Laird's after he received Gowrie's reply to his own. answer to Gowrie. Logan's letter (as given in 1609) is dated July 29, and it is argued that his movements, after receiving Gowrie's reply, are inconsistent with any share in the plot which failed on August 5. Even if it were so, the fact is unimportant, for Sprot was really speaking of movements at a date much earlier than July 29; he later gave a separate account of what Logan was doing at the time of the outbreak of the plot, an account not quoted by Hart, who fraudulently or accidentally confused the dates. And next we find it as good as explicitly stated, by Hart, that this letter of Logan's to Gowrie was never produced in open Court. Being demanded where this above written letter, written by Restalrig to the Earl of Gowrie, which was returned again by James Bower, is now? Deponeth . . . .. that he (Sprot) left the above written letter in his chest, among his writings, when he was taken and brought away, and that it is closed and folded within a piece of paper,' so Hart declares in Abbot's tract. He falsified the real facts. He could not give the question as originally put to Sprot, for that involved the publication of the fact that all the letters but one were forged. The question in the authentic private report ran thus: Demanded where is that letter which Restalrig wrote to the Earl of Gowrie, whereupon the said George Sprot wrote and forged the missives produced?' (August 10).

The real letter of Logan to Gowrie, the only

genuine letter (if in any sense genuine), had not on

August 10 been produced. hands of the Government.

The others were in the Hart, in his tract, veils

these circumstances. The Government meant to put the letters to their own uses, on a later occasion, at the trial of the dead Logan.

Meanwhile we must keep one fact steadily in mind. When Sprot confessed to having forged treasonable letters in Logan's handwriting (as Calderwood correctly reports that he did confess), he did not include among them Letter IV (Logan to Gowrie July 29, 1600). That letter was never heard of by Sprot's examiners till August 10, and never came into the hands of his examiners till late on August 11, or early on August 12, the day when Sprot was hanged. Spottiswoode was never made aware that the letter had been produced. Why Sprot reserved this piece of evidence so long, why, under the shadow of the gibbet, he at last produced it, we shall later attempt to explain, though with but little confidence in any explanation.

Meanwhile, at Sprot's public trial in 1608, the Government were the conspirators. They burked the fact that they possessed plot-letters alleged to be by Logan. They burked the fact that Sprot confessed all these, with one or, perhaps, two exceptions, to be forgeries by himself. What they quoted, as letters of Logan and Gowrie, were merely descriptions of such letters given by Sprot from memory of their

contents.

XIV

THE LAIRD AND THE NOTARY

We have now to track Sprot through the labyrinth of his confessions and evasions, as attested by the authentic reports of his private examinations between July 5 and the day of his death. It will be observed that, while insisting on his own guilt, and on that of Logan, he produced no documentary evidence, no genuine letter attributed by him to Logan, nothing but his own confessed forgeries, till the cord was almost round his neck-if he did then.

In his confessions he paints with sordid and squalid realism, the life of a debauched laird, tortured by terror, and rushing from his fears to forgetfulness in wine, travel, and pleasure; and to strange desperate dreams of flight. As a 'human document' the confessions of Sprot are unique, for that period.

On July 5, 1608, Sprot, in prison, wrote, in his own ordinary hand, the tale of how he knew of Logan's guilt the letter was conveyed to the Earl of Dunbar, who, with Dunfermline, governed Scotland, under the absent King. The prisoner gave many sources of his knowledge, but the real source, if any (Letter IV),

he reserved till he was certain of death (August 10). Sprot knew perfectly,' he said, on July 5, that one letter from Gowrie and one from his brother, Alexander Ruthven, reached Logan, at Fastcastle and at Gunnisgreen, a house hard by Eyemouth, where Sprot was a notary, and held cottage land.1 Bower carried Logan's answers, and 'long afterwards showed Sprot the first of Gowrie's letters' (the harmless one about desiring an interview) and also a note of Logan's to Bower himself, which is amongst the rest of the letters produced.' It is No. II, but in this confession of July 5, Sprot appears to say that Gowrie's innocent letter to Logan, asking for an interview, was the source of his forgeries. I framed them all to the true meaning and purpose of the letter that Bower let me see, to make the matter more clear by these arguments and circumstances, for the cause which I have already' (before July 5) 'shewn to the Lords '-that is, for purposes of extorting money from Logan's executors.

This statement was untrue. The brief letter to Logan from Gowrie was not the model of Sprot's forgeries; as he later confessed he had another model, in a letter of Logan to Gowrie, which he held back till the last day of his life. But in this confession of July 5, Sprot admits that he saw, not only Gowrie's letter to Logan of July 6 (?) 1600 (a letter never produced), but also a direction' or letter from Logan to his retainer, Bower, dated

6

1 Laing, Charters, Nos. 1452, 1474–76, 2029.

'The Canongate, July 18, 1600.' This is our Letter II. Had it been genuine, then, taken with Gowrie's letter to Logan, it must have aroused Sprot's suspicions. But this Letter II, about which Sprot told discrepant tales, is certainly not genuine. It is dated, as we said, 'The Canongate, July 18, 1600.' Its purport is to inform Bower, then at Brockholes, near Eyemouth, that Logan had received a new letter from Gowrie, concerning certain proposals already made orally to him by the Master of Ruthven. Logan hoped to get the lands of Dirleton for his share in the enterprise. He ends 'keep all things very secret, that my Lord, my brother' (Lord Home) get no knowledge of our purposes, for I' (would) rather be eirdit quick,' that is, buried alive (p. 205).

Now we shall show, later, the source whence Sprot probably borrowed this phrase as to Lord Home, and being eirdit quick, which he has introduced into his forged letter. Moreover, the dates are impossible. The first of the five letters purports to be from Logan to an unnamed conspirator, addressed as 'Right Honourable Sir.' It is not certain whether this letter was in the hands of the prosecution before the day preceding Sprot's execution, nor is it certain whether it is ever alluded to by Sprot under examination. But it is dated from Fastcastle on July 18, and tells the unknown conspirator that Logan has just heard from Gowrie. It follows that Logan had heard from Gowrie on July 18 at Fastcastle, that he thence rode