The Gowrie conspiracy and its official narrative

Preface

That singular event, the Gowrie Conspiracy, is one that appeals with more than common interest to all readers of history, as the obscurity in which it is involved gives it quite a romantic place in the annals of the 17th century. I have endeavoured in the following pages to throw some additional light on the subject derived from a careful research in the State Paper offices and in other collections. The papers in the possession of the Perth Literary and Antiquarian Society have, I believe, been privately published, but this is the first time that some of them have really been put within reach of the public. I consider these papers of importance, not so much from the position and standing of the vi

Preface writers, as from the special opportunities they had of giving an independent opinion on a subject they had studied with profound interest. I am not prepared to question the conclusions at which they have arrived, for I think these, when the whole case has been put under review and every available document scrutinised, are well founded. There are some curious things connected with this event. For example, we are met at the threshold by the absolute want of a Ruthven narrative and the consequent difficulty of estimating the value of that published by the King. On this hangs the whole question. The execution of the plot showed that it was deliberately planned, although all trace of negotiations has been withheld and absolutely nothing disclosed. That Gowrie conspired against the King and was the head of the conspiracy the official narrative tries to make clear ; but it is not well put together. It is rather a clumsy piece of composition, and its special pleading condemns it, Take for example the scene in

Preface vii the turret chamber. Does any one suppose that if Gowrie wanted to assassinate the King, Alexander Ruthven would have engaged in the silly conversation that is recorded in the official narrative ? If the plot had been of Gowrie's making, if Gowrie had, as many suppose, been the conspirator, Alexander Ruthven would doubtless have taken his life when he had so favourable an opportunity for doing so. And what is conspicuous is that neither Gowrie nor his brother ever attempted to take the King's life. Ruthven was evidently dragged to the turret window by James, and this cunning device conveyed the impression outside that James was in great danger. (James at this period would be thirty-four years of age, Ruthven a youth of twenty.) This was the signal for the massacre which afterwards took place ; and the manner in which it was carried out certainly indicated that it was malice aforethought. There is also to be considered the attitude of the Corporation of Perth of that viii

Preface day. The magistrates were onlookers, and it is evident they had no knowledge whatever until Gowrie was killed that any conspiracy was going on. Had Gowrie led the conspiracy, his brother magistrates would doubtless have known something about it. So far from that being the case, the Town Council and the inhabitants rose up in indignation against the King, and were furious at the death of Gowrie, who was their Provost. The King's efforts to appease them by becoming a burgess in April following was a highly suspicious act, and his effusive charters granted to the town after the event are too transparent to mislead any one. The subsequent conduct of the King and his nobles throws great suspicion on them. The depositions they took, which were painfully voluminous, were untruthful, one-sided, and conspicuous by their want of independence. They are a mere re-echo of the official narrative. These tribunals, in short, were not impartial, and some shady circumstances are reported to have

Preface ix

occurred, such as the murder of a messenger, who could have given important evidence, whose body was found next day in a corn-field. Why did the King's party murder this man, who witnessed the conspiracy, if it was not because his evidence would condemn the King ? Assuming Gowrie to have been the conspirator, was the King, with the knowledge he possessed, having slain his enemies and confiscated their estates, justified in resorting to the cruel and inhuman procedure which he subsequently adopted against the Ruthven family ? His object in all this is undoubtedly a great mystery, and seems to convey the impression that he believed Gowrie was a competitor for the English throne.

The correspondence of Nicolson, Elizabeth's envoy in Scotland, is important, and should be carefully studied. So far as we are aware he was a man of strict integrity. He does not take the King's part, and he was an independent witness and a looker-on. In coming to the conclusion I have done, I have

h

X Preface

been guided by the evidence I have reproduced, and there is no other evidence of any value to be obtained on which one would be justified in forming a conclusion. That, evidence appears to me to leave no room for doubt as to who was the author of the so-called Gowrie Conspiracy.

S. C.

Perth, Novejnbei\ 1902.

