Gowrie conspiracy

“ These circumstances owe their importance to the light they throw on the obscurity of the celebrated “Gowrie conspiracy,” which resulted in the slaughter of the earl and his brother by attendants of King James at Gowrie House, Perth, a few weeks after Gowrie’s return to Scotland in May 1600. This event ranks among the unsolved enigmas of history. The Gowrie conspiracy. The mystery is caused by the improbabilities inherent in any of the alternative hypotheses suggested to account for the unquestionable facts of the occurrence ”

“ There are enigmas in the annals of most peoples; riddles put by the Sphinx of the Past to the curious of the new generations. These questions do not greatly concern the scientific historian, who is busy with constitution-making, statistics, progress, degeneration, in short with human evolution. These high matters, these streams of tendency, form the staple of history, but the problems of personal character and action still interest some inquiring minds. Among these enigmas nearly the most obscure, ‘The Gowrie Conspiracy,’ is our topic. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Et impius haec tam culta novalia miles habebit? Barbarus has segetes?” Whereupon Godscroft was persuaded of his sincerity, and at his return persuaded the Earl of Angus thereof also.’ So the plot went on, Gowrie pretending that he meant to leave the country, says his accomplice, Godscroft, while both the Court and the conspirators were uncertain as to his trimming intentions. He trimmed too long; he was taken, the plot exploded and failed. Gowrie was thus within the danger of the law, for treasonably concealing foreknowledge of the conspiracy. ”

“ Logan died, we saw, in July 1606. In April, 1608, Sprot was arrested by 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. ”

“ First, the improbability of a murderous conspiracy, by youths so full of promise and Presbyterianism as Gowrie and his brother. To Gowrie’s previous performances we return later. The objection against a scheme of murder hardly applies to a plan for kidnapping a King who was severe against the Kirk.
The story of the pot of gold, and the King’s desire to inspect it and the captive who bore it, personally, and the folly of thinking that one pot of gold could suffice to disturb the peace of the country, are next adversely criticised. We have already replied to the criticism (p. 40) . ”

“ He was knighted and rewarded: every one almost was rewarded out of Gowrie’s escheats, or forfeited property. But that was natural, whether James was guilty or innocent; and we repeat that the rewards, present or in prospect, did not produce witnesses ready to say that they saw Henderson at Falkland, or in the tumult, or in the turret. Why men so freely charged with murderous conspiracy and false swearing were so dainty on these and other essential points, the advocates of the theory of perjury may explain. How James treated discrepancies in the evidence we have seen. ”

“ They were indispensable, said Bowes, her ambassador, to ‘the secrecy of the cause.’ Gowrie would not be tempted, and it is not improbable that he carried so valuable a treasure with him, when, in April 1584, he retired to Dundee, to escape by sea if the Angus conspiracy failed. ”

“ 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? ”

“ Poor Richard, who was hanged next, could not induce the 'dogged and surly' John to clear his character by a dying declaration. Such declarations were then held irrefragable evidence, at least in Scotland, except when (as in the case of George Sprot, hanged for the Gowrie conspiracy) it did not suit the Presbyterians to believe the dying man. ”

“ His capture upset the plans of the other conspirators, who took refuge in England. He was brought to Edinburgh on the 18th, thence to Kinkell on the 25th, and five days thereafter to Stirling, to be put upon his trial. Although the delay of Gowrie in leaving the country was suspicious, there was no direct proof that he was involved in a conspiracy against the king or Arran. Earnest attempts were therefore made to induce him to make a confession (see specially the papers printed in Papers relating to William, first Earl of Gowrie, pp. 25–43) ”

“ Now if Margaret Tudor had issue by Henry Stewart, Lord Methven, and if that issue was Dorothea, mother of John, third Earl of Gowrie, or was Dorothea’s father or mother, that Earl was Elizabeth’s cousin. Now Burnet, touching on the Gowrie mystery, says that his own father had ‘taken great pains to inquire into that matter, and did always believe it was a real conspiracy. . . . Upon the King’s death, Gowrie stood next to the succession of the crown of England,’ namely, as descended from Margaret Tudor by Henry (Burnet says ‘Francis’!) , Lord Methven. ”

“ Ruthven goes to consult Gowrie, leaving him in the custody of the man, 56; questions the man about the conspiracy, 57; orders the man to open the window, 58; the Master returns and essays to bind his hands with a garter, 58; struggles with the Master and shouts Treason from the window, 58; rescued by Ramsay, who wounds p. 273the Master, 59; returns to Falkland, 59; Henderson’s narrative of events, 60 et seq.; his interview with the Master and journey to Gowrie House, 65; at dinner, 65; Henderson’s account of the struggle in the turret chamber mainly in accord with the King’s narrative, 66 ”

