letter nominally from Logan to one Ninian or Ringan Chirnside. This man
was a member of the family of Chirnside of Easter Chirnside; his own
estate was Whitsumlaws. All these Chirnsides and Humes of Berwickshire
were a turbulent and lawless gang, true borderers. Ninian is addressed,
by Logan, as 'brother;' they were most intimate friends. It was Ninian
who (as the endorsement shows) produced our Letter V, on April 19; he had
purchased it, for the usual ends, from Sprot, being a great debtor (as
Logan's will proves) to his estate.
To track these men through the background of history is to have a notion
of the Day of Judgment. Old forgotten iniquities and adventures leap to
light. Chirnside, like Logan and the Douglases of Whittingham, and John
Colville, and the Laird of Spot, had followed the fortunes of wild Frank
Stewart, Earl of Bothwell, and nephew of the Bothwell of Queen Mary.
Frank Bothwell was driven into his perilous courses by a charge of
practising witchcraft against the King's life. Absurd as this sounds,
Bothwell had probably tried it for what it was worth. When he was
ruined, pursued, driven, child of the Kirk as he seemed, into the
Catholic faction, his old accomplice, Colville, took a solemn farewell of
him. 'By me your lordship was cleared of the odious imputation of
witchcraft . . . but God only knows how far I hazarded my conscience in
making black white, and darkness light for your sake' (September 12,
1594). {198}
After Bothwell, when he trapped the King by aid of Lady Gowrie (July
1593), recovered power for a while, he defended himself on this charge of
witchcraft. He _had_ consulted and employed the wizard, Richard Graham,
who now accused him of attempting the King's life by sorcery. But he had
only employed Graham to heal the Earl of Angus, himself dying of
witchcraft. Bothwell was charged with employing a retainer, _Ninian_
Chirnside, to arrange more than twenty-one meetings with the wizard
Graham; the result being the procurement of a poison, 'adder skins, toad
skins, and the hippomanes in the brain of a young foal,' to ooze the
juices on the King, 'a poison of such vehemency as should have presently
cut him off.' Isobel Gowdie, accused of witchcraft in 1622, confessed to
having employed a similar charm. {199a} All this Bothwell, instructed by
Colville, denied, but admitted that he had sent Ninian Chirnside twice to
the wizard, all in the interests of the dying Earl of Angus. {199b}
This Chirnside, then, was a borderer prone to desperate enterprises and
darkling rides, and midnight meetings with the wizard Graham in lonely
shepherds' cottages, as was alleged. He could also sink to blackmailing
the orphan child of his 'brother,' Logan of Restalrig.
To go on with Sprot's confessions; he had forged, he said, receipts from
Logan to the man named Edward or Ned Heddilstane for some of the money
which Heddilstane owed him. For these forgeries his client paid him
well, if not willingly. Sprot frequently blackmailed Ned, 'whenever he
want siller.'
It must be granted that Sprot was a liar so complex, and a forger so
skilled (for the time, that is), that nothing which he said or produced
can be reckoned, as such, as evidence. On the other hand, his power of
describing or inventing scenes, real or fictitious, was of high artistic
merit, so that he appears occasionally either to deviate into truth, or
to have been a realistic novelist born centuries too early. Why then, it
may be asked, do we doubt that Sprot may have forged, without a genuine
model, Letter IV? The answer will appear in due time. Letter IV, as
Sprot confessed, is certainly the model of all the letters which he
forged, whether those produced or those suppressed. He was afraid to
wander from his model, which he repeated in Letters I (?), III, V, and in
the unproduced letters, including one which we have found in twelve torn
fragments, with the signature missing.
XV. THE FINAL CONFESSIONS OF THE NOTARY
On July 16, Sprot was again examined. Spottiswoode, Archbishop of
Glasgow, the historian, was present, on this occasion only, with
Dunfermline, Dunbar, Sir Thomas Hamilton, Hart, and other nobles and
officials. None of them signs the record, which, in this case only, is
merely attested by the signature of Primrose, the Clerk of Council, one
of Lord Rosebery's family. In this session Sprot said nothing about
forging the letters. The Archbishop was not to know.
Asked if he had any more reminiscences, Sprot said that, in November
1602, Fastcastle having been sold, Logan asked Bower 'for God's sake' to
bring him any of the letters about the Gowrie affair which he might have
in keeping. Bower said that he had no dangerous papers except one letter
from Alexander Ruthven, and another from 'Mr. Andro Clerk.' This Clerk
was a Jesuit, who chiefly dealt between Spain and the Scotch Catholics.
