Ramsay, Wilson, and the dead Earl. He reassured James;
the hammerers were his friends. They handed, says Lennox, one of the
hammers to the King's party, through a shattered panel, 'and they within
broke the doors, and gave them entry.' At this time, halberts and swords
were being struck, by Gowrie's retainers, under the door, and through the
sides of the door, of the chamber; this door apparently being that from
the chamber to the narrow staircase. Murray of Arbany (who had come into
the house at the end of dinner) was stricken through the leg by one of
these weapons. Deacon Rhynd of Perth saw Hew Moncrieff striking with 'a
Jeddart staff,' a kind of halbert. A voice, that of Alexander Ruthven (a
cousin of the fallen Earl), cried 'For God's sake, my lord, tell me how
the Earl of Gowrie does.' 'He is well. Go your way; you are a fool; you
will get no thanks for this labour,' answered Lennox, and all was
silence. Alexander Ruthven and the rest retreated; Ruthven rushed to the
town, rousing the people, and rifling shops in search of gunpowder. The
King and the nobles knelt in prayer on the bloody floor of the chamber
where the dead Gowrie lay. For some time the confused mob yelled
outside, shaking their fists at the King's party in the window: men and
women crying 'Come down, Green-coats, ye have committed murder! Bloody
butchers!' Others cried 'The King is shot!' The exits of the house were
guarded by retainers of Gowrie--Rentoul, Bissett, and others.
Mar and Lennox, from the window, explained to the mob that the King was
well. James showed himself, the magistrates and nobles pacified the
people, who, some armed, some unarmed, were all perplexed, whether they
were anxious about the King or about their Provost, the Earl. From the
evidence of scores of burghers, it appears that the tumult did not last
long. One man was reaping in the Morton haugh. Hearing the town bell he
hastened in, 'when all the tumult was ceased,' and the magistrates, Ray
and others, were sending the people to their houses, as also did young
Tullibardine. A baker, hearing the bell, went to the town cross, and so
to Gowrie's house, where he met the stream of people coming away.
Another baker was at work, and stayed with his loaves, otherwise he
'would have lost his whole baking.' The King represents that it was
between seven and eight in the evening before matters were quiet enough
for him to ride home to Falkland, owing to the tumult. The citizens
doubtless minimised, and James probably exaggerated, the proportions and
duration of the disturbance.
[Picture: Falkland place]
This version of that strange affair, the slaughter of the Ruthvens, is
taken entirely from the lips of sworn witnesses. We still know no more
than we did as to what passed between the moment when James and the
Master, alone, left the dining chamber, and the moment when the King
cried 'Treason!' out of the turret window.
The problem is, had James lured the Master to Falkland for the purpose of
accompanying him back to Perth, as if by the Master's invitation, and of
there craftily begetting a brawl, in which Gowrie and the Master should
perish at the hands of Ramsay? Or had the Master, with or without his
brother's knowledge, lured James to Perth for some evil end? The
question divided Scotland; France and England were sceptical as to the
King's innocence. Our best historians, like Mr. Hill Burton and Mr.
Tytler, side with the King; others are dubious, or believe that James was
the conspirator, and that the Ruthvens were innocent victims.
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 one
of the witnesses could swear to having seen a man there, none to having
seen him escaping thence, or in the tumult. Now the word of James was
not to be relied on, any more than that of the unequalled Elizabeth. If
we take the King's word in this case, it is from no prejudice in his
favour, but merely because his narrative seems best to fit the facts as
given on oath by men like Lennox, Mar, and other witnesses of all ranks.
It also fits, with discrepancies to be noted, the testimony of _the other
man_, the man who professed to have been with the Master and the King in
the turret.
The evidence of that other man was also subject, for reasons which will
appear presently, to the gravest suspicion. James, if himself guilty of
the plot, had to invent a story to excuse himself; the other man had to
adopt the version of the King, to save his own life from the gibbet. On
the other hand, James, if innocent, could not easily have a credible
story to tell. If the Master was sane, it was hardly credible that, as
James averred, he should menace the King with murder, in his brother's
house, with no traceable preparations either for flight or for armed
resistance. In James's narrative the Master is made at least to menace
the King with death. However true the King's story might be, his
adversaries, the party of the Kirk and the preachers, would never accept
it. In Lennox's phrase they 'liked it not, because it was not likely.'
