Part 9 (1/2)
The final and deepest mystery of the mysterious Gowrie affair rises, like a mist from a marsh, out of these facts concerning Sprot. When he was convicted, and hanged, persisting in his confessions, on August 12, 1608, no letters by Gowrie, or any other conspirator, were produced in Court.
Extracts, however, of a letter from Gowrie to Logan, and of one from Logan to Gowrie, were quoted in Sprot's formal Indictment. They were also quoted in an official publication, an account of Sprot's case, prepared by Sir William Hart, the Chief Justice, and issued in 1608.
Both these doc.u.ments (to which we return) are given by Mr. Pitcairn, in the second volume of his 'Criminal Trials.' But later, when the dead Logan was tried in 1609, five of his alleged plot letters (never _publicly_ mentioned in Sprot's trial) were produced by the prosecution, and not one of these was identical with the letter of Logan cited in the Indictment of Sprot, and in the official account of his trial. There were strong resemblances between Logan's letter, quoted but not produced, in 1608, and a letter of Logan's produced, and attested to be in his handwriting, in 1609. But there were also remarkable variations.
Of these undeniable facts most modern historians who were convinced of the guilt of the Ruthvens take no notice; though the inexplicable discrepancies between the Logan letters _quoted_ in 1608, and the letters _produced_ as his in 1609, had always been matters of comment and criticism.
As to the letters of 1609, Mr. Tytler wrote, 'their import cannot be mistaken; _their authenticity has never been questioned_; they still exist . . . ' Now a.s.suredly the letters exist. The five alleged originals were found by Mr. Pitcairn, among the Warrants of Parliament, in the General Register House, in Edinburgh, and were published by him, but without their endors.e.m.e.nts, in his 'Criminal Trials' in Scotland.
(1832). {169} Copies of the letters are also 'bookit,' or engrossed, in the Records of Parliament. These 'bookit' transcripts were made carelessly, and the old copyist was puzzled by the handwriting and orthography of the alleged originals before him. The controversy about the genuineness of the five letters took new shapes after Mr. Pitcairn discovered those apparently in Logan's hand, and printed them in 1832.
Mr. Hill Burton accepts them with no hint of doubt, and if Mr. Tytler was the most learned and impartial, Mr. Hill Burton was the most sceptical of our historians. Yet on this point of authenticity these historians were too hasty. The authenticity of the letters (except one, No. IV) was denied by the very man, Sprot, in whose possession most of them were originally found. {170} The evidence of his denial has been extant ever since Calderwood wrote, who tells us, clearly on the authority of an older and anonymous History in MS. (now in the Advocates' Library), that Sprot, when first taken (April 1319, 1608), accused Logan of writing the letters, but withdrew the charge under torture, and finally, when kindly treated by Lord Dunbar, and healed of his wounds, declared that he himself had forged all the Logan letters (save one). Yet Logan was, to Sprot's certain knowledge (so Sprot persistently declared), involved in the Gowrie conspiracy.
Now a.s.suredly this appeared to be an incredible a.s.sertion of Calderwood, or of his MS. source. He was a stern Presbyterian, an enemy of the King (who banished him), and an intimate friend of the Cranstoun family, who, in 1600, were closely connected with conspirators of their name. Thus prejudiced, Calderwood was believed by Mr. Pitcairn to have made an untrue or confused statement. Logan is in a plot; Sprot knows it, and yet Sprot forges letters to prove Logan's guilt, and these letters, found in Sprot's possession, prove his own guilty knowledge. There seems no sense in such behaviour. It might have been guessed that Sprot knew of Logan's guilt, but had no doc.u.mentary evidence of it, and therefore forged evidence for the purpose of extorting blackmail from Logan. But, by 1608, when Sprot was arrested with some of the doc.u.ments in his pocket, Logan had been dead for nearly two years.
