a legal official, named Watty Doig. He had been blabbing in his cups, it
is said, about the Gowrie affair; certainly most compromising documents,
apparently in Logan's hand, and with his signature, were found on Sprot's
person. They still bear the worn softened look of papers carried for
long in the pockets. {162} Sprot was examined, and confessed that he
knew beforehand of the Gowrie conspiracy, and that the documents in his
possession were written by Logan to Gowrie and other plotters. He was
tortured and in part recanted; Logan, he said, had _not_ written the
guilty letters: he himself had forged them. This was all before July 5,
1608, while Mr. Robert Oliphant lay in prison, in London, on the same
charge of guilty foreknowledge. Early in July 1608, the Earl of Dunbar
came from London to Edinburgh, to deal with the affairs of the Kirk. He
took Sprot out of his dungeon, gave him a more wholesome chamber,
secluded him from gentlemen who came and threatened him (or so he said)
if he made revelations, and Dunbar provided him with medical attendance.
The wounds inflicted in 'the boot' were healed.
For six weeks Sprot was frequently examined, before members of the Privy
Council and others, without torture. What he said the public did not
know, nor, till now, have historians been better informed. Throughout,
after July 5, 1608, he persisted in declaring Logan's complicity in the
Gowrie conspiracy, and his own foreknowledge. He was tried, solely on
the evidence of guilty foreknowledge alleged in his own confessions, and
of extracts, _given by him from memory only_, of a letter from Gowrie to
Logan (_not_ one of those which he claimed to have forged), and another
of Logan to Gowrie, both of July 1600. On August 12, Sprot was hanged at
Edinburgh. He repeated his confession of guilt from every corner of the
scaffold. He uttered a long religious speech of contrition. Once, he
said, he had been nearly drowned: but God preserved him for this great
day of confession and repentance. But 'no unbeliever in the guilt of
Gowrie,' says Calderwood, 'was one whit the more convinced.' Of course
not, nor would the death of Henderson--which they clamoured for--have
convinced them. They said, falsely, that Sprot was really condemned as a
forger, and, having to die, took oath to his guilt in the Gowrie
conspiracy, in consideration of promises of help to his wife and family.
{164}
Nearly a year later, in June 1609, the exhumed remains of Logan were
brought into court (a regular practice in the case of dead traitors), and
were tried for treason. Five letters by Logan, of July 1600, were now
produced. Three were from Logan to conspirators unnamed and unknown.
One was to a retainer and messenger of his, Laird Bower, who had died in
January 1606. These letters were declared, by several honourable
witnesses, to be in Logan's very unusual handwriting and orthography:
they were compared with many genuine letters of his, and no difference
was found. The Parliamentary Committee, 'The Lords of the Articles,'
previously sceptical, were convinced by the five letters, the evidence to
handwriting, the energy of the Earl of Dunbar, and the eloquence of the
King's Advocate. Logan's children were all forfeited, and Dunbar saved
the money which he owed to Logan's estate. This trial is not alluded to,
either by Calderwood or Archbishop Spottiswoode, in their histories. The
five letters produced in the trial of Logan exist, and have been accepted
as authentic by Mr. Tytler and Mr. Hill Burton, but not by writers who
favour the Ruthvens. We print all five letters in Appendix C.
Meanwhile what had Sprot really said, under private examination, between
July 5 and August 12, 1608, when he was executed?
This question is to be answered, from the hitherto unpublished records,
in the following chapters. But, in common charity, the reader must be
warned that the exposition is inevitably puzzling and complex. Sprot,
under examination, lied often, lied variously, and, perhaps, lied to the
last. Moreover much, indeed everything, depends here on exact dates, and
Sprot's are loose, as was natural in the circumstances, the events of
which he spoke being so remote in time.
Consequently the results of criticism of his confession may here be
stated with brevity. The persevering student, the reader interested in
odd pictures of domestic life, and in strange human characters may read
on at his own peril. But the actual grains of fact, extracted from tons
of falsehood, may be set down in very few words.
