Page:The Queens of England.djvu/476

 430 THE QUEENS OF ENGLAND. howling wind and rain, he returned to Falkland, the hero of such a bloody tragedy as had not been transacted even in Scotland for many a day. He had left the bodies of John Gowrie and his brother dead and mangled on the floor of their own private dwelling, to which he declared they had by false representations enticed him unattended, for the purpose of seizing his person and revenging their father's death, but to which he had himself been able to summon his retinue in time to baffle the traitors, and murder them where they stood, unguarded and unresisting, in the midst of men whose fealty was sworn to them. Never was a story so pertinaciously told as this, so recommended by oaths and asseverations at court, so propped by the terrors of the scaffold, so backed by public thanksgivings ordered at market-crosses and so gener- ally scouted, and discredited. The utmost extent of belief it would seem to have attained was expressed in the remark of the shrewdest of James' courtiers, that he believed the story because the king told it, but that he would not have given credit to his own eyes, had he seen it. The ministers of the kirk, however, would not sanction even such scant faith. They remembered the hereditary grievances of the Gowries, were grateful for their championship of the extreme presbyterian party, could see no motive but madness for such, a projected assassination of the king, and were at no loss for powerful reasons why the king should have been anxious for the assas- sination of both the Ruthvens. While seemly professions of horror, therefore, and thanksgivings, of decent loyalty, rose up from all well-affected quarters, the ministers pertinaciously refused to be dismayed, surprised, or thankful. They would neither express unfeigned gratitude for the king's deliverance, nor belief that he ever was in danger ; and in this they were joined by the queen, whom they had formerly, in certain open differences with James, lectured from their pulpits on the duties of a wife's submission, but whose rebellion in this case they could hardly quarrel with. Anne was vehement and inconsolable in her sorrow for the fate of the Ruthvens. Tidings so terrible travel on the wind, and all the news of the dreadful day had reached Falkland some hours before the king's return. He found her plunged in grief that no sense of joy for his safety could assuage ; and it was long before the scenes of altercation and reproach, which then began, ceased to be the gossip of the time. She hoped