Emphatically it was not likely, but the contradictory story put forward
by the Ruthven apologist, as we shall see, was not only improbable, but
certainly false.
There was living at that time a certain Mr. David Calderwood, a young
Presbyterian minister, aged twenty-five. He was an avid collector of
rumour, of talk, and of actual documents, and his 'History of the Kirk of
Scotland,' composed at a much later date, is wonderfully copious and
accurate. As it was impossible for King James to do anything at which
Calderwood did not carp, assigning the worst imaginable motives in every
case, we shall find in Calderwood the sum of contemporary hostile
criticism of his Majesty's narrative. But the criticism is negative.
Calderwood's critics only pick holes in the King's narrative, but do not
advance or report any other explanation of the events, any complete
theory of the King's plot from the Ruthven side. Any such story, any
such hypothesis, must be to the full as improbable as the King's
narrative.
There is nothing probable in the whole affair; every system, every
hypothesis is _difficile a croire_. Yet the events did occur, and we
cannot reject James's account merely because it is 'unlikely.' The
improbabilities, however, were enormously increased by the King's theory
that the Ruthvens meant to _murder_ him. This project (not borne out by
the King's own version of Ruthven's conduct) would have been insane: the
Ruthvens, by murdering James, would have roused the whole nation and the
Kirk itself against them. But if their object was to kidnap James, to
secure his person, to separate him from his Ministers (who were either
secretly Catholics, or Indifferents), and to bring in a new
administration favourable to Kirk, or Church, then the Ruthvens were
doing what had several times been done, and many times attempted. James
had been captured before, even in his own palace, while scores of other
plots, to take him, for instance, when hunting in Falkland woods, remote
from his retinue, had been recently planned, and had failed. To kidnap
the King was the commonest move in politics; but as James thought, or
said, that the idea at Gowrie House was to _murder_ him, his tale, even
if true, could not be easily credible.
The first narrative was drawn up at Falkland in the night of August 5.
Early on August 6 the letter reached the Chancellor in Edinburgh, and the
contents of the letter were repeated orally by the Secretary of State
(Elphinstone, later Lord Balmerino) to Nicholson, the English resident at
the Court of Holyrood. Nicholson on the same day reported what he
remembered of what the Secretary remembered of the Falkland letter, to
Cecil. Yet though at third hand Nicholson's written account of the
Falkland letter of August 5 {38} contains the same version as James later
published, with variations so few and so unessential that it is needless
to dwell upon them, they may safely be attributed to the modifications
which a story must suffer in passing through the memories of two persons.
Whatever the amount of truth in his narrative, the King had it ready at
once in the form to which he adhered, and on which he voluntarily
underwent severe cross-examination, on oath, by Mr. Robert Bruce, one of
the Edinburgh ministers; a point to which we return.
James declares in a later narrative printed and published about the end
of August 1600, that the Master, when he first met him at Falkland, made
a very low bow, which was not his habit. The Master then said (their
conference, we saw, occupied a quarter of an hour) that, while walking
alone on the previous evening, he had met a cloaked man carrying a great
pot, full of gold in large coined pieces. Ruthven took the fellow
secretly to Gowrie House, 'locked him _in a privy derned house_, and,
after locking many doors on him, left him there and his pot with him.'
It might be argued that, as the man was said to be locked in a _house_,
and as James was not taken out of Gowrie House to see him, James must
have known that, when he went upstairs with the Master, he was not going
to see the prisoner. The error here is that, in the language of the
period, a _house_ often means a _room_, or chamber. It is so used by
James elsewhere in this very narrative, and endless examples occur in the
letters and books of the period.
Ruthven went on to explain, what greatly needed explanation, that he had
left Perth so early in the morning that James might have the first
knowledge of this secret treasure, concealed hitherto even from Gowrie.