He was involved in the affair called 'The Spanish Blanks' (1593), and
visited the rebel Catholic peers of the North, Angus, Errol, and Huntly.
{202} Logan, like Bothwell, was ready to intrigue either with the Kirk or
the Jesuits, and he seems to have had some personal acquaintance with
Father Andrew.
Bower left Logan, to look for these letters at his own house at
Brockholes, and Logan passed a night of sleepless anxiety. One of the
mysteries of the case is that Logan entrusted Bower, who could not read,
with all his papers. If one of them was needed, Bower had to employ a
person who could read to find it: probably he used, as a rule, the help
of his better educated son, Valentine. After Logan's restless night,
Bower returned with the two letters, Ruthven's and Clerk's, which Logan
'burned in the fire.'
(Let it be remembered that Sprot has not yet introduced Letter IV into
his depositions, though that was by far the most important.)
[Picture: Hand of Logan as forged by Sprot]
After burning Clerk's and Ruthven's letters, Logan dictated to Sprot a
letter to John Baillie of Littlegill, informing him of the fact. Bower
rode off with the letter, and Logan bade Sprot be silent about all these
things, for he had learned, from Bower, that Sprot knew a good deal.
Here the amateur of the art of fiction asks, why did Sprot drag in Mr.
John Baillie of Littlegill? If Logan, as Sprot swore, informed Baillie
about the burned letters, then Baillie had a guilty knowledge of the
conspiracy. Poor Baillie was instantly 'put in ward' under the charge of
the Earl of Dunfermline. But, on the day after Sprot was hanged, namely
on August 13, Baillie was set free, on bail of 10,000 marks to appear
before the Privy Council if called upon. Three of Sprot's other victims,
Maul, Crockett, and William Galloway, were set free on their personal
recognisances, but Mossman and Matthew Logan were kept in prison, and
Chirnside was not out of danger of the law for several years, as we learn
from the Privy Council Register. Nothing was ever proved against any of
these men. After the posthumous trial of Logan (June 1609) the King bade
the Council discharge John Baillie from his bail, 'as we rest now fully
persuaded that there was no just cause of imputation against the said
John.' So the Register of the Privy Council informs us. {203} Thus, if
Sprot told the truth about all these men, no corroborative facts were
discovered, while the only proofs of his charges against Logan were the
papers which, with one exception, he confessed to be forgeries, executed
by himself, for purposes of extortion.
To go on with his confessions: The Christmas of 1602 arrived, and 'The
Laird keepit ane great Yule at Gunnisgreen.' On the third day of the
feast, Logan openly said to Bower, at table, 'I shall sleep better this
night than that night when I sent you for the letters' (in November),
'for now I am sure that none of these matters will ever come to further
light, if you be true.' Bower answered, 'I protest before God I shall be
counted the most damnable traitor in the world, if any man on earth know,
for I have buried them.'
After supper, Bower and Logan called Sprot out on to the open hill-side.
Logan said that Bower confessed to having shown Sprot a letter of
Gowrie's. What, he asked, did Sprot think of the matter? Sprot, with
protestations of loyalty, said that he thought that Logan had been in the
Gowrie conspiracy. Logan then asked for an oath of secrecy, promising
'to be the best sight you ever saw,' and taking out 12_l._ (Scots) bade
Sprot buy corn for his children. Asked who were present at the scene of
the supper, Sprot named eight yeomen. 'The lady' (Lady Restalrig) 'was
also present at table that night, and at her rising she said, "The Devil
delight in such a feast, that will make all the children weep hereafter,"
and this she spoke, as she went past the end of the table. And, after
entering the other chamber, she wept a while, 'and we saw her going up
and down the chamber weeping.'
A fortnight later, Lady Restalrig blamed Bower for the selling of
Fastcastle. Bower appealed to Logan; it was Logan's fault, not his.
'One of two things,' said Bower, 'must make you sell your lands; either
you think your children are bastards, or you have planned some treason.'
The children were not those of Lady Restalrig, but by former marriages.
Logan replied, 'If I had all the land between the Orient and the
Occident, I would sell the same, and, if I could not get money for it, I
would give it to good fellows.' On another occasion Logan said to Bower,
'I am for no land, I told you before and will tell you again. You have
not learned the art of memory.'