The genuine and hitherto unknown confessions of Sprot add no absolute
certainty as to the existence of a Gowrie conspiracy. His words, when
uncorroborated, can have no weight with a jury. He confessed that _all_
the alleged Logan papers which, up to two days before his death, were in
possession of the Privy Council, were forgeries by himself. But, on
August 10, he announced that he had possessed one _genuine_ letter of
Logan to Gowrie (dated July 29, 1600). That letter (our Letter IV) or a
forged copy was then found in his repositories. Expert evidence,
however, decides that this document, like all the others, is in a
specious imitation of Logan's hand, but that it has other characteristics
of Sprot's own hand, and was penned by Sprot himself. Why he kept it
back so long, why he declared that it alone was genuine, we do not know.
That it _is_ genuine, _in substance_, and was copied by Sprot from a real
letter of Logan's in an imitation of Logan's hand, and that, if so, it
proves Logan's accession to the conspiracy, is my own private opinion.
But that opinion is based on mere literary considerations, on what is
called 'internal evidence,' and is, therefore, purely a matter of
subjective impression, like one's idea of the possible share of
Shakespeare in a play mainly by Fletcher or another. Evidence of this
kind is not historical evidence. It follows that the whole affair of
Sprot, and of the alleged Logan letters, adds nothing certain to the
reasons for believing that there was a Gowrie conspiracy. As far as
Sprot and his documents are concerned, we know that all, as they stand,
are pure fictitious counterfeits by that unhappy man, while, as to
whether one letter (IV) and perhaps another (I) are genuine _in
substance_, every reader must form his own opinion, on literary grounds,
and no opinion is of much value. Such is a brief summary of the facts.
But the tenacious inquirer who can follow us through the tangled mazes of
Sprot's private confessions, will perhaps agree with me that they contain
distinguishable grains of fact, raising a strong surmise that Logan was
really involved with Gowrie in a plot. Yet this, again, is a subjective
impression, which may vary with each reader.
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,
prepared by Sir William Hart, the Chief Justice, and issued in 1608.
Both these documents (to which we return) are given by Mr. Pitcairn, in
the second volume of his 'Criminal Trials.' But later, when the dead
Logan was tried in 1609, five of his alleged plot letters (never
_publicly_ mentioned in Sprot's trial) were produced by the prosecution,
and not one of these was identical with the letter of Logan cited in the
Indictment of Sprot, and in the official account of his trial. There
were strong resemblances between Logan's letter, quoted but not produced,
in 1608, and a letter of Logan's produced, and attested to be in his
handwriting, in 1609. But there were also remarkable variations.
Of these undeniable facts most modern historians who were convinced of
the guilt of the Ruthvens take no notice; though the inexplicable
discrepancies between the Logan letters _quoted_ in 1608, and the letters
_produced_ as his in 1609, had always been matters of comment and
criticism.
As to the letters of 1609, Mr. Tytler wrote, 'their import cannot be
mistaken; _their authenticity has never been questioned_; they still
exist . . . ' Now assuredly the letters exist. The five alleged
originals were found by Mr. Pitcairn, among the Warrants of Parliament,
in the General Register House, in Edinburgh, and were published by him,
but without their endorsements, in his 'Criminal Trials' in Scotland.
(1832). {169} Copies of the letters are also 'bookit,' or engrossed, in
the Records of Parliament. These 'bookit' transcripts were made
carelessly, and the old copyist was puzzled by the handwriting and
orthography of the alleged originals before him. The controversy about
the genuineness of the five letters took new shapes after Mr. Pitcairn
discovered those apparently in Logan's hand, and printed them in 1832.
Mr. Hill Burton accepts them with no hint of doubt, and if Mr. Tytler was
the most learned and impartial, Mr. Hill Burton was the most sceptical of
our historians. Yet on this point of authenticity these historians were
too hasty. The authenticity of the letters (except one, No. IV) was
denied by the very man, Sprot, in whose possession most of them were
originally found. {170} The evidence of his denial has been extant ever
since Calderwood wrote, who tells us, clearly on the authority of an
older and anonymous History in MS. (now in the Advocates' Library), that
Sprot, when first taken (April 13-19, 1608), accused Logan of writing the
letters, but withdrew the charge under torture, and finally, when kindly
treated by Lord Dunbar, and healed of his wounds, declared that he
himself had forged all the Logan letters (save one). Yet Logan was, to
Sprot's certain knowledge (so Sprot persistently declared), involved in
the Gowrie conspiracy.