James objected that he had no right to the gold, which was not treasure
trove. Ruthven replied that, if the King would not take it, others
would. James now began to suspect, very naturally, that the gold was
foreign coin. Indeed, what else could it well be? Coin from France,
Italy, or Spain, brought in often by political intriguers, was the least
improbable sort of minted gold to be found in poor old Scotland. In the
troubles of 1592-1596 the supplies of the Catholic rebels were in Spanish
money, whereof some was likely enough to be buried by the owners. James,
then, fancied that Jesuits or others had brought in gold for seditious
purposes, 'as they have ofttimes done before.' Sceptics of the period
asked how one pot of gold could cause a sedition. The question is
puerile. There would be more gold where the potful came from, if
Catholic intrigues were in the air. James then asked the Master 'what
kind of coin it was.' 'They seemed to be foreign and uncouth' (unusual)
'strokes of coin,' said Ruthven, and the man, he added, was a stranger to
him.
James therefore suspected that the man might be a disguised Scottish
priest: the few of them then in Scotland always wore disguises, as they
tell us in their reports to their superiors. {40} The King's inferences
as to _popish_ plotters were thus inevitable, though he may have
emphasised them in his narrative to conciliate the preachers. His horror
of 'practising Papists,' at this date, was unfeigned. He said to the
Master that he could send a servant with a warrant to Gowrie and the
magistrates of Perth to take and examine the prisoner and his hoard.
Contemporaries asked why he did not 'commit the credit of this matter to
another.' James had anticipated the objection. He _did_ propose this
course, but Ruthven replied that, if others once touched the money, the
King 'would get a very bad account made to him of that treasure.' He
implored his Majesty to act as he advised, and not to forget him
afterwards. This suggestion may seem mean in Ruthven, but the age was
not disinterested, nor was Ruthven trying to persuade a high-souled man.
The King was puzzled and bored, 'the morning was fair, the game already
found,' the monarch was a keen sportsman, so he said that he would think
the thing over and answer at the end of the hunt.
Granting James's notorious love of disentangling a mystery, granting his
love of money, and of hunting, I agree with Mr. Tytler in seeing nothing
improbable in this narration. If the Master wanted to lure the King to
Perth, I cannot conceive a better device than the tale which, according
to the King, he told. The one improbable point, considering the morals
of the country, was that Ruthven should come to James, in place of
sharing the gold with his brother. But Ruthven, we shall see, had
possibly good reasons, known to James, for conciliating the Royal favour,
and for keeping his brother ignorant. Moreover, to seize the money would
not have been a safe thing for Ruthven to do; the story would have leaked
out, questions would have been asked. James had hit on the only
plausible theory to account for a low fellow with a pot of gold; he
_must_ be 'a practising Papist.' James could neither suppose, nor expect
others to believe that he supposed, one pot of foreign gold enough 'to
bribe the country into rebellion.' But the pot, and the prisoner,
supplied a clue worth following. Probabilities strike different critics
in different ways. Mr. Tytler thinks James's tale true, and that he
acted in character. That is my opinion; his own the reader must form for
himself.
Ruthven still protested. This hunt of gold was well worth a buck! The
prisoner, he said, might attract attention by his cries, a very weak
argument, but Ruthven was quite as likely to invent it on the spur of the
moment, as James was to attribute it to him falsely, on cool reflection.
Finally, if James came at once, Gowrie would then be at the preaching
(Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays were preaching days), and the Royal
proceedings with the captive would be undisturbed.
Now, on the hypothesis of intended kidnapping, this was a well-planned
affair. If James accepted Ruthven's invitation, he, with three or four
servants, would reach Gowrie House while the town of Perth was quiet.
Nothing would be easier than to seclude him, seize his person, and
transport him to the seaside, either by Tay, or down the north bank of
that river, or in disguise across Fife, to the Firth of Forth, in the
retinue of Gowrie, before alarm was created at Falkland. Gowrie had
given out (so his friends declared) that he was to go that night to
Dirleton, his castle near North Berwick, {42} a strong hold, manned, and
provisioned. Could he have carried the King in disguise across Fife to
Elie, Dirleton was within a twelve miles sail, on summer seas. Had
James's curiosity and avarice led him to ride away at once with Ruthven,
and three or four servants, the plot might have succeeded. We must
criticise the plot on these lines. Thus, if at all, had the Earl and his
brother planned it. But Fate interfered, the unexpected occurred--_but
the plot could not be dropped_. The story of the pot of gold could not
be explained away. The King, with royal rudeness, did not even reply to
the new argument of the Master. 'Without any further answering him,' his
Majesty mounted, Ruthven staying still in the place where the King left
him. At this moment Inchaffray, as we saw, met Ruthven, and invited him
to breakfast, but he said that he was ordered to wait on the King.
