[443] M'Crie's Life of Melville; Robertson; Spottiswood.
[444] Spottiswood; Robertson; M'Crie.
[445] M'Crie's Life of Melville, ii. 378; Laing's History of Scotland, iii. 20, 35, 42, 62.
[446] Laing, 74, 89.
[447] Wight, 69 et post.
[448] Statutes of Scotland, vol. ii. p. 8; Pinkerton, i. 115; Laing, iii. 117.
[449] Laing, ibid.
[450] Arnot's Criminal Trials, p. 122.
[451] The Gowrie conspiracy is well known to be one of the most difficult problems in history. Arnot has given a very good account of it (p. 20), and shown its truth, which could not reasonably be questioned, whatever motive we may assign for it. He has laid stress on Logan's letters, which appear to have been unaccountably slighted by some writers. I have long had a suspicion, founded on these letters, that the Earl of Bothwell, a daring man of desperate fortunes, was in some manner concerned in the plot, of which the Earl of Gowrie and his brother were the instruments.
[452] Arnot's Criminal Trials, p. 70.