In fact, Logan did sell, not only Fastcastle, but Flemington and
Restalrig. We know how the Scot then clung to his acres. Why did Logan
sell all? It does not appear, as we have shown, that he was in debt. If
he had been, his creditors would have had him 'put to the horn,'
proclaimed a recalcitrant debtor, and the record thereof would be found
in the Privy Council Register. But there is no such matter. Sprot
supposed that Logan wished to turn his estates into money, to be ready
for flight, if the truth ever came out. The haste to sell all his lands
is certainly a suspicious point against Logan. He kept on giving Sprot
money (hush money, and for forgeries to defraud others, sometimes) and
taking Sprot's oath of secrecy.
A remarkable anecdote follows; remarkable on this account. In the letter
(II) which Logan is said by Sprot to have written to Bower (July 18,
1600) occurs the phrase, 'Keep all things very secret, that my lord my
brother get no knowledge of our purposes, _for I rather be eirdit
quik_'--would rather be buried alive (p. 184). This 'my lord my brother'
is obviously meant for Alexander, sixth Lord Home, whose father, the
fifth lord, had married Agnes, sister of Patrick, sixth Lord Gray, and
widow of Sir Robert Logan of Restalrig. By Sir Robert, Lady Restalrig
had a son, the Logan of this affair; and, when, after Sir Robert's death,
she married the fifth Lord Home, she had to him a son, Alexander, sixth
Lord Home. Our Logan and the sixth Lord Home were, therefore, brothers
uterine. {206a}
Now, if we accept as genuine (in substance) the one letter which Sprot
declared to be really written by Logan (No. IV), Gowrie was anxious that
Home, a person of great importance, Warden on the Border, should be
initiated into the conspiracy. As Gowrie had been absent from Scotland,
between August 1594 (when he, as a lad, was in league with the wild
king-catcher, Francis Stewart of Bothwell), and May 1600, we ask, what
did Gowrie know of Home, and why did he think him an useful recruit? The
answer is that (as we showed in another connection, p. 130) Gowrie was in
Paris in February-April 1600, that Home was also in Paris at the same
time (arriving in Scotland, at his house of Douglas, April 18, 1600), and
that Home did not go to Court, on his return, owing to the King's
displeasure because of his 'trysting with Bothwell' in Brussels. {206b}
Here then we have, in March 1600, Gowrie and Home, in Paris, and
Bothwell, the King-catcher, meeting Home in Brussels. Therefore, when
Letter IV represents Gowrie as anxious to bring Home, who had been
consulting Bothwell, into his plot, nothing can be more natural. Gowrie
himself conceivably met his old rebellious ally, Bothwell; he was certain
to meet Home in Paris, and Home, owning Douglas Castle and Home Castle
near the Border, would have been a most serviceable assistant. It must
also be remembered that Home was, at heart, a Catholic, a recent and
reluctant Protestant convert, 'compelled to come in,' by the Kirk.
Bothwell was a Catholic; Gowrie, he declared, was another; Logan was a
trafficker with Jesuits, and an 'idolater' in the matter of 'keeping
great Yules.' Logan, however, if Letter IV is genuine, in substance,
wrote that he 'utterly dissented' from Gowrie's opinion. He would not
try his brother's, Home's, mind in the matter, or 'consent that he ever
should be counsellor thereto, for, in good faith, he will never help his
friend, nor harm his foe.'
Such being the relations (if we accept Letter IV as in substance genuine)
between Gowrie, Home, and Logan, we can appreciate Sprot's anecdote, now
to be given, concerning Lady Home. Logan, according to Sprot, said to
him, in Edinburgh, early in 1602, 'Thou rememberest what my Lady Home
said to me, when she would not suffer my lord to subscribe my contract
for Fentoun, because I would not allow two thousand marks to be kept out
of the security, and take her word for them? She said to me, _which was
a great knell to my heart_, that since her coming to the town, she knew
that I had been in some dealing with the Earl of Gowrie about Dirleton.'
Now Dirleton, according to Sprot, was to have been Logan's payment from
Gowrie, for his aid in the plot.
Logan then asked Sprot if he had blabbed to Lady Home, but Sprot replied
that 'he had never spoken to her Ladyship but that same day, although he
had read the contract' (as to Fentoun) 'before him and her in the abbey,'
of Coldingham, probably. Logan then requested Sprot to keep out of Lady
Home's sight, lest she should ask questions, '_for I had rather be eirdit
quick than either my Lord or she knew anything of it_.'
Now, in Letter II (July 18, 1600), from Logan to Bower, Logan, as we saw,
is made to write, 'See that my Lord, my brother, gets no knowledge of our
purposes, _for I_ (_sic_) _rather be eirdit quik_.' The phrase recurs in
another of the forged letters not produced in court.
