Page:The Queens of England.djvu/475

. ANNE OF DENMARK. 429 The Ruthvens of Gowrie had been concerned for two gen- erations in deeds which affected the person of James. The son of the Ruthven who first struck at David Rizzio was the Earl of Gowrie who expiated on the scaffold his share in the "raid of Ruthven," to which he contributed such honesty of intention as there was, most of the bravery, and all the human- ity. In consenting to his death, to please the profligate Arran whose life Lord Gowrie had saved, James forfeited his deep- plighted word ; and it was supposed to have been the uneasy remembrance of this which chiefly induced him, three years later, to restore the family estate and honors. John, the present Earl of Gowrie, had passed his youth in Italy, from which he had borne away every attainable prize of accom- plishment and learning; his brother Alexander was only less learned, handsome, and active than himself ; and, at the period to which this narrative has arrived, there were probably not two men in Scotland from whom a greater career was expected ; who were already so much the darlings of the people, to whom they represented that extreme party in the kirk for which their father had died ; or who, to all outward appear- ance, enjoyed so much of the favor of the crown. A great post in the government was supposed to be in reserve for Gowrie, Alexander had received special confidence as princi- pal gentleman of the bedchamber, and their sister Beatrice was the most trusted maid-of-honor to the queen. A week or. two before the catastrophe to be described, James is said to have seen a silver riband belonging to his wife around the neck of Alexander Ruthven ; and though the incident can hardly be accepted for a truth, it marks the popular belief of the dangerous height to which the Gowrie family again aspired. Such was their condition on the 5th of August, 1600. At an unusually early hour that morning, the court being then at their summer-seat of Falkland, near Perth, James disturbed the slumbers of his queen by the noise of his hunt- ing preparations. To her impatient questioning of why he left so early, he replied that he wished to be astir betimes, for he expected to kill a prime buck before noon. Before noon, however, he had left the chase ; and shortly after, by his own account, he was engaged in a mortal struggle, hand to hand, with Alexander Ruthven, in the family house of the Gowries at Perth. In the evening of the day, through a