Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 5.djvu/172

232 command of the magistrates the crowd became silent, and gradually dispersed. In the course of a few hours, peace was so completely re-established, that the king and his company were able to take horse for Falkland.

This bird's-eye view of the occurrences of the fifth of August, will be found correct in the main. Although some details have been necessarily omitted, they are sufficient to establish a preconcerted scheme Between the brothers against the king, but of what nature, and to what purpose, it would be difficult, without further evidence, to say. Of all the people that day assembled in Gowrie's house, not one seems to have been in the secret. Henderson, to whom an important share in the execution of the attempt had been assigned, was kept in ignorance to the last moment, and then he counteracted, instead of furthering their views. Even with regard to Cranstone, the most busy propagator of the rumour of the king's departure, it is uncertain whether he may not have spread the report in consequence of the asseverations of his master ; and we have his solemn declaration, at a time when he thought himself upon his death-bed, that he had no previous knowledge of the plot. The two Ruth yens of Freeland, Eviot, and Hugh Moncrieif, who took the most active share in endeavouring to stir the citizens up to mutiny to revenge the earl and his brother, may have been actuated, for any evidence we have to the contrary, solely by the feelings of reckless and devoted retainers, upon seeing their master's fall in an affray whose origin and cause they knew not. To this evidence, partly negative, and partly positive, may be added the deposition of William Rynd, who said, when examined at Falkland, that he had heard the earl declare, "He was not a wise man, who, having intended the execution of a high and dangerous purpose, should communicate the same to any but himself; because, keeping it to himself, it could not be discovered nor disappointed." Moreover, it does not sufficiently appear, from the deportment of the master, that they aimed at the king's life. He spoke only of making him prisoner, and grasped his sword only when the king had made his attendants aware of his situation. At the same time, it was nowhere discovered that any measures had been taken for removing the royal prisoner to a place of security; and to keep him in a place so open to observation as Gowrie-house, was out of the question. Without some other evidence, therefore, than that to which we have as yet been turning our attention, we can scarcely look upon these transactions otherwise than as a fantastic dream, which is incoherent in all its parts, and the absurdity of which is only apparent when we reflect how irreconcilable it is with the waking world around us.

The letters of Logan of Restalrig, which were not discovered till eight years afterwards, throw some further light upon the subject, though not so much as could be wished. Of their authenticity little doubt can be entertained, when we consider the number and respectability of the witnesses who swore positively to their being in Logan's handwriting. It appears from these letters that Gowrie and Logan had agreed in some plot against the king. It appears, also, that Logan was in correspondence with some third person who had assented to the enterprise. It would almost seem, from Logan's third letter, that this person resided at Falkland: "If I kan nocht win to Falkland the first nycht, I sail be tymelie in St Johnestoun on the morne." And it is almost certain from the fifth letter, that he was so situated as to have oral communication with Gowrie, the master of Ruthven: "Pray let his lo. be qwik, and bid M. A. remember on the sport he tald me." It does not appear, however, that any definite plan had been resolved upon. The sea excursion, which Mr Lawson, in his History of the Gowrie Conspiracy, supposes to have been contemplated with the design of conveying James to Fast castle, was only meant to afford facilities for a meeting of the conspirators with a view' to deliberation-