was not), the passages already quoted by the prosecution in Sprot's
Indictment, passages out of a letter of Logan's given by Sprot from
memory only. Hart goes on to describe, as if on Sprot's testimony,
certain movements of the Laird's after he received Gowrie's reply to his
own answer to Gowrie. Logan's letter (as given in 1609) is dated July
29, and it is argued that his movements, after receiving Gowrie's reply,
are inconsistent with any share in the plot which failed on August 5.
Even if it were so, the fact is unimportant, for Sprot was really
speaking of movements at a date much earlier than July 29; he later gave
a separate account of what Logan was doing at the time of the outbreak of
the plot, an account _not_ quoted by Hart, who fraudulently or
accidentally confused the dates. And next we find it as good as
explicitly stated, by Hart, that this letter of Logan's to Gowrie was
never produced in open Court. 'Being demanded where this above written
letter, written by Restalrig to the Earl of Gowrie, which was returned
again by James Bower, is now? Deponeth . . . that he (Sprot) left the
above written letter in his chest, among his writings, when he was taken
and brought away, and that it is closed and folded within a piece of
paper,' so Hart declares in Abbot's tract. He falsified the real facts.
He could not give the question as originally put to Sprot, for that
involved the publication of the fact that all the letters but one were
forged. The question in the authentic _private_ report ran thus:
'Demanded where is that letter which Restalrig wrote to the Earl of
Gowrie, _whereupon the said George Sprot wrote and forged the missives
produced_?' (August 10).
The real letter of Logan to Gowrie, the only genuine letter (if in any
sense genuine), had not on August 10 been produced. The others were in
the hands of the Government. Hart, in his tract, veils these
circumstances. The Government meant to put the letters to their own
uses, on a later occasion, at the trial of the dead Logan.
Meanwhile we must keep one fact steadily in mind. When Sprot confessed
to having forged treasonable letters in Logan's handwriting (as
Calderwood correctly reports that he did confess), he _did not include
among them Letter IV_ (Logan to Gowrie July 29, 1600). _That_ letter was
never heard of by Sprot's examiners till August 10, and never came into
the hands of his examiners till late on August 11, or early on August 12,
the day when Sprot was hanged. Spottiswoode was never made aware that
the letter had been produced. Why Sprot reserved this piece of evidence
so long, why, under the shadow of the gibbet, he at last produced it, we
shall later attempt to explain, though with but little confidence in any
explanation.
Meanwhile, at Sprot's public trial in 1608, the Government were the
conspirators. They burked the fact that they possessed plot-letters
alleged to be by Logan. They burked the fact that Sprot confessed all
these, with one or, perhaps, two exceptions, to be forgeries by himself.
What they quoted, as letters of Logan and Gowrie, were merely
descriptions of such letters given by Sprot from memory of their
contents.
XIV. THE LAIRD AND THE NOTARY
We have now to track Sprot through the labyrinth of his confessions and
evasions, as attested by the authentic reports of his private
examinations between July 5 and the day of his death. It will be
observed that, while insisting on his own guilt, and on that of Logan, he
produced no documentary evidence, no genuine letter attributed by him to
Logan, nothing but his own confessed forgeries, till the cord was almost
round his neck--if he did then.
In his confessions he paints with sordid and squalid realism, the life of
a debauched laird, tortured by terror, and rushing from his fears to
forgetfulness in wine, travel, and pleasure; and to strange desperate
dreams of flight. As a 'human document' the confessions of Sprot are
unique, for that period.