Now assuredly this appeared to be an incredible assertion of Calderwood,
or of his MS. source. He was a stern Presbyterian, an enemy of the King
(who banished him), and an intimate friend of the Cranstoun family, who,
in 1600, were closely connected with conspirators of their name. Thus
prejudiced, Calderwood was believed by Mr. Pitcairn to have made an
untrue or confused statement. Logan is in a plot; Sprot knows it, and
yet Sprot forges letters to prove Logan's guilt, and these letters, found
in Sprot's possession, prove his own guilty knowledge. There seems no
sense in such behaviour. It might have been guessed that Sprot knew of
Logan's guilt, but had no documentary evidence of it, and therefore
forged evidence for the purpose of extorting blackmail from Logan. But,
by 1608, when Sprot was arrested with some of the documents in his
pocket, Logan had been dead for nearly two years.
The guess, that Sprot knew of Logan's treason, but forged the proof of
it, for purposes of blackmailing him, was not made by historians. The
guess was getting 'warm,' as children say in their game, was very near
the truth, but it was not put forward by criticism. Historians, in fact,
knew that Logan would not have stood an attempt at extortion. He was not
that kind of man. In 1594, he made a contract with Napier of
Merchistoun, the inventor of Logarithms. Tradition declared that there
was a hoard of gold in 'the place of Fastcastle.' Napier was to discover
it (probably by the Divining Rod), and Logan was to give him a third of
the profits. But Napier, knowing his man, inserted a clause in the deed,
to the effect that, after finding the gold, _he was to be allowed a free
exit from Fastcastle_. Whether he found the hoard or not, we do not
know. But, two years later, in letting a portion of his property, Napier
introduced the condition that his tenant should never sublet it to any
person of the name of Logan! If he found the gold he probably was not
allowed to carry off his third share. Logan being a resolute character
of this kind, Sprot, a cowering creature, would not forge letters to
blackmail him. He would have been invited to dine at Fastcastle. The
cliffs are steep, the sea is deep, and tells no tales.
Thus where was Sprot's motive for forging letters in Logan's hand, and
incriminating the Laird of Restalrig, and for carrying them about in his
pocket in 1608? But where was his motive for confessing when taken and
examined that he _did_ forge the letters, if his confession was untrue,
while swearing, to his certain destruction, that he had a guilty
foreknowledge of the Gowrie conspiracy? He _might_ conciliate Government
and get pardoned as King's evidence, by producing what he called genuine
Logan letters, and thus proving the conspiracy, and clearing the King's
character; but this he did not do. He swore to the last that Logan and
he were both guilty (so Calderwood's authority rightly reported), but
that the plot letters were forged by himself, to what end Calderwood did
not say. All this appeared midsummer madness. Calderwood, it was
argued, must be in error.
A theory was suggested that Sprot really knew nothing of the Gowrie
mystery; that he had bragged falsely of his knowledge, in his cups; that
the Government pounced on him, made him forge the letters of Logan to
clear the King's character by proving a conspiracy, and then hanged him,
still confessing his guilt. But Mr. Mark Napier, a learned antiquary,
replied (in a long Appendix to the third volume of the History by the
contemporary Spottiswoode) to this not very probable conjecture by
showing that, when they tried Sprot, Government produced no letters at
all, only an alleged account by Sprot of two letters unproduced.
Therefore, in August 1608, Mr. Napier argued, Government had no letters;
if they had possessed them, they would infallibly have produced them.
That seemed sound reasoning. In 1608 Government had no plot letters;
therefore, the five produced in the trial of the dead Logan were forged
for the Government, by somebody, between August 1608 and June 1609. Mr.
Napier refused to accept Calderwood's wild tale that Sprot, while
confessing Logan's guilt and his own, also confessed to having forged
Logan's letters.
Yet Calderwood's version (or rather that of his anonymous authority in
MS.) was literally accurate. Sprot, in _private_ examinations (July 5,
August 11, 1608), confessed to having forged all the letters but one, the
important one, Letter IV, Logan to Gowrie. This confession the
Government burked.
