bulk of it was the unpaid part of the purchase money for his lands, sold by him to Balmerino, and Dunbar, James’s trusted ministers, who owed some 33,000 marks to the estate.
Logan had a ‘doer,’ or law agent, a country writer, or notary, named Sprot, who dwelt at Eyemouth, a hungry creature, who did not even own a horse. When Logan rode to Edinburgh, Sprot walked thither to join him. Yet the two were boon companions; Sprot was always loitering and watching at Gunnisgreen, always a guest at the great Christmas festivals, given by the Laird to his rough neighbours. The death of Logan was a disaster to Sprot, and to all the parasites of the Laird.
Logan died, we saw, in July 1606. In April, 1608, Sprot was arrested by a legal official, named Watty Doig. He had been blabbing in his cups, it is said, about the Gowrie affair; certainly most compromising documents, apparently in Logan’s hand, and with his signature, were found on Sprot’s person. They still bear the worn softened look of papers carried for long in the pockets. [162] Sprot was examined, and confessed that he knew beforehand of the Gowrie conspiracy, and that the documents in his possession were written by Logan to Gowrie and other plotters. He was tortured and in part recanted; Logan, he said, had not written the guilty letters: he himself had forged them. This was all before July 5, 1608, while Mr. Robert Oliphant lay in
prison, in London, on the same charge of guilty foreknowledge. Early in July 1608, the Earl of Dunbar came from London to Edinburgh, to deal with the affairs of the Kirk. He took Sprot out of his dungeon, gave him a more wholesome chamber, secluded him from gentlemen who came and threatened him (or so he said) if he made revelations, and Dunbar provided him with medical attendance. The wounds inflicted in ‘the boot’ were healed.
For six weeks Sprot was frequently examined, before members of the Privy Council and others, without torture. What he said the public did not know, nor, till now, have historians been better informed. Throughout, after July 5, 1608, he persisted in declaring Logan’s complicity in the Gowrie conspiracy, and his own foreknowledge. He was tried, solely on the evidence of guilty foreknowledge alleged in his own confessions, and of extracts, given by him from memory only, of a letter from Gowrie to Logan (not one of those which he claimed to have forged), and another of Logan to Gowrie, both of July 1600. On August 12, Sprot was hanged at Edinburgh. He repeated his confession of guilt from every corner of the scaffold. He uttered a long religious speech of contrition. Once, he said, he had been nearly drowned: but God preserved him for this great day of confession and repentance. But ‘no unbeliever in the guilt of Gowrie,’ says Calderwood, ‘was one whit the more convinced.’ Of course not, nor would the death of Henderson—which they
clamoured for—have convinced them. They said, falsely, that Sprot was really condemned as a forger, and, having to die, took oath to his guilt in the Gowrie conspiracy, in consideration of promises of help to his wife and family. [164]
Nearly a year later, in June 1609, the exhumed remains of Logan were brought into court (a regular practice in the case of dead traitors), and were tried for treason. Five letters by Logan, of July 1600, were now produced. Three were from Logan to conspirators unnamed and unknown. One was to a retainer and messenger of his, Laird Bower, who had died in January 1606. These letters were declared, by several honourable witnesses, to be in Logan’s very unusual handwriting and orthography: they were
compared with many genuine letters of his, and no difference was found. The Parliamentary Committee, ‘The Lords of the Articles,’ previously sceptical, were convinced by the five letters, the evidence to handwriting, the energy of the Earl of Dunbar, and the eloquence of the King’s Advocate. Logan’s children were all forfeited, and Dunbar saved the money which he owed to Logan’s estate. This trial is not alluded to, either by Calderwood or Archbishop Spottiswoode, in their histories. The five letters produced in the trial of Logan exist, and have been accepted as authentic by Mr. Tytler and Mr. Hill Burton, but not by writers who favour the Ruthvens. We print all five letters in Appendix C.
Meanwhile what had Sprot really said, under private examination, between July 5 and August 12, 1608, when he was executed?
This question is to be answered, from the hitherto unpublished records, in the following chapters. But, in common charity, the reader must be warned that the exposition is inevitably puzzling and complex. Sprot, under examination, lied often, lied variously, and, perhaps, lied to the last. Moreover much, indeed everything, depends here on exact dates, and Sprot’s are loose, as was natural in the circumstances, the events of which he spoke being so remote in time.