At this point, James's narrative contains a circumstance which,
confessedly, was not within his own experience. He did not know, he
says, that the Master had any companion. But, from the evidence of
another, he learned that the Master had a companion, indeed two
companions. One was Andrew Ruthven, about whose presence nobody doubts.
The other, one Andrew Henderson, was not seen by James at this time.
However, the King says, on Henderson's own evidence, that the Master now
sent him (about seven o'clock) to warn Gowrie that the King was to come.
Really it seems that Henderson was despatched rather later, during the
first check in the run.
It was all-important to the King's case to prove that Henderson had been
at Falkland, and had returned at once with a message to Gowrie, for this
would demonstrate that, in appearing to be unprepared for the King's
arrival (as he did), Gowrie was making a false pretence. It was also
important to prove that the ride of Ruthven and Henderson to Falkland and
back had been concealed, by them, from the people at Gowrie House. Now
this _was_ proved. Craigengelt, Gowrie's steward, who was tortured,
tried, convicted, and hanged, deponed that, going up the staircase, just
after the King's arrival, he met the Master, booted, and asked 'where he
had been.' 'An errand not far off,' said the Master, concealing his long
ride to Falkland. {44a} Again, John Moncrieff, a gentleman who was with
Gowrie, asked Henderson (who had returned to Perth much earlier than the
King's arrival) where he had been, and he said 'that he had been two or
three miles above the town.' {44b} Henderson himself later declared that
Gowrie had told him to keep his ride to Falkland secret. {44c} The whole
purpose of all this secrecy was to hide the fact that the Ruthvens had
brought the King to Perth, and that Gowrie had early notice, by about 10
a.m., of James's approach, from Henderson. Therefore to make out that
Henderson had been in Falkland, and had given Gowrie early notice of
James's approach, though Gowrie for all that made no preparations to
welcome James, was almost necessary for the Government. They specially
questioned all witnesses on this point. Yet not one of their witnesses
would swear to having seen Henderson at Falkland. This disposes of the
theory of wholesale perjury.
The modern apologist for the Ruthvens, Mr. Louis Barbe, writes: 'We
believe that Henderson perjured himself in swearing that he accompanied
Alexander' (the Master) 'and Andrew Ruthven when . . . they rode to
Falkland. We believe that Henderson perjured himself when he asserted,
on oath, that the Master sent him back to Perth with the intelligence of
the King's coming.' {45}
On the other hand, George Hay, lay Prior of the famous Chartreux founded
by James I in Perth, deponed that Henderson arrived long before Gowrie's
dinner, and Peter Hay corroborated. But Hay averred that Gowrie asked
Henderson 'who was at Falkland with the King?' It would not follow that
Henderson had been at Falkland himself. John Moncrieff deponed that
Gowrie said nothing of Henderson's message, but sat at dinner, feigning
to have no knowledge of the King's approach, till the Master arrived, a
few minutes before the King. Mr. Rhynd, Gowrie's tutor, deponed that
Andrew Ruthven (the Master's other companion in the early ride to
Falkland) told him that the Master had sent on Henderson with news of the
King's coming. If Henderson had been at Falkland, he had some four
hours' start of the King and his party, and must have arrived at Perth,
and spoken to Gowrie, long before dinner, he himself says at 10 a.m.
Dinner was at noon, or, on this day, half an hour later. Yet Gowrie made
no preparations for welcoming the King.
It is obvious that, though the Hays and Moncrieff both saw Henderson
return, booted, from a ride somewhere or other, at an early hour, none of
them could _prove_ that he had ridden to Falkland and back. There was,
in fact, no evidence that Henderson had been at Falkland except his own,
and that of the poor tortured tutor, Rhynd, to the effect that Andrew
Ruthven had confessed as much to him. But presently we shall find that,
while modern apologists for Gowrie deny that Henderson had been at
Falkland, the contemporary Ruthven apologist insists that he had been
there.