On July 5, 1608, Sprot, in prison, wrote, in his own ordinary hand, the
tale of how he knew of Logan's guilt: the letter was conveyed to the Earl
of Dunbar, who, with Dunfermline, governed Scotland, under the absent
King. The prisoner gave many sources of his knowledge, but the real
source, if any (Letter IV), he reserved till he was certain of death
(August 10). Sprot 'knew perfectly,' he said, on July 5, that one letter
from Gowrie and one from his brother, Alexander Ruthven, reached Logan,
at Fastcastle and at Gunnisgreen, a house hard by Eyemouth, where Sprot
was a notary, and held cottage land. {183} Bower carried Logan's
answers, and 'long afterwards' showed Sprot 'the first of Gowrie's
letters' (the harmless one about desiring an interview) and also a note
of Logan's to Bower himself, 'which is amongst the rest of the letters
produced.' It is No. II, but in this confession of July 5, Sprot appears
to say that Gowrie's innocent letter to Logan, asking for an interview,
was the source of his forgeries. 'I framed them all to the true meaning
and purpose of the letter that Bower let me see, to make the matter more
clear by these arguments and circumstances, for the cause which I have
already' (before July 5) 'shewn to the Lords'--that is, for purposes of
extorting money from Logan's executors.
This statement was untrue. The brief letter to Logan from Gowrie was not
the model of Sprot's forgeries; as he later confessed he had another
model, in a letter of Logan to Gowrie, which he held back till the last
day of his life. But in this confession of July 5, Sprot admits that he
saw, not only Gowrie's letter to Logan of July 6 (?) 1600 (a letter never
produced), but also a 'direction' or letter from Logan to his retainer,
Bower, dated 'The Canongate, July 18, 1600.' This is our Letter II. Had
it been genuine, then, taken with Gowrie's letter to Logan, it must have
aroused Sprot's suspicions. But this Letter II, about which Sprot told
discrepant tales, is certainly not genuine. It is dated, as we said,
'The Canongate, July 18, 1600.' Its purport is to inform Bower, then at
Brockholes, near Eyemouth, that Logan had received a _new_ letter from
Gowrie, concerning certain proposals already made orally to him by the
Master of Ruthven. Logan hoped to get the lands of Dirleton for his
share in the enterprise. He ends 'keep all things very secret, that my
Lord, my brother' (Lord Home) 'get no knowledge of our purposes, for I'
(would) 'rather be _eirdit quick_,' that is, buried alive (p. 205).
Now we shall show, later, the source whence Sprot probably borrowed this
phrase as to Lord Home, and being _eirdit quick_, which he has introduced
into his forged letter. Moreover, the dates are impossible. The first
of the five letters purports to be from Logan to an unnamed conspirator,
addressed as 'Right Honourable Sir.' It is not certain whether this
letter was in the hands of the prosecution before the day preceding
Sprot's execution, nor is it certain whether it is ever alluded to by
Sprot under examination. But it is dated from Fastcastle on July 18, and
tells the unknown conspirator that Logan has just heard from Gowrie. It
follows that Logan had heard from Gowrie on July 18 at Fastcastle, that
he thence rode to Edinburgh, and from Edinburgh wrote his letter (II) to
Bower, bidding Bower hasten to Edinburgh, to consult. This is absurd.
Logan would have summoned Bower from Fastcastle, much nearer Bower's home
than Edinburgh. Again, in Letter I, Logan informs the unknown man that
he is to answer Gowrie 'within ten days at furthest.' That being so, he
does not need Bower in such a hurry, unless it be to carry the letter to
the Unknown. But, in that case, he would have summoned Bower from
Fastcastle, he would not have ridden to Edinburgh and summoned him
thence. Once more, Sprot later confessed, as we shall see, that this
letter to Bower was dictated to himself by Logan, and that the copy
produced, apparently in Logan's hand, was forged by him from the letter
as dictated to him. He thus contradicted his earlier statement that
Letter II was shown to him by Bower. He never says that he was in
Edinburgh with Logan on July 18. Besides, it is not conceivable that, by
dictating Letter II to Sprot, Logan would have voluntarily put himself in
the power of the notary.
This is a fair example of Sprot's apparently purposeless lying. His real
interest throughout was to persuade the Government that he was giving
them genuine Logan letters. This, however, he denied, with truth, yet he
lied variously about the nature of his confessed forgeries.
