James VI and the Gowrie Mystery Part 23

{164} The evidence for all that occurred to Sprot, between April and July 1608, is that of a ma.n.u.script _History of the Kirk of Scotland_, now in the Advocates' Library. It is written in an early seventeenth-century hand. Calderwood follows it almost textually up to a certain point where the author of the MS. history says that Sprot, on the scaffold, declared that he had no promise of benefit to his family. But Calderwood declares, or says that others declare, that Sprot was really condemned as a forger (which is untrue), but confessed to the Gowrie conspiracy in return for boons to his wife and children.

We have, of course, no evidence that anything was done by Government, or by any one, for Mrs. Sprot and the children. The author of the MS., which Calderwood used as he pleased, avers that Sprot denied on the scaffold the fact that he had any promise. Neither draft nor official account confirms the MS. history on the point of no promise. The official _draft_ of his last moments (from its interlineations, each signed by the Clerk of Council) appears to have been drawn up on the spot, or hurriedly, as soon as Sprot was dead. This is the aspect of the _draft_ of the account; the official _printed_ account says that there was 'no place of writing on the scaffold, in respect of the press and mult.i.tude of people' (Pitcairn, ii. 261).

{169} Vol. ii. pp. 2827.

{170} Letter I is a peculiar case, and was not, perhaps, spoken of by Sprot at all.

{183} Laing, _Charters_, Nos. 1452, 147476, 2029.

{198} _Hatfield Calendar_, iv. 659.

{199a} Pitcairn, iii. Appendix vii.

{199b} _Border Calendar_, i. 486, 487.

{202} Thorpe, ii. 614, 616, 617. _Border Calendar_, i. 457.

{203} _Privy Council Register_, viii. 1502, 605.

{206a} Pitcairn, ii. 287, _n_ 2.

{206b} Neville to Cecil, Paris, Feb. 27, 1600. Willoughby to Cecil, Berwick, April 22, 1600. _Winwood Memorials_, p. 166. _Border Calendar_, ii. 645.

{217} The peculiarities of spelling are those recognised as Logan's, and easily imitated by the forger.

{221} He had not the letter before him at this moment, and may have forgotten.

{222} Spottiswoode, vol. iii. pp. 274, 282.

{224} Cromarty, _An Historical Account_, _&c._, 92 (1713).

{227a} Calderwood, vi. 780.

{227b} In the Auchendrane case (1615), the public, partisans of the murderers, wished the only witness to be hanged, just to see if he would persevere in his confession.

{239} _Melrose Papers_, vol. i. pp. 72, 73.

{243a} Pitcairn, ii. 289290.

{243b} _Ibid._ ii. 292.

{247} _State Papers_, Venice, R.O., No. 14, 160810. Hill Burton, _History of Scotland_, vol. vi. pp. 135, 136. Note. Edition of 1870.

{248} This information I owe to Mr. Anderson, with the reference to Crawfurd, and other details.

{249} Burnet's _History of his Own Time_, vol. i. pp. 24, 25, mdccxxv.

{250a} _Papers relating to William_, _first Earl of Gowrie_, p. 30.

(Privately printed, 1867.)

{250b} Sanderson, p. 226.

{251a} Scott, pp. 282, 284.

{251b} _Border Calendar_, vol. i. p. 491.