It is thus a probable inference that Logan did use this expression to
Sprot, in describing the conversation about Lady Home, and that Sprot
inserted it into his forged Letter II (Logan to Bower). But, clever as
Sprot was, he is scarcely likely to have invented the conversation of
Logan with Lady Home, arising out of Logan's attempt to do some business
with Lord Home about Fentoun. A difficulty, raised by Lady Home, led up
to the lady's allusion to Dirleton, 'which was a great knell to my
heart,' said Logan. This is one of the passages which indicate a basis
of truth in the confessions of Sprot. Again, as Home and Gowrie were in
Paris together, while Bothwell was in Brussels, in February 1600, and as
Home certainly, and Gowrie conceivably, met Bothwell, it may well have
been that Gowrie heard of Logan from Bothwell, the old ally of both, and
marked him as a useful hand. Moreover, he could not but have heard of
Logan's qualities and his keep, Fastcastle, in the troubles and
conspiracies of 1592-1594. After making these depositions, Sprot
attested them, with phrases of awful solemnity, 'were I presently within
one hour to die.' He especially insisted that he had written, to Logan's
dictation, the letter informing John Baillie of Littlegill that all
Gowrie's papers were burned. As we saw, in November 1609, the King
deliberately cleared Baillie of all suspicion. There could be no
evidence. Bower, the messenger, was dead.
Baillie was now called. He denied on oath that he had ever received the
letter from Logan. He had never seen Gowrie, 'except on the day he came
first home, and rode up the street of Edinburgh.' Confronted with
Baillie, 'Sprot abides by his deposition.'
Willie Crockett was then called. He had been at Logan's 'great Yule' in
Gunnisgreen, where Logan, according to Sprot, made the imprudent
speeches. Crockett had also been at Dundee with Logan, he said, but it
was in the summer of 1603. He did not hear Logan's imprudent speech to
Bower, at the Yule supper. As to the weeping of Lady Restalrig, he had
often seen her weep, and heard her declare that Logan would ruin his
family. He only remembered, as to the Yule supper, a quarrel between
Logan and Willie Home.
This was the only examination at which Archbishop Spottiswoode attended.
Neither he nor any of the Lords (as we have said already) signed the
record, which is attested only by James Primrose, Clerk of Council,
signing at the foot of each page. Had the Lords 'quitted the diet'?
The next examination was held on July 22, Dunfermline, Dunbar, Sir Thomas
Hamilton, the President of the Court of Session, and other officials, all
laymen, being present. Sprot incidentally remarked that Logan visited
London, in 1603, after King James ascended the English throne. Logan
appears to have gone merely for pleasure; he had seen London before, in
the winter of 1586. On his return he said that he would 'never bestow a
groat on such vanities' as the celebration of the King's holiday, August
5, the anniversary of the Gowrie tragedy; adding 'when the King has cut
off all the noblemen of the country he will live at ease.' But many
citizens disliked the 5th of August holiday as much as Logan did.
[Picture: Handwriting of Sprot]
In the autumn of 1605, Logan again visited London. In Sprot's account of
his revels there, and his bad reception, we have either proof of Logan's
guilt, if the tale be true, or high testimony to Sprot's powers as an
artist in fiction. He says that Matthew Logan accompanied the Laird to
town in September 1605, and in November was sent back with letters to
Bower. Eight days later, Matthew took Sprot to Coldingham, to meet
Bower, and get his answer to the letters. It was a Sunday; these
devotees heard sermon, and then dined together at John Corsar's. After
dinner Bower took Sprot apart, and showed him two letters. Would Sprot
read to him the first few words, that he might know which letter he had
to answer? The first letter shown (so Sprot writes on the margin of his
recorded deposition) referred to the money owed to Logan, by the Earl of
Dunbar, for Gunnisgreen and the lands of Remington. Logan had expected
to get the purchase money from Dunbar in London; he never got more than
18,000 out of 33,000 marks. Sprot wrote for Bower the answer to this
business letter, and gave it to Matthew Logan to be sent to Logan in
London. Matthew, being interrogated, denied that he sent any letter back
to Logan, though he owned that Sprot wrote one; and he denied that Sprot
and Bower had any conference at all on the occasion. But Sprot had
asserted that the conference with Bower occurred after Matthew Logan left
them at Corsar's house, where they dined, as Matthew admitted, after
sermon. Matthew denied too much.