The guess, that Sprot knew of Logan's treason, but forged the proof of it, for purposes of blackmailing him, was not made by historians. The guess was getting 'warm,' as children say in their game, was very near the truth, but it was not put forward by criticism. Historians, in fact, knew that Logan would not have stood an attempt at extortion. He was not that kind of man. In 1594, he made a contract with Napier of Merchistoun, the inventor of Logarithms. Tradition declared that there was a h.o.a.rd of gold in 'the place of Fastcastle.' Napier was to discover it (probably by the Divining Rod), and Logan was to give him a third of the profits. But Napier, knowing his man, inserted a clause in the deed, to the effect that, after finding the gold, _he was to be allowed a free exit from Fastcastle_. Whether he found the h.o.a.rd or not, we do not know. But, two years later, in letting a portion of his property, Napier introduced the condition that his tenant should never sublet it to any person of the name of Logan! If he found the gold he probably was not allowed to carry off his third share. Logan being a resolute character of this kind, Sprot, a cowering creature, would not forge letters to blackmail him. He would have been invited to dine at Fastcastle. The cliffs are steep, the sea is deep, and tells no tales.
Thus where was Sprot's motive for forging letters in Logan's hand, and incriminating the Laird of Restalrig, and for carrying them about in his pocket in 1608? But where was his motive for confessing when taken and examined that he _did_ forge the letters, if his confession was untrue, while swearing, to his certain destruction, that he had a guilty foreknowledge of the Gowrie conspiracy? He _might_ conciliate Government and get pardoned as King's evidence, by producing what he called genuine Logan letters, and thus proving the conspiracy, and clearing the King's character; but this he did not do. He swore to the last that Logan and he were both guilty (so Calderwood's authority rightly reported), but that the plot letters were forged by himself, to what end Calderwood did not say. All this appeared midsummer madness. Calderwood, it was argued, must be in error.
A theory was suggested that Sprot really knew nothing of the Gowrie mystery; that he had bragged falsely of his knowledge, in his cups; that the Government pounced on him, made him forge the letters of Logan to clear the King's character by proving a conspiracy, and then hanged him, still confessing his guilt. But Mr. Mark Napier, a learned antiquary, replied (in a long Appendix to the third volume of the History by the contemporary Spottiswoode) to this not very probable conjecture by showing that, when they tried Sprot, Government produced no letters at all, only an alleged account by Sprot of two letters unproduced.
Therefore, in August 1608, Mr. Napier argued, Government had no letters; if they had possessed them, they would infallibly have produced them.
That seemed sound reasoning. In 1608 Government had no plot letters; therefore, the five produced in the trial of the dead Logan were forged for the Government, by somebody, between August 1608 and June 1609. Mr.
Napier refused to accept Calderwood's wild tale that Sprot, while confessing Logan's guilt and his own, also confessed to having forged Logan's letters.
Yet Calderwood's version (or rather that of his anonymous authority in MS.) was literally accurate. Sprot, in _private_ examinations (July 5, August 11, 1608), confessed to having forged all the letters but one, the important one, Letter IV, Logan to Gowrie. This confession the Government burked.
The actual circ.u.mstances have remained unknown and are only to be found in the official, but _suppressed_, reports of Sprot's private examinations, now in the muniment room of the Earl of Haddington. These papers enable us partly to unravel a coil which, without them, no ingenuity could disentangle. Sir Thomas Hamilton, the King's Advocate, popularly styled 'Tam o' the Cowgate,' from his house in that old 'street of palaces,' was the ancestor of Lord Haddington, who inherits his papers. Sir Thomas was an eminent financier, lawyer, statesman, and historical collector and inquirer, who later became Lord Binning, and finally Earl of Haddington. As King's Advocate he held, and preserved, the depositions, letters, and other doc.u.ments, used in the private examinations of Sprot, on and after July 5, 1608. The records of Sprot's examinations between April 19 and July 5, 1600, are not known to be extant.
Sir Thomas's collection consists of summonses, or drafts of summonses, for treason, against the dead Logan (1609). There is also a holograph letter of confession (July 5, 1608) from Sprot to the Earl of Dunbar.
There are the records of the _private_ examinations of Sprot (July 5-August 11, 1600) and of other persons whom he more or less implicated.
There are copies by Sprot, in his 'course,' that is, current, handwriting, of two of the five letters in Logan's hand (or in an imitation of it). These are letters I and IV, produced at the posthumous trial of Logan in June 1609. Finally, there are letters in Logan's hand (or in an imitation of it), addressed to James Bower and to one Ninian Chirnside, with allusions to the plot, and there is a long memorandum of matters of business, also containing hints about the conspiracy, in Logan's hand, or in an imitation thereof, addressed to John Bell, and James Bower.
