But we hear of him again, though historians have overlooked the fact. Among the Acts of Caution of 1600—that is, the records of men who become sureties for the good behaviour of others—is an entry in the Privy Council Register for December 5, 1600. [73] ‘Mr. Alexander Wilky in the Canongate for John Wilky, tailor there, 200l., not to harm John Lyn, also tailor there; further, to answer when required touching his (John Wilky’s) pursuit of Lyn for revealing certain speeches spoken to him by Mr. Robert Oliphant anent his foreknowledge of the treasonable conspiracy of the late John, sometime Earl of Gowrie.’
Thus Robert Oliphant, M.A., had spoken to tailor Lyn, or so Lyn had declared, about his own foreknowledge of the plot; Lyn had blabbed; tailor Wilky had ‘pursued’ or attacked Lyn; and Alexander Wilky, who was bailie of the Canongate, enters into recognisances to the amount of 200l. that John Wilky shall not further molest Lyn.
On the very day, December 5, when Alexander Wilky became surety for the good behaviour of John Wilky, Nicholson, the English resident at Holyrood, described the facts to Robert Cecil. [74a] Nicholson says that, at a house in the Canongate, Mr. Robert Oliphant was talking of the Gowrie case. He was a man who had travelled, and he inveighed against the unfairness of Scottish procedure in the case of Cranstoun.
We have seen that Mr. Thomas Cranstoun, Gowrie’s equerry, first brought to Lennox and others, in the garden, the report that the King had ridden away. We have seen that he was deeply wounded by Ramsay just before or after Gowrie fell. Unable to escape, he was taken, examined, tortured, tried on August 22, and, on August 23, hanged at Perth. He had invaded and wounded Herries, and Thomas Erskine, and had encouraged the mob to beleaguer the back gate of Gowrie House, against the King’s escape. He had been in France, he said, since 1589, had come home with Gowrie, but, he swore, had not spoken six words with the Ruthvens during the last fortnight. [74b] This is odd, as he was their Master Stabler, and as they, by their friends’ account, had been making every preparation to leave for Dirleton, which involved arrangements about their horses.
In any case, Mr. Robert Oliphant, in a house in the Canongate, in November or early December 1600, declared that Cranstoun, who, he said, knew nothing of the conspiracy, had been hanged, while Henderson, who was in the secret, and had taken the turret part, escaped, and retained his position as Chamberlain of Scone. Henderson, at the critical moment, had ‘fainted,’ said Oliphant; that is, had failed from want of courage. Oliphant went on to say that he himself had been with Gowrie in Paris (February-March 1600), and that, both in Paris and at home in Scotland later, Gowrie had endeavoured to induce him to take the part later offered to Henderson. He had tried, but in vain, to divert Gowrie’s mind from his dangerous project. This talk of Oliphant’s leaked out (through Lyn as we know), and Oliphant, says Nicholson, ‘fled again.’ [75]
Of Oliphant we learn no more till about June
1608. At that time, the King, in England, heard a rumour that he had been connected with the conspiracy. A Captain Patrick Heron [76] obtained a commission to find Oliphant, and arrested him at Canterbury: he was making for Dover and for France. Heron seized Oliphant’s portable property, ‘eight angels, two half rose-nobles, one double pistolet, two French crowns and a half, one Albertus angel; two English crowns; one Turkish piece of gold, two gold rings, and a loose stone belonging to one; three Netherland dollars; one piece of four royals; two quart decuria; seven pieces of several coins of silver; two purses, one sword; one trunk, one “mail,” and two budgetts.’ Oliphant himself lay for nine months in ‘the Gate House of Westminster,’ but Heron, ‘careless to justify his accusation, and discovering his aim in that business’ (writes the King), ‘presently departed from hence.’ ‘We have tried the innocency of Mr. Robert Oliphant,’ James goes on, ‘and have freed him from prison.’ The Scottish Privy Council is therefore ordered, on March 6, 1609, to make Heron restore Oliphant’s property. On May 16, 1609, Heron was brought before the Privy Council in Edinburgh, and was bidden to make restitution. He was placed in the Tolbooth, but released by Lindsay, the keeper of the prison. In March 1610, Oliphant having again gone abroad, Heron expressed his
readiness to restore the goods, except the trunk and bags, which he had given to the English Privy Council, who restored them to Robert Oliphant. The brother of Robert, Oliphant of Bauchiltoun, represented him in his absence, and, in 1611, Robert got some measure of restitution from Heron.
We know no more of Mr. Robert Oliphant. [77] His freedom of talk was amazing, but perhaps he had been drinking when he told the story of his connection with the plot. By 1608 nothing could be proved against him in London: in 1600, had he not fled from Edinburgh in December, something might have been extracted. We can only say that his version of the case is less improbable than Henderson’s. Henderson—if approached by Gowrie, as Oliphant is reported to have said that he was—could not divulge the plot, could not, like Oliphant, a gentleman, leave Perth, and desert his employment. So perhaps he drifted into taking the rôle of the man in the turret. If so, he had abundance of time to invent his most improbable story that he was shut up there in ignorance of the purpose of his masters.