To return to James's own narrative, he asserts Henderson's presence at
Falkland, but not from his own knowledge. He did not see Henderson at
Falkland. Ruthven, says James, sent Henderson to Gowrie just after the
King mounted and followed the hounds. Here it must be noted that
Henderson himself says that Ruthven did not actually despatch him till
after he had some more words with the King. This is an instance of
James's _insouciance_ as to harmonising his narrative with Henderson's,
or causing Henderson to conform to his. 'Cooked' evidence, collusive
evidence, would have avoided these discrepancies. James says that,
musing over the story of the pot of gold, he sent one Naismith, a surgeon
(he had been with James at least since 1592), to bring Ruthven to him,
during a check, and told Ruthven that he would, after the hunt, come to
Perth. James thought that this was _after_ the despatch of Henderson,
but probably it was before, to judge by Henderson's account.
During this pause, the hounds having hit on the scent again, the King was
left behind, but spurred on. At every check, the Master kept urging him
to make haste, so James did not tarry to break up the deer, as usual.
The kill was but two bowshots from the stables, and the King did not wait
for his sword, or his second horse, which had to gallop a mile before it
reached him. Mar, Lennox, and others did wait for their second mounts,
some rode back to Falkland for fresh horses, some dragged slowly along on
tired steeds, and did not rejoin James till later.
Ruthven had tried, James says, to induce him to refuse the company of the
courtiers. Three or four servants, he said, would be enough. The others
'might mar the whole purpose.' James was 'half angry,' he began to
entertain odd surmises about Ruthven. One was 'it might be that the Earl
his brother _had handled him so hardly_, that the young gentleman, being
of a high spirit, had taken such displeasure, as he was become somewhat
beside himself.' But why should Gowrie handle his brother hardly?
The answer is suggested by an unpublished contemporary manuscript, 'The
True Discovery of the late Treason,' {48a} &c. 'Some offence had passed
betwixt the said Mr. Alexander Ruthven' (the Master) 'and his brother,
for that the said Alexander, both of himself and by his Majesty's
mediation, had craved of the Earl his brother the demission and release
of the Abbey of Scone, which his Majesty had bestowed upon the said Earl
during his life. . . . His suit had little success.' {48b}
If this be fact (and there is no obvious reason for its invention), James
might have reason to suspect that Gowrie had 'handled his brother
hardly:' Scone being a valuable estate, well worth keeping. To secure
the King's favour as to Scone, Ruthven had a motive, as James would
understand, for making him, and not Gowrie, acquainted with the secret of
the treasure. Thus the unpublished manuscript casually explains the
reason of the King's suspicion that the Earl might have 'handled the
Master hardly.'
On some such surmise, James asked Lennox (who corroborates) whether he
thought the Master quite 'settled in his wits.' Lennox knew nothing but
good of him (as he said in his evidence), but Ruthven, observing their
private talk, implored James to keep the secret, and come _alone_ with
him--at first--to see the captive and the treasure. James felt more and
more uneasy, but he had started, and rode on, while the Master now
despatched Andrew Ruthven to warn Gowrie. Within a mile of Perth the
Master spurred on his weary horse, and gave the news to Gowrie, who,
despite the messages of Henderson and Andrew Ruthven, was at dinner,
unprepared for the Royal arrival. However, Gowrie met James with sixty
men (four, says the Ruthven apologist).
James's train then consisted of fifteen persons. Others must have
dropped in later: they had no fresh mounts, but rested their horses, the
King says, and let them graze by the way. They followed because,
learning that James was going to Perth, they guessed that he intended to
apprehend the Master of Oliphant, who had been misconducting himself in
Angus. Thus the King accounts for the number of his train.
An hour passed before dinner: James pressed for a view of the treasure,
but the Master asked the King not to converse with him then, as the whole
affair was to be kept secret from Gowrie. If the two brothers had been
at odds about the lands of Scone, the Master's attitude towards his
brother might seem intelligible, a point never allowed for by critics
unacquainted with the manuscript which we have cited. At last the King
sat down to dinner, Gowrie in attendance, whispering to his servants,
_and often going in and out of the chamber_. The Master, too, was seen
on the stairs by Craigengelt.