Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 13.pdf/36

 Conspiracy as a Fine Art. CONSPIRACY AS A FINE ART. BY ANDREW LANG. CONSPIRACY, for its own sake and apart from the object aimed at, is natur ally attractive to the human mind. All chil dren are conspirators, and rejoice in the chief agreeable element of conspiracy, the keeping of a secret. Happily these -young plotters have no worse design, as a rule, than to surprise a relation with a birthday or Christmas present. Mature mankind seldom conspires to do good and give unexpected pleasure: grown-up conspirators meditate nothing less than agreeable surprises. The secrets in whose possession they delight aim at kidnapping or murdering. There is no doubt that, up to a certain point, the plotters enjoy themselves hugely. They feel like gods, beings with special knowledge and mysterious unguessed-at powers, moving above and apart from mankind; controlling statesmen; overthrowing the great; mould ing the fortunes of people and princes. These joys, with the additional element of gambling, are being savored at this hour by thousands of anarchic amateurs, who prob ably never expect their schemes to take form in action. One has often thought, rightly or wrongly, that many of the Phoenix Parkgang of "Invincibles" did not look forward to any practical conclusion, and that their crime was carried out only by the unex pected energy and ferocity of one or two of their number, dragging the rest after them. It must have occurred to the mind of every student of conspiracies that these com binations are sadly stereotyped: both in their methods and their faults. The wretched Tameson enterprise was cast in the very mould of a hundred Jacobite plots. There was the very same inept attempt to give a commercial character to the incriminating correspondence. Fenian, Jacobite, and lamesonian conspirators always use the same would-be cryptic terms in their letters,

while the allusions to "pens" (revolvers), "the muslin trade,'' or to company floating, in each case are transparent to the dullest reader. Reflection on such themes was probably the ruin, three hundred years ago, of the young Earl of Gowrie, and of his brother, Alexander Ruthven, who was only nineteen. By studying the stereotyped faults of other conspiracies, they were induced to try a new method. The result was the celebrated Gowrie conspiracy of 1600. So elaborately silly was this device when put to the test, so aimless to all appearance, so clumsy, and so unconnected with any traceable purpose or motive or ally, that the country at the mo ment inclined to believe that there had been no plot at all. Either James VI., who was aimed at, lost his presence of mind, people said, and so caused a panic in which Gowrie and his brother were slain; or the plot was all on the king's own side: a royal conspir acy to ruin the Ruthvens. Occasionally these theories are reproduced even at the present day. But much the best solution of the historical mystery is that which regards the two brothers as conspirators with an unlucky taste for originality. The key is to be found in the evidence of the Rev. William Couper, at that time min ister in Perth, as reported by Archbishop Spottiswoode, the historian. Mr. Couper, a few clays before the adventure, found Lord Gowrie reading a Latin work on conspira cies. The Earl observed that they were all foolishly mismanaged, "for he that goeth about such a business should npt," said he, "put any man in his counsel." Of course such a system is inconsistent with the very etymology of conspiracy, which implies com bination. Gowrie must have meant that the number of accomplices ought to be very strictly limited, and he carried his theory so