Sprot was so false, that Government might conceive his very confession of
having forged the letters to be untrue. The skill in handwriting of that
age could not detect them for impostures; Government might deem that he
had stolen genuine letters from Bower; letters which might legitimately
be produced as evidence. Indeed this charitable view is perhaps
confirmed by the extraordinary fact, to be later proved, that three
Edinburgh ministers, Mr. Hall, Mr. Hewat, and Mr. Galloway, with Mr.
Lumisden, minister of Duddingston, were present on occasions when Sprot
confessed to having forged the letters. Yet these four preachers said
nothing, as far as we hear, when the letters, confessedly forged, were
produced as evidence, in 1609, to ruin Logan's innocent child. Did the
preachers think the letters genuine in spite of the confession that they
were forged? We shall see later, in any case, that the _contents_ of the
three letters to the Unknown, and a torn letter, when compared with
Letter IV, demonstrate that Sprot's final confession to having forged
them on the model of IV is true; indeed the fact ought to have been
discovered, on internal evidence, even by critics unaware of his
confessions.
We now pursue Sprot's written deposition of July 5. He gives, as grounds
of his knowledge of Logan's guilt, certain conversations among Logan's
intimates, yeomen or 'bonnet lairds,' or servants, from which he inferred
that Logan was engaged in treason. Again, just before Logan's death in
July 1606, he was delirious, and raved of forfeiture. But Logan had been
engaged in various treasons, so his ravings need not refer to the Gowrie
affair. He had been on Bothwell's enterprises, and had privy dealings
with 'Percy,' probably Thomas Percy, who, in 1602, secretly visited Hume
of Manderston, a kinsman of Logan. That intrigue was certainly connected
merely with James's succession to the English crown. But one of Logan's
retainers, when this affair of Percy was spoken of among them, said,
according to Sprot, that the Laird had been engaged in treason 'nearer
home.'
Sprot then writes that 'about the time of the conspiracy,' Logan, with
Matthew Logan, rode to Dundee, where they enjoyed a three days' drinking
bout, and never had the Laird such a surfeit of wine. But this jaunt
could not be part of the Gowrie plot, and probably occurred after its
failure. Later, Sprot gave a different version of Logan's conduct
immediately before and after Gowrie's death. Once more, after Logan's
death, one Wallace asked Sprot to be silent, if ever he had heard of 'the
Laird's conspiracy.' Sprot ended by confessing contritely that he had
forged all the letters (except Letter IV) 'to the true meaning and
purpose of the letter that Bower let me see,' a passage already quoted,
and a falsehood.
What was the 'cause' for which Sprot forged? It was a purpose to
blackmail, not Logan, but Logan's heirs or executors, one of whom was
Lord Home. If Sprot wanted to get anything out of _them_, he could
terrify them by threatening to show the forged Logan letters, as genuine,
to the Government, so securing the ruin of Logan's heirs by forfeiture.
He did not do this himself, but he gave forged letters, for money, to men
who were in debt to the dead Logan's estate, and who might use the
letters to extort remission of what they owed.
On July 15, Sprot was examined before Dunfermline, Dunbar, Hart, the
King's Advocate (Sir Thomas Hamilton), and other gentlemen. He said
that, about July 6, 1600, Logan received a letter from Gowrie, which, two
days later, Bower showed to him at Fastcastle. This is the harmless
Gowrie letter, which Sprot now quoted from memory, as it is printed in
Hart's official account.