LIST OF PLATES.

GowRiE House ..... Frontispiece

Plate I. — The Courtyard and Adjoining

Ground. .... Facing page loo

Plate II. — The Interior — Showing First and Second Floors, Black Turnpike, and Turret Chamber . . . Facing page 102

Ancient or Mercat Cross of Perth . page 257

Chapter I

Condition of Scotland in 1600 — The Ruthven Family — The Earl of Cowrie's return from Padua — The King's narrative of the Conspiracy.

Scotland during the middle ages was anything but a peaceful kingdom, and its people were anything but law-abiding. Its administration was not characterised by integrity, but rather by corruption, immorality, and crime. Allegiance to the throne was disregarded in high quarters when any great scheme was afloat, and the effect of this was destructive of loyalty and of the general safety, and calculated to keep the people in constant excitement. Conspiracies during this period were very common, and the lives of the lieges were

B never absolutely free from danger. The conspiracy of Robert Graham and the Earl of Atholl against the life of James I. was an inexcusable and treacherous act, in which the lives of all three were sacrificed. The conspiracies against Riccio and against Darnley were equally inexcusable, and attended with much greater loss of life ; while the conspiracy against the Queen of Scots was carried on for nineteen years, and culminated not only in her execution, but in a wholesale execution of a large number of the nobility and people. In the reign of James VI. the conspiracy against him by William Lord Ruthven and his followers lasted for upwards of ten months, and some years afterwards what is known as the Gowrie Conspiracy followed suit. These do not exhaust the list, but they unfold the spirit of the times. These plots had one object only, and that was the aggrandisement of the men by whom they were put forward. The condition of Scotland was pitiable. It was financially in a state of chronic bank-

Condition of Scotland in 1600 3 ruptcy, and the English monarch its chief creditor. It was constantly engaged in civil war ; its miHtary were undisciplined, ill-clad, ill-fed, ill-paid, while its people were poor and discontented. This state of matters occasioned the loss of Flodden, Pinkie, Solway Moss, and several other engagements. The general poverty and insecurity were shown in some of the sieges of Perth, the ancient capital, when on one occasion only one man in the burgh was able to give hospitality, and on another occasion, when the provost and magistrates forsook the town and ran away to escape danger. With one exception these cabals we have referred to were directed against royal personages, a state of matters that disclosed a spirit of rebellion and treason amongst the leading men of the time, and particularly those who were ministers of State. Everything unfortunately has not been recorded, and we can only criticise what is expressed in the official narrative. The treasonable conduct of the nobles, which figures conspicuously in the

B 2 historical record, is difficult to believe, but it seems to be beyond doubt ; and not only so, but there is reason to believe that all of them entered into and promoted these unlawful schemes without the least hesitation. For example, when James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell, undertook to murder Darnley if the nobles gave him as a douceur Darnley's wife, nineteen out of twenty nobles convened signed the bond. The Gowrie Conspiracy was different from every other conspiracy that has occurred either before or since, in respect that it was evidently a plot by a royal personage against a subject ; it differed also from the conspiracies we have named in that it was conceived without ingenuity and executed without skill. Ruthven at Falkland, the drama, at the dinner, the King's uncovered head at the window, the false report that he had returned to Falkland, the death-scene in the turret chamber, the prompt execution of those who could give evidence against the King, and the farce of the bogus depositions, leave

Condition of Scotland in 1600 5 no reasonable doubt as to the elaborate scheme which must have been " cut and dry," constructed and rehearsed, before the fatal 5 th of August. To most students of history it will appear mysterious why the negotiations for the deed were kept so quiet ; so quiet in short that nothing about them has found its way into the State Paper Office or into any private collection. Although Gowrie and his brothers were annihilated and his estates confiscated, he had seven married sisters who were evidently undisturbed. One of these was married to Lennox, who does not appear to have taken Cowrie's part, but we should have expected some of the other brothers-in-law to have spoken out. From whatever reason history is silent. Even that noble woman, Dorothea Stuart, Cowrie's mother, who in agony witnessed her two youngest boys being pursued and hunted to the death by the bloodhounds of James, was consequently unable to communicate with them or to afford them food, -clothing, or shelter, and has left nothing on record to enlighten the seeker after truth. Scotsmen in every age have read this wonderful story ; children at school have been " grounded " on the King's narrative ; while students of history have stood aghast as they engaged in research and gradually realised that they were unravelling the mystery of a gigantic plot.