A curious conference it was. Bower asked Sprot to read to him the other
of Logan's two letters, directed to himself. It ran, 'Laird Bower,--I
wot not what I should say or think of this world! It is very hard to
trust in any man, for apparently there is no constancy or faithfulness.
For since I cam here they whom I thought to have been my most entire
friends have uttered to me most injurie, and have given me the defiance,
and say I am not worthy to live, "and if the King heard what has moved
you to put away all your lands, and _debosch_ yourself, you would not
make such merryness, and play the companion in London, as you do so near
his Majestie."'
Logan went on to express his fear that Bower's rash speeches had roused
these suspicions of 'the auld misterie ye ken of.' 'God forgive you, but
I have had no rest since these speeches were upcast to me.' Bower was to
take great care of this letter, 'for it is within three letters
enclosed,' and is confided to Matthew Logan (who travelled by sea) as a
trusty man.
Bower was much moved by this melancholy letter, and denied that he had
been gossiping. He had twice, before Logan rode south, advised him to be
very careful never even to mention the name of Gowrie.
Sprot said that he, too, was uneasy, for, if anything came out, he
himself was in evil case. Logan visited France, as well as London, at
this time; he returned home in the spring of 1606, but Bower expressed
the belief that he would go on to Spain, 'to meet Bothwell and Father
Andrew Clerk, and if he come home it will be rather to die in his own
country than for any pleasure he has to live.' Bothwell and Father
Andrew, of course, were both Catholic intriguers, among whom Bothwell
reckoned Logan and Gowrie.
Now the letter to Bower here attributed to Logan, telling of the new
'knell at his heart' when he is rebuked and insulted as he plays the
merry companion in London, and near the Court; his touching complaint of
the falseness of the world (he himself being certainly the blackest of
traitors), with the distress of Bower, do make up a very natural
description. The ghost of his guilt haunts Logan, he cannot drown it in
a red sea of burgundy: life has lost its flavour; if he returns, it will
be with the true Scottish desire to die in his own country, though of his
ancient family's lands he has not kept an acre. Pleasant rich Restalrig,
strong Fastcastle, jolly Gunnisgreen of the 'great Yules,' all are gone.
Nothing is left.
Surely, if Sprot invented all this, he was a novelist born out of due
time. Either he told truth, or, in fiction, he rivalled De Foe.
Matthew Logan, being called, contradicted Sprot, as we have already said.
He himself had seen Bower when he brought him Logan's letter from London,
take his son, Valentine, apart, and knew that Valentine read a letter to
him. 'It was a meikle letter,' Matthew said, and, if Sprot tell truth,
it contained three enclosures. Bower may have stopped his son from
reading the melancholy and compromising epistle, and kept it to be read
by Sprot. Logan's folly in writing at all was the madness that has
ruined so many men and women.
Matthew could not remember having ridden to Edinburgh with Logan in July
1600, just before the Gowrie affair, as Sprot had declared that he did.
We could scarcely expect him to remember that. He could remember nothing
at all that was compromising, nothing of Logan's rash speeches. As to
the Yule feast at Gunnisgreen, he averred that Lady Restalrig only said,
'The Devil delight in such a feast that makes discord, and makes the
house ado'--that is, gives trouble. Asked if wine and beer were stored
in Fastcastle, in 1600, he said, as has already been stated, that a
hogshead of wine was therein. He himself, he said, had been 'in the
west,' at the time of the Gowrie tragedy, and first heard of it at
Falkirk.
On August 6, Sprot was interrogated again. Only lay lords were present:
there were no clergymen nor lawyers. He denied that he had received any
promise of life or reward. He asked to be confronted with Matthew Logan,
and reported a conversation between them, held when Lord Dunbar took
possession of Gunnisgreen. Matthew then hoped to ride with the Laird to
London (1605), but said, 'Alas, Geordie Sprot, what shall we all do now,
now nothing is left? I was aye feared for it, for I know the Laird has
done some evil turn, and he will not bide in the country, and woe's me
therefor.'
Sprot asked what the 'evil turn' was. Matthew answered, 'I know well
enough, but, as the proverb goes, "what lies not in my way breaks not my
shins."'
Sprot added that, after Bower's death (January 1606), Logan wrote to him
from London, not having heard the news of his decease. Lady Restalrig
opened the letter and wrote a postscript 'Give this to Laird Bower, for I
trow that he be ridden to Hell, as he ofttimes said to the Laird that he
would do.' In Letter IV. Logan tells Gowrie that he believes Bower
'would ride to Hell's gate to pleasure him.'