James VI and the Gowrie mystery . 1600, at Fastcastle, saw andread the beginning of a letter from Logan to Gowrie(Letter IV). Logan therein expresses delight at receiv-ing a letter of Gowries : he is anxious to avenge theMacchiavelian massacre of our dearest friends (theEarl decapitated in 1584). He advises Gowrie to becircumspect, and be earnest with your brother, thathe be not rash in any speeches touching the purposeof Padua. This letter, as thus cited, is not among the fivelater produced in 1609 ; it is a blurred reminiscenceof parts of two of them. The reason of these discre-pancies is th
James VI and the Gowrie mystery . 1600, at Fastcastle, saw andread the beginning of a letter from Logan to Gowrie(Letter IV). Logan therein expresses delight at receiv-ing a letter of Gowries : he is anxious to avenge theMacchiavelian massacre of our dearest friends (theEarl decapitated in 1584). He advises Gowrie to becircumspect, and be earnest with your brother, thathe be not rash in any speeches touching the purposeof Padua. This letter, as thus cited, is not among the fivelater produced in 1609 ; it is a blurred reminiscenceof parts of two of them. The reason of these discre-pancies is that the letter is quoted in the Indictment,not from the document itself (which apparentlyreach the prosecution after the Indictment wasframed), but from a version given from memory bySprot, 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 tobe delivered to Logan. We know that this was the. THE SECRETS OF SPROT 177 practice of intriguers. After the December riot atEdinburgh in 1596, the Eev. Eobert Bruce, writing *— o to ask Lord Hamilton to head the party of the Kirk,is said to request him to return his own letterby the bearer. Gowrie and Logan practised thesame method. The indictment goes on to say thatBower, being unable to read, asked Sprot to searchfor Logans letter to Gowrie, among his papers, thatSprot found it, abstracted it (stole it), retained it,and read it divers times, a false quotation of the Sprot really said that he kept the stolenletter (IV) till he had framed on it, as a model, threeforged letters. It contained a long passage of whichthe substance is quoted. This passage as printedin Sprots Indictment is not to be found textually, inany of the five letters later produced. It is, werepeat, merely the version given from memory, bySprot, at one of his last private examinations, beforethe letter itself came
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