Now begins a new puzzle, caused by Sprot's dates. Of these we can only
give a conjectural version, for the sake of argument. Logan received a
letter from Gowrie about July 6, 1600. He returned a reply, by Bower,
but when did Bower start with the reply? Let us say on July 9. Bower
returned, says Sprot, 'within five days,' with 'a new letter' from
Gowrie. That would bring us to July 14, but in Letters I and II, dated
July 18, Logan is informing his unknown correspondent, and Bower, of the
receipt of 'a new letter' from Gowrie. Why inform Bower of this, if
Bower was the bearer of the new letter? But the 'new letter' mentioned
in Letters I and II was brought by a retainer of Gowrie. In any case,
supposing by way of conjecture that Bower returned from Gowrie about July
15, he spent the night, says Sprot, with Logan at Gunnisgreen, and next
day (July 16) rode to Edinburgh with Bower, Boig of Lochend, and Matthew
Logan. In Edinburgh he remained 'a certain short space,' say four days,
which would bring us to July 20. Needless to say that this does not fit
Letter II, Logan to Bower, July 18, and Letter I, Logan to the Unknown,
Fastcastle, July 18.
After Logan's return from Edinburgh (which, according to Sprot, seems to
be of about July 20) Sprot heard Logan and Bower discuss some scheme by
which Logan should get Gowrie's estate of Dirleton, without payment.
Bower said nothing could be done till Logan rode west himself. He
discouraged the whole affair, but Logan said, in the hearing of several
persons, that he would hazard his life with Gowrie. Lady Restalrig
blamed Bower for making Logan try to sell the lands of Fastcastle (they
were not sold till 1602), of which Bower protested his innocence. This
was _after_ Logan's return from Edinburgh (say July 20; that is, say five
days after Logan's return, say July 25). Bower and Logan had a long
conference in the open air. Sprot was lounging and spying about beside
the river; a sea-fisher had taken a basket of blenneys, or 'green-banes.'
Logan called to Sprot to bring him the fish, and they all supped. Before
supper, however, Sprot walked about with Bower, and tried to 'pump' him
as to what was going forward. Bower said that 'the Laird should get
Dirleton without either gold or silver, but he feared it should be as
dear to him. They had another pie in hand than the selling of land.'
Bower then asked Sprot not to meddle, for he feared that 'in a few days
the Laird would be either landless or lifeless.'
Certainly this is a vivid description; Bower and Logan were sitting on a
bench 'at the byre end;' Sprot, come on the chance of a supper, was
peeping and watching; Peter Mason, the angler, at the river side, 'near
the stepping stones,' had his basket of blenneys on his honest back, his
rod or net in his hand; the Laird was calling for the fish, was taking a
drink, and, we hope, offering a drink to Mason. Then followed the lounge
and the talk with Bower before supper, all in the late afternoon of a
July day, the yellow light sleeping on the northern sea below. Vivid
this is, and plausible, but is it true?
We have reached the approximate date of July 25 (though, of course, after
an interval of eight years, Sprot's memory of dates must be vague). Next
day (July 26) Logan, with Bower and others, rode to Nine Wells (where
David Hume the philosopher was born), thence, the same night, back to
Gunnisgreen, next night, July 27, to Fastcastle, and thence to Edinburgh.
This brings us (allowing freely for error of memory) to about July 27,
'the hinder end of July,' says Sprot. If we make allowance for a
vagueness of four or five days, this does not fit in badly. Logan's
letter to Gowrie (No. IV), which Sprot finally said that he used as a
model for his forgeries, is dated 'Gunnisgreen, July 29.' 'At the
beginning of August,' says Sprot (clearly there are four or five days
lost in the reckoning), Logan and Bower, with Matthew Logan and Willie
Crockett, rode to Edinburgh, '_and there stayed three days_, and the
Laird, with Matthew Logan, came home, and Bower came to his own house of
the Brockholes, where he stayed four days,' and then was sent for by
Logan, 'and the Laird was very sad and sorry,' obviously because of the
failure of the plot on August 5.
