The guilt of the Earl of Gowrie was disbelieved in Scotland all but universally, and the accusation of magic and sorcery brought against him was treated with the contempt it merited, except by a few persons more curious than intelligent. Five ministers of Edinburgh refused to offer thanks for the king's deliverance, in which they did not believe; and, three of them suffered severely for their contumacy and incredulity. The estates of the Earl of Gowrie were forfeited, and divided amongst favourites, and three of the earl's faithful servants were executed at Perth, declaring their innocence and his with their dying breath. An annual thanksgiving was appointed in England and Scotland, but the English laughed at the farce, and the Scotch were indignant at the impiety. An annual feast also was held, which Weldon mentions as follows: "Sir John Ramsay, for his good service in that preservation, was the principal guest; and so did the king grant him any boon he would ask that day. But he had such limitation made to his asking, as made his suit as unprofitable as the action which he asked it for was unserviceable to the king."
I have endeavoured, in the account of the last few days of the earl's life, to keep as near to the truth as possible, only indicating circumstances not absolutely proved as natural conclusions from established facts. I have not ventured to represent the scene which took place in the earl's gallery chamber and cabinet between his brother and the king, for my account would probably be nearly as wide of the truth as that of the monarch or the factor, though it might be less absurd. But I have not felt myself bound to adhere to historical truth in those parts of a romance which are conventionally established as fiction. The character of Julia Douglas is purely imaginary; and were there at present any descendants from the Regent Morton, I would apologize for the liberties I have taken with their ancestor. The lady whom it was proposed the earl should marry, was in reality the Lady Margaret Douglas, daughter of the Earl of Angus; but particular circumstances, which it would be tedious to dwell upon, prevented me from mixing her name up with this history; and there were rumours current, both before and after the earl's death, of another more powerful but secret attachment, which might probably have frustrated the views of friends under the influence of a stronger power.
FOOTNOTES
[Footnote 1]: This man, David Drummond, was tried and condemned shortly after, in the first justice court held by the young earl, and was executed for his offence, June 28,1600, as appears by the chronicles of the fair city of Perth.
[Footnote 2]: This curious anecdote is given in the manuscript memoirs of the Church of Scotland, by Mr. David Calderwood, a contemporary who was at this time about five-and-twenty years of age, and a keen observer of all that was passing.
[Footnote 3]: It is now the generally received opinion that the Earl of Angus did obtain possession of the treasures of the regent Morton, and that he spent the whole of them in acts of liberality to his fellow exiles.
[Footnote 4]: This anecdote of court scandal is to be found in Pinkerton's essay on what he calls the Gowrie conspiracy, in which it was inserted on the authority of Lord Hailes. The freedom of manners attributed to Anne of Denmark, both before and after the accession of her husband to the throne of England, and her fondness for several ladies of more than doubtful virtue, are mentioned by almost every writer of the day. All agree, however, that the character of Beatrice Ruthven, afterwards Lady Hume, one of Anne's earliest favourites, was perfectly irreproachable.
[Footnote 5]: This anecdote of Mr. William Cowper is given by Archbishop Spottiswood, a strong partizan of the king; and it is clear that he mentioned it with the view of supporting, by some independent testimony, the extraordinary statement of James himself--a statement which would not have deceived a child, so absurd, incongruous, and ridiculous it is, had not the friends and flatterers of the monarch exerted themselves, with all the zeal of sycophant ambition, to bolster up a puerile defence of his conduct, by corroborative circumstances often as false, and sometimes as puerile.
[Footnote 6]: This same Mr. Patrick Galloway, after the earl's death, did very imprudently go the length of saying, in a sermon preached at the market cross of Edinburgh, referring to the murdered nobleman, "He was an atheist, an incarnate devil, in the coat of an angel, a studier of magic, a conjurer with devils, some of whom he had under his command."
[Footnote 7]: If Henderson ever was at Falkland on that day, as he afterwards swore, he must have arrived at about half-past seven, and to have seen anything of what took place could not have quitted the ground till after eight. Yet he had returned to Perth by ten. He was met by Mr. John Moncrief, about that time, riding into Perth, and stopped to speak with him, so that he performed, in two hours, a journey which had taken Alexander Ruthven three, over the bad and tortuous roads then existing. But the whole of the man's evidence is invalidated by his subsequent perjury in regard to the other transactions of that day.