James VI and the Gowrie Mystery. Lang Andrew
23, when examined with other citizens of Perth, had said that he followed young Tullibardine and some of his men, who were entering the court ‘to relieve the King.’ 25 He saw the Master lying dead at the foot of the stair, and saw Henderson ‘come out of the said turnpike, over the Master’s belly.’ He spoke to Henderson, who did not answer. He remembered that Murray of Arbany was present. Arbany, before the Parliamentary Committee in November, said nothing on this subject, nor did Robertson. His evidence would have been important, had he adhered to what he said on September 23. But, oddly enough, if he perjured himself on the earlier occasion (September 23), he withdrew his perjury, when it would have been useful to the King’s case, in the evidence given before the Lords of the Articles, in November. Mr. Barbé, perhaps misled by the sequence of versions in Pitcairn, writes: ‘Apparently it was only when his memory had been stimulated by the treatment of those whose evidence was found to be favourable to the King that the wily notary recalled the details by which he intended to corroborate Henderson’s statement… ’ 26
The reverse is the case: the wily notary did not offer, at the trial in November, the evidence which he had given, in September, at the examination of the citizens of Perth. It may perhaps be inferred that perjury was not encouraged, but depressed. 27
Despite the premiums on perjury which Ruthven apologists insist on, not one witness would swear to having seen Henderson during or after the tumult. Yet he instantly fled, with others who had been active in the brawl, and remained in concealment. Calderwood, the earnest collector of contemporary gossip and documents, assures us that when the man in the turret could not be found, the first proclamation identified him with a Mr. Robert Oliphant, a ‘black grim man,’ but that Oliphant proved his absence from Perth. One Gray and one Lesley were also suspected, and one Younger (hiding when sought for, it is said) was killed. But we have no copy of the proclamation as to Mr. Robert Oliphant. To Mr. Robert Oliphant, who had an alibi, we shall return, for this gentleman, though entirely overlooked by our historians, was probably at the centre of the situation (p. 71, infra).
Meanwhile, whatever Henderson had done, he mysteriously vanished from Gowrie House, during or after the turmoil, ‘following darkness like a dream.’ Nobody was produced who could say anything about seeing Henderson, after Moncrieff and the Hays saw him on his return from Falkland, at about ten o’clock in the morning of August 5.
By August 12, Henderson was still in hiding, and was still being proclaimed for, with others, of whom Mr. Robert Oliphant was not one: they were Moncrieff, Eviot, and two Ruthvens. 28 But, on August 11 at the Cross of Edinburgh, in presence of the King, his chaplain, the Rev. Patrick Galloway, gave news of Henderson. Mr. Galloway had been minister of Perth, and a fierce Presbyterian of old.
Blow, Galloway, the trumpet of the Lord!
exclaimed a contemporary poet. But James had tamed Galloway, he was now the King’s chaplain, he did not blow the trumpet of the Lord any longer, and, I fear, was capable of anything. He had a pension, Calderwood tells us, from the lands of Scone, and knew Henderson, who, as Chamberlain, or steward, paid the money. In his exciting sermon, Galloway made a dramatic point. Henderson was found, and Henderson was the man in the turret! Galloway had received a letter from Henderson, in his own hand; any listener who knew Henderson’s hand might see the letter. Henderson tells his tale therein; Galloway says that it differs almost nothing from the King’s story, of which he had given an abstract in his discourse. And he adds that Henderson stole downstairs while Ramsay was engaged with the Master. 29
Henderson, being now in touch with Galloway, probably received promise of his life, and of reward, for he came in before August 20, and, at the trial in November, was relieved of the charge of treason, and gave evidence.