Whether it was a conspiracy by Gowrie to remove the King, or a conspiracy by the King to remove Gowrie, has always been a debatable question. The Ruthven family were extensive landowners in Scotland, and were also identified very closely with the town of Perth, while by marriage they were connected with various county families. Their country residence was Ruthven Castle, in the neighbourhood of Perth ; their town residence Gowrie House, and the head of the family was usually Sheriff and Provost of Perth, There does not seem to have been any crime recorded against any of the family until the reign of Queen Mary, when Patrick Lord

Patrick and IVilliam Ruthven 7

Ruthven, who died in exile, joined the rebels, became a violent conspirator, and was one of the murderers of Riccio. He committed the unpardonable offence of striking Riccio with his sword in the presence of the Queen, and otherwise of grossly insulting her Majesty, as is fully recorded in the Queen's biography. For this she indignantly told him, after the murder, that she hoped "the Eternal God, who from the high heavens beheld this murder, would avenge her injury by rooting out him and his treacherous posterity." The Gowrie Conspiracy evidently fulfilled this prophecy. His son succeeded as William Lord Ruthven, and was afterwards created first Earl of Gowrie. He also became a rebel, and evidently was a man of the most brutal description, in proof of which we have recorded his outrage on the Queen at Lochleven, when, in company with Lindsay, he forced himself into her bedroom, found her ill and in bed, and compelled her to sign her abdication by brute force. The Queen had no greater enemy. He was also one of the Darnley murderers ; and during the reign of James he concocted and carried out what is called the Raid of Ruthven, for which he was afterwards beheaded. His eldest son died while second Earl of Gowrie, and the next two sons were those of the Gowrie Conspiracy. The elder of these, John, third Earl, had just (1600) finished his education at Padua, and was only twenty-one years of age. He went to England on his return from Padua, and spent two months at Elizabeth's Court at a time when it has been suggested that James and Elizabeth had quarrelled. On his arrival in Edinburgh he was surrounded by a brilliant company of noblemen and gentlemen and a vast assembly of friends. The King is reported not to have been very cordial to him, but his genial manner at length prevailed. He was fond of sports, which pleased the King ; and it is said he became the constant companion of James, but of this we have not sufficient proof. The narrative of the so-called Gowrie

Conspiracy, which has been frequently published, is the official version issued by the authority of James, and presumably written by him. We do not think it can be accepted as a hona Jide report of what occurred, nor do we think the depositions afterwards taken before the Town Council and at Falkland are of the slightest value, because they are notoriously one-sided and untruthful. The whole proceedings appear to have been directed by royal authority, and woe to the man who called in question any order of James. This narrative has done its work by manifesting to posterity that the atrocious deed was the act of Gowrie and his brother. No narrative of the conspiracy from the Ruthvens or their friends has, as already stated, ever been published, very probably because no one was left who was in a position to do so. All such were executed after the conspiracy by command of the King.

In the archives of the Perth Literary and Antiquarian Society are some important papers lo The Gowrie Conspiracy

on the subject, read before the Society more than a century ago by men who evidently had devoted much time to its consideration, and whose efforts to arrive at the truth cannot be too highly commended. What they have said is of great importance. We give in a slightly condensed form four of these papers, which we commend to the unbiassed judgment of those who desire to form an opinion on this great historical event. We shall first, however, reproduce the King's narrative.

The Narrative of James VI.