The actual circumstances have remained unknown and are only to be found
in the official, but _suppressed_, reports of Sprot's private
examinations, now in the muniment room of the Earl of Haddington. These
papers enable us partly to unravel a coil which, without them, no
ingenuity could disentangle. Sir Thomas Hamilton, the King's Advocate,
popularly styled 'Tam o' the Cowgate,' from his house in that old 'street
of palaces,' was the ancestor of Lord Haddington, who inherits his
papers. Sir Thomas was an eminent financier, lawyer, statesman, and
historical collector and inquirer, who later became Lord Binning, and
finally Earl of Haddington. As King's Advocate he held, and preserved,
the depositions, letters, and other documents, used in the private
examinations of Sprot, on and after July 5, 1608. The records of Sprot's
examinations between April 19 and July 5, 1600, are not known to be
extant.
Sir Thomas's collection consists of summonses, or drafts of summonses,
for treason, against the dead Logan (1609). There is also a holograph
letter of confession (July 5, 1608) from Sprot to the Earl of Dunbar.
There are the records of the _private_ examinations of Sprot (July
5-August 11, 1600) and of other persons whom he more or less implicated.
There are copies by Sprot, in his 'course,' that is, current,
handwriting, of two of the five letters in Logan's hand (or in an
imitation of it). These are letters I and IV, produced at the posthumous
trial of Logan in June 1609. Finally, there are letters in Logan's hand
(or in an imitation of it), addressed to James Bower and to one Ninian
Chirnside, with allusions to the plot, and there is a long memorandum of
matters of business, also containing hints about the conspiracy, in
Logan's hand, or in an imitation thereof, addressed to John Bell, and
James Bower.
Of these compromising papers, one, a letter to Chirnside, was found by
the Rev. Mr. Anderson (in 1902) torn into thirteen pieces (whereof one is
missing), wrapped up in a sheet of foolscap of the period. Mr. Anderson
has placed the pieces together, and copied the letter. Of all these
documents, only five letters (those published by Mr. Pitcairn) were
'libelled,' or founded on, and produced by the Government in the
posthumous trial of Logan (1609). Not one was produced before the jury
who tried Sprot on August 12, 1608. He was condemned, we said, merely on
his own confession. In his 'dittay,' or impeachment, and in the official
account of the affair, published in 1608, were cited fragments of two
letters _quoted from memory by Sprot under private examination_. These
quotations from memory differ, we saw, in many places from any of the
five letters produced in the trial of 1609, a fact which has aroused
natural suspicions. This is the true explanation of the discrepancies
between the plot letter cited in Sprot's impeachment, and in the
Government pamphlet on his case; and the similar, though not identical,
letter produced in 1609. The indictment and the tract published by
Government contain merely Sprot's recollections of the epistle from Logan
to Gowrie. The letter (IV) produced in 1609 is the genuine letter of
Logan, or so Sprot seems, falsely, to swear. _This_ document did not
come into the hands of Government till after the Indictment, containing
Sprot's quotation of the letter from memory, was written, or, if it did,
was kept back.
All this has presently to be proved in detail.
As the Government (a fact unknown to our historians) possessed all the
alleged Logan letters and papers _before_ Sprot was hanged, and as, at
his trial, they concealed this circumstance even from Archbishop
Spottiswoode (who was present at Sprot's public trial by jury), a great
deal of perplexity has been caused, and many ingenious but erroneous
conjectures have been invented. The Indictment or 'dittay' against
Sprot, on August 12, 1608, is a public document, but not an honest one.
It contains the following among other averments. We are told that Sprot,
in July 1600, at Fastcastle, saw and read the beginning of a letter from
Logan to Gowrie (Letter IV). Logan therein expresses delight at
receiving a letter of Gowrie's: he is anxious to avenge 'the
Macchiavelian massacre of our dearest friends' (the Earl decapitated in
1584). He advises Gowrie to be circumspect, 'and be earnest with your
brother, that he be not rash in any speeches touching the purpose of
Padua.'