How do these dates fit into the narrative? Logan was at Gunnisgreen (his
letter (IV) proves it) on July 29. (Later we show another error of
Sprot's on this point.) He writes that he is sending Bower as bearer of
his letter to Gowrie. If Bower left Edinburgh on July 30, he could
deliver the letter to Gowrie, at Perth, on August 2, and be back in
Edinburgh (whither Logan now went) on August 5, and Logan could leave
Edinburgh on August 6, after hearing of the deaths of his
fellow-conspirators. We must not press Sprot too hard as to dates so
remote in time. We may grant that Bower, bearing Logan's letter of July
29, rode with Logan and the others to Edinburgh; that at Edinburgh Logan
awaited his return, with a reply; that he thence learned that August 5
was the day for the enterprise, and that, early on August 6, he heard of
its failure, and rode sadly home: all this being granted for the sake of
argument.
Had the news of August 6 been that the King had mysteriously disappeared,
we may conceive that Logan would have hurried to Dirleton, met the
Ruthvens there, with their prisoner, and sailed with them to Fastcastle.
Or he might have made direct to Fastcastle, and welcomed them there. His
reason for being at Restalrig or in the Canongate was to get the earliest
news from Perth, brought across Fife, and from Bruntisland to Leith.
Whether correct or not, this scheme, allowing for lapse of memory as to
dates, is feasible. Who can, remote from any documents, remember the
dates of occurrences all through a month now distant by eight years?
There were no daily newspapers, no ready means of ascertaining a date.
Queen Mary's accusers, in their chronological account of her movements
about the time of Darnley's death, are often out in their dates. In
legal documents of the period the date of the day of the month of an
event is often left blank. This occurs in the confirmation of Logan's
own will. 'He died --- July, 1606.' When lawyers with plenty of leisure
for inquiry were thus at a loss for dates of days of the month (having
since the Reformation no Saints' days to go by), Sprot, in prison, might
easily go wrong in his chronology.
[Picture: Fastcastle]
In any case, taking Letter IV provisionally as genuine in substance, we
note that, on July 29, Logan did not yet know the date fixed for Gowrie's
enterprise. He suggested 'the beginning of harvest,' and, by August 5,
harvest had begun. One of the Perth witnesses was reaping in the 'Morton
haugh,' when he heard the town bell call the citizens to arms. But
Gowrie must have acted in great haste, Logan not knowing, till, say,
August 2 or 3, the date of a plot that exploded on August 5.
Gowrie may have thought, as Lord Maxwell said when arranging his escape
from Edinburgh Castle, 'Sic interprysis are nocht effectuat with
deliberationis and advisments, bot with suddane resolutionis.'
It is very important, we must freely admit, as an argument against the
theory of carrying James to Logan's impregnable keep of Fastcastle, that
only one question, in our papers, is asked as to the provisioning of
Fastcastle, and _that_ merely as to the supply of drink! Possibly this
had been ascertained in Sprot's earlier and unrecorded examinations
(April 19-July 5). One poor hogshead of wine (a trifle to Logan) had
been sent in that summer; so Matthew Logan deponed. As Logan had often
used Fastcastle before, for treasonable purposes, he was not (it may be
supposed) likely to leave it without provisions. Moreover these could be
brought by sea, from Dirleton, where Carey (August 11) says that Gowrie
had stored 'all his provision.' Moreover Government did not wish to
prove intent to _kidnap_ the King. That was commonly regarded as a
harmless constitutional practice, not justifying the slaughter of the
Ruthvens. From the first, Government insisted that _murder_ was
intended. In the Latin indictment of the dead Logan this is again dwelt
on; Fastcastle is only to be the safe haven of the murderers. This is a
misreading of Letter IV, where Fastcastle is merely spoken of as to be
used for a meeting, and 'the concluding of our plot.'
Thus it cannot be concealed that, on July 29 (granting Letter IV to have
a basis), the plot, as far as Logan knew, was 'in the air.' If
Fastcastle was to be used by the conspirators, it must have been taken in
the rough, on the chance that it was provided, or that Gowrie could bring
his own supplies from Dirleton by sea. This extreme vagueness undeniably
throws great doubt on Logan's part in the plot; Letter IV, if genuine,
being the source of our perplexity. But, if it is not genuine, that is,
_in substance_, there is only rumour, later to be discussed, to hint that
Logan was in any way connected with Gowrie.
