After Bothwell, when he trapped the King by aid of Lady Gowrie (July 1593), recovered power for a while, he defended himself on this charge of witchcraft. He had consulted and employed the wizard, Richard Graham, who now accused him of attempting the King’s life by sorcery. But he had only employed Graham to heal the Earl of Angus, himself dying of witchcraft. Bothwell was charged with employing a retainer, Ninian Chirnside, to arrange more than twenty-one meetings with the wizard Graham; the result being the procurement of a poison, ‘adder skins, toad skins, and the hippomanes in the brain of a young foal,’ to ooze the juices on the King, ‘a poison of such vehemency as should have presently cut him off.’ Isobel Gowdie, accused of witchcraft in 1622, confessed to having employed
a similar charm. [199a] All this Bothwell, instructed by Colville, denied, but admitted that he had sent Ninian Chirnside twice to the wizard, all in the interests of the dying Earl of Angus. [199b]
This Chirnside, then, was a borderer prone to desperate enterprises and darkling rides, and midnight meetings with the wizard Graham in lonely shepherds’ cottages, as was alleged. He could also sink to blackmailing the orphan child of his ‘brother,’ Logan of Restalrig.
To go on with Sprot’s confessions; he had forged, he said, receipts from Logan to the man named Edward or Ned Heddilstane for some of the money which Heddilstane owed him. For these forgeries his client paid him well, if not willingly. Sprot frequently blackmailed Ned, ‘whenever he want siller.’
It must be granted that Sprot was a liar so complex, and a forger so skilled (for the time, that is), that nothing which he said or produced can be reckoned, as such, as evidence. On the other hand, his power of describing or inventing scenes, real or fictitious, was of high artistic merit, so that he appears occasionally either to deviate into truth, or to have been a realistic novelist born centuries too early. Why then, it may be asked, do we doubt that Sprot may have forged, without a genuine model, Letter IV? The answer will appear in due time. Letter IV, as Sprot confessed, is certainly the model of all the letters
which he forged, whether those produced or those suppressed. He was afraid to wander from his model, which he repeated in Letters I (?), III, V, and in the unproduced letters, including one which we have found in twelve torn fragments, with the signature missing.
XV. THE FINAL CONFESSIONS OF THE NOTARY
On July 16, Sprot was again examined. Spottiswoode, Archbishop of Glasgow, the historian, was present, on this occasion only, with Dunfermline, Dunbar, Sir Thomas Hamilton, Hart, and other nobles and officials. None of them signs the record, which, in this case only, is merely attested by the signature of Primrose, the Clerk of Council, one of Lord Rosebery’s family. In this session Sprot said nothing about forging the letters. The Archbishop was not to know.
Asked if he had any more reminiscences, Sprot said that, in November 1602, Fastcastle having been sold, Logan asked Bower ‘for God’s sake’ to bring him any of the letters about the Gowrie affair which he might have in keeping. Bower said that he had no dangerous papers except one letter from Alexander Ruthven, and another from ‘Mr. Andro Clerk.’ This Clerk was a Jesuit, who chiefly dealt between Spain and the Scotch Catholics. He was involved in the affair called ‘The Spanish Blanks’ (1593), and visited the rebel Catholic peers of the North, Angus,
Errol, and Huntly. [202] Logan, like Bothwell, was ready to intrigue either with the Kirk or the Jesuits, and he seems to have had some personal acquaintance with Father Andrew.