Fighting for The Succession: The Gowrie Conspiracy

 

On the afternoon of 5 August 1600, two men were murdered, the Earl of Gowrie and his brother the Master of Ruthven. Exactly what happened may never be known, as much of the evidence was destroyed at the time. The one contemporary account that survives, written by King James VI of Scotland, is unlikely to be true, not least because King James went out of his way to suppress any alternative scenarios.

The Ruthvens had never been on friendly terms with the Stuarts. Patrick, Lord Ruthven, had been one of the ring-leaders in the murder of David Rizzio, and during that episode he had handled Mary Queen of Scots roughly. Patrick’s son William was the Ruthven who had kidnapped James VI at the age of sixteen in the Ruthven Raid and kept him prisoner in Gowrie House until he agreed to sign a statement saying that he was there under his own free will. The young prince had managed to escape and turn the tables on William. He induced William to write a private confession on James’s promise of a pardon. James then treacherously used the confession to have William executed.

The next generation of Ruthvens consisted of the twenty-two-year-old John, Earl of Gowrie, and the nineteen-year-old Alexander Master of Ruthven. These two young men naturally saw the thirty-four-year-old James VI as the murderer of their father. In mitigation, James had tried to explain that at the time he was not his own master, and he had restored the confiscated family estates to them. He wanted to show that he was a man of good faith. At the same time, James had good reason to fear and distrust the young Ruthvens. He owed them £80,000. The older brother had also formally opposed James’s request for 100,000 crowns to pursue his negotiations for his succession to the English throne. Gowrie himself had a claim to the throne of England. Gowrie’s direct descent from Henry VII through his mother made him the next in succession to the English throne after James and his heirs. It has emerged that Gowrie was in London in April 1600, and while he was there Elizabeth I granted him the guard and honours appropriate to a Prince of Wales, which suggests that she was nominating him as her heir. Or, as is more likely with the ageing Elizabeth, she was mischievously playing at naming her successor. On top of that, the Gowries were thought to be involved with witchcraft. James hated them – for all of these reasons.

In July 1600, James wrote secret letters to each of the Ruthven brothers. The letters were destroyed, so it is not known what they contained. Possibly the Ruthvens’ sudden return to Gowrie House in Perth from their castle in Atholl was in response to instructions in James’s letters. Another unexplained journey was the Master of Ruthven’s early morning ride from Perth to Falkland on 5 August. He rose at four that morning, rode to Falkland and had a secret conversation with the King at the stables, before the King started his day’s hunting. James VI’s version of this meeting was that the Master had come to inform him that he had imprisoned in a secret room at Gowrie House a stranger ‘with a great wide pot full of coined gold in great pieces.’ Ruthven had found this stranger wandering in the fields the previous evening.

Ruthven had ridden to tell James so that he should be the first to know about it. James said that the gold had not been found, so it was not treasure trove and the Crown had no right to it. Ruthven argued that if James would not take it, somebody else would. James said that as the coins were foreign they were probably brought in by Jesuits and the stranger was probably a priest in disguise. James said he would send a servant back with a warrant and that the magistrates could question the stranger about the treasure. The hunt went on until eleven, with Ruthven continually pestering James to ride to Perth with him.

When James recounted this bizarre novella to Lennox, Lennox said bluntly and with considerable courage, ‘I like not that, sir, for it is not likely.’ It was as polite a response as James deserved. The story was absurd from start to finish. Even if Ruthven had genuinely found the stranger and the gold as he said, why on earth would have he ridden at four in the morning to see the king, who was no friend, to tell him about it? If Ruthven had made it all up, James suggested, then he might be mad. Lennox rejected this interpretation. ‘I know nothing of him but as an honest discreet gentleman.’ Lennox must have suspected that it was James who had made the story up – the entire story. James’s interpretation of it was that it suggested a ‘treasonable device’. The implication (which James intended Lennox to draw) was that Ruthven had made efforts to draw James into some sort of trap or ambush.

James set off for Perth with twenty-five men including Lennox, Mar, Erskine and John Ramsay, his current favourite. When this party was within a mile of Gowrie House, the Master of Ruthven rode ahead to let his brother know they were approaching. The Earl of Gowrie, who was having dinner with three of his neighbours, was suspicious; he could think of nothing that would bring the king to Perth. Anyway, he rushed out to give the king a welcome, apologizing that there was not enough food in the house to supply dinner. James had to wait an hour while food was sent out for. During this hour, the king drank and chatted to the earl, who was uneasy.

The Gowrie steward asked the Master why the king had come. It was good question. The Master said, ‘Robert Abercromby, that false knave, has brought the king here to cause His Majesty to take order for our debt.’ James later suppressed this comment. Abercromby, the king’s saddler, was not called in court to comment on the Master’s remark, so it was probably true – at least to the extent that it was the reason given to the Master by the king. The stranger and the pot of gold were inventions of James.

After James had dined in the Great Hall, he went upstairs with the Master. The Master turned to the company and said, ‘Gentlemen, stay, for so it is His Highness’s will.’ Lennox was suspicious, anxious and rose as if thinking of following the king. He was held back by the remark of Gowrie that the king had gone up ‘on some quiet errand’, discreetly implying that the king and the Master had gone upstairs for sex. The two went upstairs, along the Great Gallery, then through a heavy door which they locked behind them. They were in the gallery chamber with a turreted room leading out of it, and they stayed there for over two hours.