On the 5th August the King and his nobles were in the great park at Falkland ready to mount and proceed to their sport. This was between 6 and 7 a.m. The King was surrounded by his hounds and huntsmen when Alexander Ruthven came up and craved an audience. Ruthven then declared that the evening before he had met a suspicious looking fellow outside the walls of St. Johns toun with his face muffled in a cloak, and perceiving him to be terrified when questioned he seized him, and on searching found a pot full of gold pieces under his cloak. This treasure, with the man who carried it, he had secured in a small chamber in Gowrie House, and he now begged the King to ride with him to St. Johnstoun and make sure of it as he had not yet told his brother. The King disclaimed having any right to money they found, but on being told it was foreign gold he proposed to send a warrant to the Provost to seize it. Ruthven protested against his doing so, as if the magistrates got a hold of it he would never see it. All he wanted was that the King would ride with him to St. Johnstoun, see the treasure, and judge for himself. The King said he would decide after the hunt was over. At the close of the chase he surprised his companions by telling them that he meant to ride into Perth and see the Earl of Gowrie, and he immediately rode off with Ruthven at a rapid pace. During the ride Ruthven despatched Andrew Henderson, his chamberlain, to advise Gowrie that the King would arrive very shortly. Gowrie, it would appear, dined at half-past twelve along with three friends.

Shortly after, Ruthven arrived to announce the King's approach, and Gowrie and his friends and followers rose to their feet and walked to the South Inch to meet him. The King had an escort of twelve or fifteen persons. On coming to Gowrie House he called for a drink, and was annoyed at having to wait long for it, and also at the delay of an hour before dinner was served. During this interval Alexander Ruthven sent for the key of the room leading to the gallery chamber, which room adjoined the cabinet where the King dined. At the end of this apartment was another which led by a stair into a circular room formed in the interior of a turret, and this room could be entered not only by the door at the end of the gallery, but by another door communicating with a back stair. Soon after the King sat down to dinner Gowrie sent for Henderson and told him to go to his brother in the gallery. He obeyed and was joined by Gowrie. Henderson, beginning to get uneasy, asked excitedly what they were about to do with him. Gowrie and his brother proceeded to the little chamber, made him enter and locked him up. Gowrie then returned to the King, who was sitting at his dessert, whilst Lennox and the rest of the suite were dining in the next room. The King in a bantering way proposed Gowrie's health in a flowing bumper of wine. Gowrie, calling for wine, joined Lennox and his companions, and at this moment Alexander Ruthven, when the King was alone, whispered to him that now was the time to go. The King asked him to call Sir Thomas Erskine, but he evaded the question. Lennox spoke of following, but Gowrie prevented him. The latter then opened the door leading to his pleasure-grounds and Lennox and others passed into the garden. The King, believing some of his suite were following him, accompanied Ruthven up a stair and through a suite of various chambers all of them opening into each other, Ruthven locking every door as they passed out. At last they entered the small room (already mentioned). On the wall hung a picture with a curtain before it ; beside it stood a man in armour; and as the King started back in alarm Ruthven locked the door, put on his hat, drew the dagger from the side of the armed man, and tearing the curtain from the picture, showed the well-known features of the late Earl, his father. " Whose face is that ? " said he, advancing the dagger with one hand to the King's breast, and pointing with the other to the picture. "Who murdered my father? Is not thy conscience burdened by his innocent blood ? Thou art now my prisoner, and must be content to follow our will and to be used as we list. Seek not to escape, utter but a cry " (the King has crossed to the window), " make but a motion to open the window and this dagger is in thy heart."