Of these compromising papers, one, a letter to Chirnside, was found by the Rev. Mr. Anderson (in 1902) torn into thirteen pieces (whereof one is missing), wrapped up in a sheet of foolscap of the period. Mr. Anderson has placed the pieces together, and copied the letter. Of all these doc.u.ments, only five letters (those published by Mr. Pitcairn) were 'libelled,' or founded on, and produced by the Government in the posthumous trial of Logan (1609). Not one was produced before the jury who tried Sprot on August 12, 1608. He was condemned, we said, merely on his own confession. In his 'dittay,' or impeachment, and in the official account of the affair, published in 1608, were cited fragments of two letters _quoted from memory by Sprot under private examination_. These quotations from memory differ, we saw, in many places from any of the five letters produced in the trial of 1609, a fact which has aroused natural suspicions. This is the true explanation of the discrepancies between the plot letter cited in Sprot's impeachment, and in the Government pamphlet on his case; and the similar, though not identical, letter produced in 1609. The indictment and the tract published by Government contain merely Sprot's recollections of the epistle from Logan to Gowrie. The letter (IV) produced in 1609 is the genuine letter of Logan, or so Sprot seems, falsely, to swear. _This_ doc.u.ment did not come into the hands of Government till after the Indictment, containing Sprot's quotation of the letter from memory, was written, or, if it did, was kept back.
All this has presently to be proved in detail.
As the Government (a fact unknown to our historians) possessed all the alleged Logan letters and papers _before_ Sprot was hanged, and as, at his trial, they concealed this circ.u.mstance even from Archbishop Spottiswoode (who was present at Sprot's public trial by jury), a great deal of perplexity has been caused, and many ingenious but erroneous conjectures have been invented. The Indictment or 'dittay' against Sprot, on August 12, 1608, is a public doc.u.ment, but not an honest one.
It contains the following among other averments. We are told that Sprot, in July 1600, at Fastcastle, saw and read the beginning of a letter from Logan to Gowrie (Letter IV). Logan therein expresses delight at receiving a letter of Gowrie's: he is anxious to avenge 'the Macchiavelian ma.s.sacre of our dearest friends' (the Earl decapitated in 1584). He advises Gowrie to be circ.u.mspect, 'and be earnest with your brother, that he be not rash in any speeches touching the purpose of Padua.'
[Picture: Fastcastle]
This letter, _as thus cited_, is not among the five later produced in 1609; it is a blurred reminiscence of parts of _two_ of them. The reason of these discrepancies is that the letter is quoted in the Indictment, _not_ from the doc.u.ment itself (which apparently reach the prosecution after the Indictment was framed), but from a version given from memory by Sprot, in one of his private examinations. Next, Sprot is told in his Indictment that, some time later, Logan asked Bower to find this letter, which Gowrie, for the sake of secrecy, had returned to Bower to be delivered to Logan. We know that this was the practice of intriguers.
After the December riot at Edinburgh in 1596, the Rev. Robert Bruce, writing to ask Lord Hamilton to head the party of the Kirk, is said to request him to return his own letter by the bearer. Gowrie and Logan practised the same method. The indictment goes on to say that Bower, being unable to read, asked Sprot to search for Logan's letter to Gowrie, among his papers, that Sprot found it, 'abstracted' it (stole it), retained it, and 'read it divers times,' a _false quotation of the MS.
confession_. Sprot really said that he kept the stolen letter (IV) '_till_' he had framed on it, as a model, three forged letters. It contained a long pa.s.sage of which the 'substance' is quoted. This pa.s.sage as printed in Sprot's Indictment is not to be found textually, in any of the five letters later produced. It is, we repeat, merely the version given from memory, by Sprot, at one of his last private examinations, before the letter itself came into the hands of Government.
In either form, the letter meant high treason.
Such is the evidence of the Indictment against Sprot, of August 12, 1608.
In the light of Sprot's real confessions, hitherto lying in the Haddington muniment room, we know the Indictment to be a false and garbled doc.u.ment. Next, on the part of Government, we have always had a published statement by Sir William Hart, the King's Justice, with an introduction by Dr. George Abbot, later Archbishop of Canterbury, who was in Edinburgh, and present when Sprot was hanged. This tract was published by Bradewood, London, in 1608, and is reprinted by Pitcairn.
After a verbose, pious, and pedantic diatribe, Abbot comes to the point.