The rest of the company left the Great Hall and walked in the garden, talking and eating cherries. Then, some time after five o’clock in the evening, the earl’s equerry announced that James was riding away from Perth. Gowrie sensed that something was wrong, shouted, ‘Horse! Horse!’ and went into the courtyard, where the porter assured him that the king had not left the house and he had the keys of all the gates. Gowrie went into the house to see whether James was there or not. Then he emerged to say that he thought the king really had gone. The group was startled to hear the king’s voice shouting, ‘Help, my Lord Mar! Treason! I am betrayed! They are murdering me!’ They looked up to the turret room window, where they saw the king, red-faced, with a hand clutching his mouth and cheek.

Lennox and Mar led the rest of the company up the stairs, only to find their way blocked by the locked heavy door. They worked at it for half an hour, but were unable to break it down.

Two people stayed apart from all of this, and their behaviour suggests that they were acting as part of some plan. One was the page, Ramsay, and the other was Erskine. If the unfolding plot was of James’s making, only these two young men need have known about it. Ramsay was the one who gave out the false story about James having ridden away. Instead of following the rest of the company into the Great Hall, he had gone up a small spiral staircase called the Black Turnpike, and which led directly into the gallery chamber where the king and the Master were. Ramsay must have known about this route from the king, who knew the geography of the house well. Presumably the door at the top of the Black Turnpike had been unlocked by the king when he was left alone for a moment by the Master. The shouting from the window by the king was evidently for Ramsay’s benefit, a signal to come up to the chamber via the Black Turnpike.

Erskine and his brother set upon Gowrie and tried to kill him. With help from his supporters, he managed to fight them off. Erskine ran back to the Black Turnpike and with three companions went up to join Ramsay. When Ramsay arrived in the turret room he saw James and the Master wrestling. The Master was almost on his knees, with his head under the king’s arm, yet managing to hold his hand over the king’s mouth to stop him shouting. When James saw Ramsay he called, ‘Strike him low! Strike him low! He is wearing a secret mail doublet.’ Ramsay instead slashed at the Master’s neck and face. Then he and James pushed him down the little spiral staircase.

It is evident that if James had wanted to apprehend the Master he could easily have done so. Erskine found the badly wounded Master on the stairs, shouted, ‘This is the traitor,’ and killed him. Gowrie came running up behind. He stepped over his brother’s body and entered the gallery chamber. There he met Ramsay and the three other men who had killed his brother. The king was hiding in the turret room. Gowrie looked about him and asked where the king was. Ramsay said he had been killed. At this stunning news – whether he thought it was good or bad scarcely matters – Gowrie lowered his guard and the assassins promptly killed him.

Within minutes everyone was in the gallery chamber. The king knelt by Gowrie’s body and thanked God for his deliverance. Outside, the citizens of Perth were gathering, summoned by the tolling town bell. They were devoted admirers of Gowrie, and James and the other assassins could have been in serious difficulties if it had not been for the presence, by chance, in Perth of three hundred armed king’s men. If they had not been there, James VI of Scotland might not have lived long enough to become James I of England. But James was remorseless. He sent after the Ruthvens’ two young brothers, but their mother had the sense to take them quickly across the border. One died in exile. The other was arrested when James became king of England and imprisoned in the Tower, without trial, for twenty years.

The motive was fairly clear. By murdering the Ruthvens and virtually annihilating their family, James wiped out his debt to them. He was also able to confiscate their huge estates, so he turned a worrying and politically embarrassing debt into a large profit, some of which he used to advance his fellow assassins.

The uncertainties surrounding the incident were almost entirely of James’s own making. The opening chapter about the stranger and the crock of gold was pure fabrication. James concocted a complete version of the murders, which was slanted so that he emerged as the victim, threatened and attacked by the maniacal Ruthven brothers who had devised a trap for him. His version was a lie, in that the trap was his own, and the Ruthven brothers were its victims. They were not the assassins; he was the assassin. Yet behind this simple true/false dichotomy lies something more complicated. The Ruthvens did pose a threat to James by holding his huge debt over him. They might have been safer if they had written off the debt; but that is said with the benefit of hindsight. Possibly the Ruthvens were plotting against James, and James anticipated their conspiracy.

William Cecil was involved in the discreet quest for a successor for Elizabeth I. In terms of bloodline and the pro-Catholic position that had been forced upon him, James was the obvious candidate. If Cecil had a freer hand and could follow his own preference for a Protestant candidate, Gowrie was his man. James was plotting with Essex; James’s idea was to move his army to the English border just as Essex was attempting to gain control in London by insurrection, and demand an acknowledgement regarding the succession. James assumed London would accede to this demand, not wanting to fend off a Scottish invasion while dealing with the Essex rebellion. At that moment, Cecil would have like nothing better than to see James disappear.

Scottish kings were kidnapped all the time. Since Gowrie would be the alternative candidate for the English throne, with everything at stake, Cecil might entrust him with the task of kidnapping James VI. In support of this scenario, it is known that there was a large English ship lurking off the coast of Scotland at Dirleton near North Berwick. At Dirleton, Gowrie had a fully manned castle. The Governor of Berwick was in close contact with Cecil. All this points to a developing plot to kidnap James. It also shows that the Gowrie family was indeed a danger to James VI of Scotland; the Earl of Gowrie stood to succeed to the English throne instead of James, and he was – probably – being encouraged to abduct James.