“ Goodman, the, of Pitmillie, on the King’s knowledge of Henderson, 114
Gowdie, Isobel, accused of witchcraft, 198
Gowrie, Earl of (father of John Earl of, and the Master of Ruthven) , one of the Riccio murderers, 118; in charge of Mary at Lochleven, 118; pardoned for his share in the Raid of Ruthven, 119; arrested and brought to trial, 120; foul means by which his conviction was procured, 120–123; foreknowledge of the Angus conspiracy, 121, 122; nobles charged by him with treachery, 122; execution, 11, 55, 56, 121; the King’s debt to him, 84; after death denounced by James as a traitor, 96 ”

“ 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. ”

“ A man may slay another, without incurring the guilt of murder, if he has ‘a secret cause.’ Bruce probably referred to the tattle about a love intrigue between Gowrie, or Ruthven, and the King’s wife. Even now, James kept his temper. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Michael Gowrie knew his name, and Gowrie had come to this very room on the previous evening with a glass of toddy. Could it be that Gowrie had murdered this unknown man, and had then arranged the snare, so that a perfectly innocent being should bear the penalty of his wickedness. It was credible, and yet,--from what Herries remembered of the old scamp,--Gowrie was not the man to commit so dreadful a deed. In his degraded state, the ex-minister would steal at a pinch in order to procure money for drink. He would lie glibly; he would blackmail, and bear false witness to serve his own ends ”

“ Even supposing that the master intended to kill the king, the only suspicious circumstance in the conduct of Gowrie is his statement that the king had left the house; and, accepting the evidence against him as genuine, it does not show beyond doubt that the statement was not made in good faith. Before he entered his house with a drawn sword, he had been denounced and threatened by the king's attendants ”

“ We must suppose that Gowrie, with his small force of himself and Cranstoun, both fencers from the foreign schools, would allow that force to be cut off in detail, one by one. We must suppose that Erskine was where he certainly was not, in two places at once, and that Ramsay and Herries and he, unseen, left the hall and joined the King, on a message brought by the Master, unmarked by any witness. We must suppose that the King’s witnesses, who professed ignorance on essential points, perjured themselves on others, in batches. ”

“ Then, knowing the topography, Gowrie and Cranstoun would necessarily make for the murder-chamber, by the dark stair, and perish. The Royal wit never conceived a subtler plot, it is much cleverer than that invented by Mr. G. P. R. James, in his novel, ‘Gowrie.’ Nothing is wrong with the system of the apologist, except that the facts are false, and the idea a trifle too subtle, while, instead of boldly saying that the King had the gallery chamber locked against his friends, the apologist never hints at that circumstance. ”

“ Had Gowrie really cherished the legacy of revenge for a father slain, and a mother insulted; had he studied the subtleties of Italian crime, pondered over an Italian plot till it seemed feasible, and communicated his vision to the boy brother whom he found at home—the mystery would be transparent.
As to King James, we know him well. The babe ‘wronged in his mother’s womb;’ threatened by conspirators before his birth; terrified by a harsh tutor as a child; bullied ”

“ James himself told Nicholson that a large English ship had hovered off the coast, refusing communication with the shore. Bothwell, again, now desperate, may have lately been nearer home than was known; finally, Fastcastle, the isolated eyrie on its perpendicular rock above the Northern Sea, may have been at Gowrie’s disposal. I am disinclined to conjecture, being only certain that a young man with Gowrie’s past—‘Italianate,’ and of dubious religion—was more apt to form a wild and daring plot than was his canny senior, the King of Scots. ”

“ A man may mention the wrong name by inadvertence, or the clerk, by inadvertence, may write the wrong name. Mr. Mark Napier in his essay on this matter twice or thrice prints ‘Logan’ for ‘Sprot,’ or ‘Sprot’ for ‘Logan.’ [222] ‘Fastcastle,’ in Sprot’s confession, may be a slip of tongue or pen for ‘Gunnisgreen,’ or he may have been confused among the movements to and from Gunnisgreen and Fastcastle. The present writer finds similar errors in the manuscript of this work.
Sprot next alleged that, three months after the Gowrie affair, Logan bade Bower hunt among his papers for this very letter. ”

“ Much value was set on dying confessions. When the preacher, Robert Bruce, refused to believe the King’s account of the Gowrie tragedy, he said that one proof would satisfy him. Let Andrew Henderson, the man in the turret, be hanged. If he persisted in his confession on the scaffold, Mr. Bruce would believe. The King declined to make this p. 227abominable experiment. In Sprot’s case his dying confession did not move the Kirk party. Calderwood hints that Mr. Galloway ‘had the most speech to Sprot on the scaffold,’ and so kept him true to a dying lie. ”

“ 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 p. 177practice of intriguers. After the December riot at Edinburgh in 1596, the Rev. ”