Said the King : " As for your father's death, I had no hand in it : it was my Council's doing, and should you now take my life what preferment will it bring you? Have I not sons and daughters ? You can never be King of Scotland, and I have many good subjects who will avenge my death." Ruthven seemed struck with this, and swore he neither wanted his blood nor his life. Said the King : " What want ye if ye seek not my life ? " " But a promise. Sir," was the reply. "What promise ? " " Sir," said Ruthven, " my brother will tell you." " Go, fetch him then," said the King, and he assured Ruthven that until his return he would neither call out nor open the window. Ruthven commanded Henderson to watch the King and departed, locking the door behind him. The King being alone with Henderson asked him if Gowrie would do him any mischief, to which Henderson said he would die first. " Open the window then," said the King, and while Henderson was in the act of doing so Ruthven entered the room, and swearing there was no remedy seized the King by the wrists and attempted to bind him with a garter which he had in his hand. The King was too much for him, and wrenching himself from Ruthven exclaimed he "was a free prince and would never be bound," Henderson at the same time forcing away the cord. The King made for the window, when Ruthven seized him by the throat with one hand and thrust the other into his mouth to prevent him giving alarm. James dragged his assailant to the window and thrust his head half out, though Ruthven's hand was still on his throat, cried out, " Treason ! help, Earl of Mar, I am murdered ! " Ruthven dragged him back, and denouncing Henderson as a cowardly villain, attempted to draw his sword, which the King prevented by grasping his right hand. Henderson, though Ruthven's servant, supported the King, and unlocking the door of the room stood trembling while the King and Ruthven engaged in a desperate struggle. A report was got up by the Ruthvens that the

King and his suite had left the Castle by a back door and were riding over the South Inch on their return journey. (This was an ingenious device of the writer to entrap the Ruthvens.) In a few minutes the King's cry of treason was heard, and some of the nobles looking up saw the King's face at the turret window with a hand on his throat. Sir Thomas Erskine immediately seized Gowrie, with the words, " Traitor, thou shalt die ! this is thy work," but was felled to the ground by Andrew Ruthven. Lennox and Mar rushed up the great staircase to the hall but found the door locked. John Ramsay, one of the King's suite, ran swiftly up the back stair to the top, dashed open the door of the Round Chamber with his foot and found the King and Ruthven still wrestling, the King with Ruthven's hand under his arm, while Ruthven still grasped the King's throat. Ramsay made an ineffectual blow at Ruthven, the King calling out to strike low as he wore a doublet. Ramsay then stabbed him twice on the lower part of the body. The King thereupon pushed him backwards through the door downstairs, when Sir Thomas Erskine and Dr. Herries despatched him with their swords. As Erskine and Ramsay were congratulating the King a tumult was heard at the end of the gallery. The King was hurried into an adjoining chamber when Gowrie arrived with a rapier in each hand, rushed along the gallery followed by seven of his servants with drawn swords. He had seen the bleeding body of his brother, and swore that the traitors who murdered him should die. He attacked Erskine and three companions, who were all wounded, but they fought with determined energy. Some one called out that the King was slain, and Gowrie, as if paralysed with the news, dropped his weapon, when Ramsay, who noticed this, slew him instantly with his sword. After all was over the King knelt in company with his nobles and thanked God for their deliverance !

Chapter II

First Paper on the Gowrie Conspiracy, read before the Perth Literary and Antiquarian Society by the Rev. James Scott — Second Paper by the Rev. Alexander Duff — Third Paper by James Logan — Fourth Paper by WiUiam Panton — Plans of the Interior of Gowrie House with Explanatory Notes.

The official narrative is a very plausible document — so much so that it immediately gave rise to controversy. The Perth Literary and Antiquarian Society, which was founded towards the close of the eighteenth century, gave great encouragement to its members to investigate the nature of this conspiracy. The result was that four papers of considerable importance were, after investigation, prepared and read to the Society in the year 1785. These were as follows : — c 2

First, by Rev. James Scott, minister of Perth.

Second, by Rev. Alexander DufF, minister of Tibbermore.

Third, by James Logan.

Fourth, by William Panton.

First Paper.

In the seventeenth century it seems to have been the opinion that the Earl was, by the mother's side, grandson of Queen Margaret, James IV.'s relict, and that he was a generation nearer the English Crown than James VI., that lady's great grandson. This opinion is expressed in some barbarous verses which had probably been written about the time of Charles I.'s death. The following may be selected : —

" Queen Margaret's grandson nigher in degree, Was Cowrie's ruin and King James's plea."