Here we again ask, Why did Henderson take to flight? What had he to do with the matter? None fled but those who had been seen, sword in hand, in the fatal chamber, or stimulating the populace to attack the King during the tumult. Andrew Ruthven, who had ridden to Falkland with Henderson and the Master, did not run away, no proclamation for him is on record. Nobody swore to seeing Henderson, like his fellow fugitives, armed or active, yet he fled and skulked. Manifestly Henderson had, in one way or other, been suspiciously concerned in the affair. He had come in, and was at Falkland, by August 20, when he was examined before the Chancellor, Montrose, the King’s Advocate, Sir Thomas Hamilton, Sir George Hume of Spot (later Earl of Dunbar), and others, in the King’s absence. He deponed that, on the night of August 4, Gowrie bade him and Andrew Ruthven ride early to Falkland with the Master, and return, if the Master ordered him so to do, with a message. At Falkland they went into a house, 30 and the Master sent him to learn what the King was doing. He came back with the news; the Master talked with the King, then told Henderson to carry to Gowrie the tidings of the King’s visit, ‘and that his Majesty would be quiet.’ Henderson asked if he was to start at once. Ruthven told him to wait till he spoke to the King again. They did speak, at a gap in a wall, during the check in the run; Ruthven returned to Henderson, sent him off, and Henderson reached Perth about ten o’clock. Gowrie, on his arrival, left the company he was with (the two Hays), and here George Hay’s evidence makes Gowrie ask Henderson ‘who was with the King at Falkland?’ Hay said that Gowrie then took Henderson into another room. Henderson says nothing about a question as to the King’s company, asked in presence of Hay, a compromising and improbable question, if Gowrie wished to conceal the visit to Falkland.
Apart, Gowrie put some other questions to Henderson as to how the King received the Master. Henderson then went to his house; an hour later Gowrie bade him put on his secret coat of mail, and plate sleeves, as he had to arrest a Highlander. Henderson did as commanded; at twelve the steward told him to bring up dinner, as Craigengelt (the caterer) was ill. Dinner began at half-past twelve; at the second course the Master entered, Andrew Ruthven had arrived earlier. The company rose from table, and Henderson, who was not at the moment in the room, heard them moving, and thought that they were ‘going to make breeks for Maconilduy,’ that is, to catch the Highlander. Finding he was wrong, he threw his steel gauntlet into the pantry, and sent his boy to his house with his steel cap. He then followed Gowrie to meet the King, and, after he had fetched ‘a drink’ (which James says ‘was long in coming’), the Master bade him ask Mr. Rhynd, Gowrie’s old tutor, for the key of the gallery, which Rhynd brought to the Master. Gowrie then went up, and spoke with the Master, and, after some coming and going, Henderson was sent to the Master in the gallery. Thither Gowrie returned, and bade Henderson do whatever the Master commanded. (The King says that Gowrie came and went from the room, during his dinner.) The Master next bade Henderson enter the turret, and locked him in. He passed the time in terror and in prayer.
There follows the story of the entry of James and the Master, and Henderson now avers that he ‘threw’ the dagger out of the Master’s hand. He declares that the Master said that he wanted ‘a promise from the King,’ on what point Gowrie would explain. The rest is much as in the King’s account, but Henderson was ‘pressing to have opened the window,’ he says, when the Master entered for the second time, with the garter to bind the King’s hands. During the struggle Henderson removed the Master’s hand from the King’s mouth, and opened the window. The Master said to him, ‘Wilt thou not help? Woe betide thee, thou wilt make us all die.’ 31
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Pitcairn, ii. 197.
Mr. Barbé, as we saw, thinks that Robertson perjured himself, when he swore to having seen Henderson steal out of the dark staircase and step over Ruthven’s body. On the other hand, Mr. Bisset thought that Robertson spoke truth on this occasion, but concealed the truth in his examination later, because his evidence implied that Henderson left the dark staircase, not when Ramsay attacked Ruthven, but later, when Ruthven had already been slain. Mr. Bisset’s theory was that Henderson had never been in the turret during the crisis, but had entered the dark staircase from a door of the dining-hall on the first floor. Such a door existed, according to Lord Hailes, but when he wrote (1757) no traces of this arrangement were extant. If such a door there was, Henderson may have slunk into the hall, out of the dark staircase, and slipped forth again, at the moment when Robertson, in his first deposition, swore to having seen him. But Murray of Arbany cannot well have been there at that moment, as he was with the party of Lennox and Mar, battering at the door of the gallery chamber. – Bisset,
Pitcairn, ii. 250.
Mr. Panton, who, in 1812, published at Perth, and with Longmans, a defence of the Ruthvens, is very strong on the improbability that Henderson was at Falkland. Why were not the people to whose house in Falkland he went, called as witnesses? Indeed we do not know. But as Mr. Panton looked on the King’s witnesses as a gang of murderous perjurers, it is odd that he did not ask himself why they, and the King, did not perjure themselves on this point. (
Pitcairn, ii. 222, 223.