[Picture: Fastcastle]
This letter, _as thus cited_, is not among the five later produced in
1609; it is a blurred reminiscence of parts of _two_ of them. The reason
of these discrepancies is that the letter is quoted in the Indictment,
_not_ from the document itself (which apparently reach the prosecution
after the Indictment was framed), but from a version given from memory by
Sprot, in one of his private examinations. Next, Sprot is told in his
Indictment that, some time later, Logan asked Bower to find this letter,
which Gowrie, for the sake of secrecy, had returned to Bower to be
delivered to Logan. We know that this was the practice of intriguers.
After the December riot at Edinburgh in 1596, the Rev. Robert Bruce,
writing to ask Lord Hamilton to head the party of the Kirk, is said to
request him to return his own letter by the bearer. Gowrie and Logan
practised the same method. The indictment goes on to say that Bower,
being unable to read, asked Sprot to search for Logan's letter to Gowrie,
among his papers, that Sprot found it, 'abstracted' it (stole it),
retained it, and 'read it divers times,' a _false quotation of the MS.
confession_. Sprot really said that he kept the stolen letter (IV)
'_till_' he had framed on it, as a model, three forged letters. It
contained a long passage of which the 'substance' is quoted. This
passage as printed in Sprot's Indictment is not to be found textually, in
any of the five letters later produced. It is, we repeat, merely the
version given from memory, by Sprot, at one of his last private
examinations, before the letter itself came into the hands of Government.
In either form, the letter meant high treason.
Such is the evidence of the Indictment against Sprot, of August 12, 1608.
In the light of Sprot's real confessions, hitherto lying in the
Haddington muniment room, we know the Indictment to be a false and
garbled document. Next, on the part of Government, we have always had a
published statement by Sir William Hart, the King's Justice, with an
introduction by Dr. George Abbot, later Archbishop of Canterbury, who was
in Edinburgh, and present when Sprot was hanged. This tract was
published by Bradewood, London, in 1608, and is reprinted by Pitcairn.
After a verbose, pious, and pedantic diatribe, Abbot comes to the point.
Sprot was arrested in April 1608, first on the strength 'of some words
that fell from himself,' and, next, '_of some papers found upon him_.'
What papers? They are never mentioned in the Indictment of Sprot. They
are never alluded to in the sequel of Abbot's pamphlet, containing the
official account, by Sir William Hart, of Sprot's Trial and Examinations.
In mentioning 'some papers found upon' Sprot, Dr. Abbot 'let the cat out
of the bag,' but writers like Mr. Napier, and other sceptics of his way
of thinking, deny that any of the compromising letters were found at all.
No letters, we say, are mentioned by Sir William Hart, in Abbot's tract
(1608), _as having been produced_. Archbishop Spottiswoode, who was
present at Sprot's public trial (August 12, 1608), thought the man one of
those insane self-accusers who are common enough, and observes that he
did not 'show the letter'--that of Logan to Gowrie (IV). This remark of
Spottiswoode, an Archbishop, a converted Presbyterian, a courtier, and an
advocate for the King, has been a source of joy to all Ruthven
apologists. 'Spottiswoode saw though the farce,' they say; 'there was no
letter at all, and, courtier and recreant as he was, Spottiswoode had the
honesty to say so in his History.'
To this there used to be no reply. But now we know the actual and
discreditable truth. The Government was, in fact, engaged in a shameful
scheme to which Archbishops were better not admitted. They meant to use
this letter (IV) on a later occasion, but they also meant to use some of
the other letters which Sprot (unknown to Spottiswoode) had confessed to
be forgeries. The archiepiscopal conscience might revolt at such an
infamy, Spottiswoode might tell the King, so the Scottish Government did
not then allow the Archbishop, or the public, to know that they had any
Logan letters. No letter at all came into open and public Court in 1608.
Hart cites a short one, from Gowrie to Logan. Gowrie hopes to see Logan,
or, at least, to send a trusty messenger, 'anent the purpose you know.
But rather would I wish yourself to come, not only for that errand, but
for some other thing that I have to advise with you.' There is no date
of place or day. This letter, harmless enough, was never produced in
Court, and Mr. Barbe supposes that it was a concoction of Hart's. This
is an unlucky conjecture. The Haddington MSS. prove that Sprot really
recited Gowrie's letter, or professed to do so, from memory, in one of
his private examinations. The prosecution never pretended to possess or
produce Gowrie's letter.