Gowrie's mother, Dorothea Stuart, could not have been the Queen's daughter, for her yames Scotfs Na7'rativc 21

Majesty died in i54i,aged fifty-three, whereas Dorothea, first and only Countess of Gowrie, had borne children at intervals after 1580. A son whom Margaret bore when dowager, although omitted by all our peerage writers, is expressly mentioned in Lord Methven's patent of creation (1525) as uterine brother of the royal donor James V., and by two credible and nearly contemporary authors. Bishop Lesley and Hume of Godscroft, formerly stated to have been slain at Pinkie in 1547. The "Master of Methven," as these designate him, must have been son of the Queen, because no son of Methven's second lady could have been old enough to appear in arms. Her Majesty's second son, according to the first Viscount Strathallan, had been born in 15 15 — the following year — and consequently must at his death have been fully thirty. That he was father of the Countess of Gowrie is stated by the Viscount.

James VL was resolved that the Earl of Gowrie and his brother Alexander should be put to death in a scuffle seemingly accidental, and in which they were to be made appear the aggressors and aiming at the King's death. His Majesty's personal safety and that of his confidential servants was to be secured by bribing the Earl's domestics and by fetching, as if by chance, a sufficient armed force from the adjacent country. For a visit of his Majesty at Gowrie House a special pretext was to be contrived. His Majesty, after dining there, was to affect a necessity for retiring to a private apartment, and was to take with him one of the devoted brothers. A rumour was soon to be spread that the King had set off for Falkland. When the royal suite should have assembled in the street to follow their master he was to give an alarm that his life was in danger. His confidential servants were to ascend by a private staircase, purposely left accessible, and kill the brother whom his Majesty had selected as the companion of his retirement. They were next to kill the other when he came yames Scotfs Narrative 23 around, as it was expected he would, amid a disturbance of whose nature he should be ignorant.

Of all this atrocity a principal reason seems to have been James's antipathy to the opulent and powerful family of Gowrie, the representatives of which, father and son, the first and the present, had, the one after the other, raised rebellions against his Government. The father's conduct had been fatal to himself by procuring his execution in 1584. The son when fifteen only had with others of the nobles waged war upon the Sovereign in 1593 ; had been defeated at a battle at Doune Castle by his Majesty in person, and had with difiiculty escaped from the scene of action, but after some time was pardoned for his youth's sake. He had gone to study at the University of Padua, and returned to Scotland after an absence of about six years, when, among the first of his measures, he headed the opposition to a tax proposed by the Sovereign^ and was besides avowedly hostile

24 The GowiHe Conspiracy to his Majesty's now favourite scheme of restoring the hierarchy. Gowrie's descent too from Queen Margaret, of whom it would seem he was^ Hke James, great grandson, and the possibility of his being selected by Elizabeth, at whose Court, on his return from the Continent, he had received great attention, might help to increase the royal heart-burning.

Whatever were the motives by which the King had been urged to a conduct so nefarious, he had in 1600 by letter commanded Alexander Ruthven to attend him at Falkland on the 5th of August — a day on which Ruthven and his brother the Earl had intended, according to preparations made, to go together from Perth to Dirleton to visit their mother, then residing there, and her two sons. After privately conversing with Ruthven at a hunting party his Majesty suddenly intimated that he was going to Perth. On his way he condescended to state confidentially to some of his train the reason of the sudden expedition, by teUing them that he

James Scotfs Narrative 25 had been told by Ruthven of a foreign monk then lurking with a pot of gold in Gowrie House, and that he wished to seize and examine him in person. The royal cavalcade had reached the environs of Perth whilst yet Gowrie, its Provost, Sheriff and Coroner, sat at dinner. Instantly his lordship and others hastened to meet their royal master on the South Inch, and having done so escorted him with due honour to Gowrie House, which they reached at one o'clock.