We left Bower and Logan conversing dolefully some days after the failure
of the plot. At this point the perhaps insuperable difficulty arises,
why did they not, as soon as they returned from Edinburgh, destroy every
inch of paper connected with the conspiracy? One letter at least
(Logan's to Gowrie, July 29) was not burned, according to Sprot, but was
later stolen by himself from Bower; though he reserved _this_ confession
to the last day of his life but two. We might have expected Logan to
take the letter from Bower as soon as they met, and to burn or, for that
matter, swallow it if no fire was convenient! Yet, according to Sprot,
in his final confession, Logan let Bower keep the damning paper for
months. If this be true, we can only say _quos Deus vult perdere prius
dementat_. People do keep damning letters, constant experience proves
the fact.
After Bower had met Logan in his melancholy mood, he rode away, and
remained absent for four days, on what errand Sprot did not know, and
during the next fortnight, while Scotland was ringing with the Gowrie
tragedy, Sprot saw nothing of Logan.
Next, Logan went to church at Coldinghame, on a Sunday, and met Bower:
next day they dined together at Gunnisgreen. Bower was gloomy. Logan
said, 'Be it as it will, I must take my fortune, and I will tell you,
Laird Bower, the scaffold is the best death that a man can die.' Logan,
if he said this, must have been drunk; he very often was.
It was at this point, in answer to a question, that Sprot confessed that
Logan's letter to Bower (No. II) was a forgery by himself. The actual
letter, Sprot said, was dictated by Logan to him, and he made a
counterfeit copy in imitation of Logan's handwriting. We have stated the
difficulties involved in this obvious falsehood. Sprot was trying every
ruse to conceal his alleged source and model, Letter IV.
Sprot was next asked about a certain memorandum by Logan directed to
Bower and to one John Bell, in 1605. This document was actually found in
Sprot's 'pocquet' when he was arrested, and it contained certain very
compromising items. Sprot replied that he forged the memorandum, in the
autumn of 1606, when he forged the other letters. He copied most of it
from an actual but innocent note of Logan's on business matters, and
added the compromising items out of his own invention. He made three
copies of this forgery, one was produced; he gave another to a man named
Heddilstane or Heddilshaw, a dweller in Berwick, in September 1607; the
third, 'in course hand,' he gave to another client, 'the goodman of
Rentoun,' Hume. One was to be used to terrorise Logan's executors, to
whom Heddilstane, but not Rentoun, was in debt. Sprot's words are
important. 'He omitted nothing that was in the original' (Logan's
memorandum on business matters), 'but _eikit_' (added) 'two articles to
his copy, the one concerning Ninian Chirnside' (as to a dangerous
plot-letter lost by Bower), 'the other, where the Laird ordered Bower to
tear his missive letters. _He grants that he wrote another copy with his
course hand_, _copied from his copy_, and gave it to the goodman of
Rentoun,' while the copy given to Heddilstane 'was of his counterfeited
writing,' an imitation of Logan's hand.
[Picture: Handwriting of Logan (January 1585-6)]
Perhaps Sprot had two methods and scales of blackmail. For one, he
invented damning facts, and wrote them out in imitation of Logan's
writing. The other species was cheaper: a copy in his 'course hand' of
his more elaborate forgeries in Logan's hand. Now the two copies of
Letters I and IV, which, at the end of his life, as we shall see, Sprot
attested by signed endorsements, were in his 'course hand.' He had them
ready for customers, when he was arrested in April 1608, and they were
doubtless found in his 'kist' on the day before his death, with the
alleged original of Letter IV. Up to August 11, at a certain hour,
Government had neither the alleged original, nor Sprot's 'course hand
copy' of Letter IV, otherwise he would not have needed to quote IV from
memory, as he did on that occasion.