GOWRIE, Earl of,
a title (attainted in 1600) in the peerage of Scotland, conferred in
1581 on William, fourth Lord Ruthven of Dirleton (see RUTHVEN, Lord),
second but eldest surviving son of the third Lord Ruthven, the
principal actor in the murder of Rizzio. In that transaction he was
also engaged, and in consequence fled to England with his father,
after whose death he obtained the queen’s pardon, through the
intercession of the earl of Morton. He joined the association against
the earl of Bothwell, in 1567, and on the surrender of the queen to
the confederated lords at Carberry Hill on the 15th June of
that year, he and Lord Lindsay conducted her in disguise, the
following night, to Lochleven castle. He is stated to have been one of
the nobles who, by menaces, forced the hapless Mary, on the 24th
July following, to sign a resignation of the crown, but he does not
appear to have been present on the occasion. He was, however,
conjoined with Lord Lindsay n the commission extorted from her,
empowering them in her name to renounce the government. Throckmorton,
the English ambassador in Scotland, writing to Queen Elizabeth on the
14th July, says: “The Lord Ruthven is employed in another commission,
because he began to show great favour to the queen, and to give her
intelligence.” He supported the regent Moray at the battle of Langside,
and in June of the same year he did farther service to the king’s
party, by preventing the earl of Huntly with a thousand foot from the
north, from joining the earls of Argyle and Arran; and these noblemen,
who favoured the queen were, in consequence, obliged to disband their
forces. On the 13th June, 1571, his lordship was made
treasurer for life. In 1577 he joined the other lords against his
former friend, the earl of Morton, and on 24th March 1578
he was sworn a member of the king’s privy council. On 12th
June of the same year he appears as commissioner for the city of
Perth, then called St. Johnstone, of which town, as his father and
grandfather had been, he was also provost. The same year he was
appointed lieutenant of the borders in place of the earl of Angus, and
on 25th November nominated one of the extraordinary lords
of session. He became the bitter enemy of the regent Morton, on
account of the latter taking the part of Andrew, Lord Oliphant, in
certain legal proceedings arising out of the mutual slaughter of each
other’s followers, while at deadly feud, on 1st November
1580. Lord Ruthven was tried and acquitted. Lord Oliphant’s trial is
not recorded. In the following year Lord Ruthven was one of the chief
of the nobility who brought Morton to the scaffold. ON 23d August
1581, he was created earl of Gowrie, and obtained a considerable part
of the lands belonging to the monastery of Scone. [Douglas’
Peerage, vol. I. P. 602.] He was the principal of the confederated
nobles engaged in the “Raid of Ruthven,” 23d August 1582, the alleged
object of which was the defence of the religion and liberties of the
kingdom, but in reality to procure the dismissal of the king’s
favourites, the duke of Lennox and Stewart, earl of Arran, and to
obtain possession of the king’s person. James had been enjoying the
sports of the field in Athol, when he was invited by the earl of
Gowrie to Ruthven castle, now called Huntingtower, in the parish of
Tippermuir, Perthshire. The morning after his arrival, the associated
lords appeared in his apartment, and presented a remonstrance against
Lennox and Arran, when finding himself a prisoner, the king, after
threatening and entreating them by turns, at last burst into tears.
The master of Glammis, one of the confederates, fiercely exclaimed to
his companions, some of whom were relenting, “No matter for his tears;
better children weep than bearded men!” James was first removed to
Perth and afterwards to Edinburgh, most sedulously guarded by Gowrie
and the noblemen concerned in the enterprise; but in the following May
he effected his escape from them at St. Andrews. A new privy council
was immediately appointed, and the king published a declaration, in
which he stated, that though duly sensible of the treasonable attempt
upon his person at Ruthven castle, he was willing to forgive all past
offences, if the actors in that exploit would crave pardon in due
time, and not be guilty of any farther treason against him. Through
the advice of Sir James Melville the earl of Gowrie was pardoned by
the king, who soon visited him again at the castle of Ruthven, where,
after being royally entertained by his lordship, the latter fell down
upon his knees, and most humbly professed his sorrow for his share in
retaining his majesty in that unhappy house at his last being there.
His pardon under the great seal is dated 23d December 1583. Arran,
however, soon after regained his ascendency in the king’s favour, when
a convention of the estates was held, at which those concerned in the
Raid of Ruthven were declared to be traitors, and the earl,
notwithstanding his pardon, was ordered to leave Scotland and proceed
to France. He now, unfortunately for himself, entered into a
correspondence with his former associates, especially with the earl of
Mar and the master of Glammis, who had both retired to Ireland, with
the view of concerting a second enterprise for securing the person of
the king. It was arranged that Mar and Glammis with their adherents
should return from Ireland, and after being joined by the earls of
Gowrie and Angus, were to make themselves masters of Stirling castle.
To deceive the court he proceeded to Dundee, and pretended to be
making preparations for his voyage to France. The time limited for his
final departure was the last day of March 1584, but he contrived,
under various pretexts, to delay sailing will the 16th of
April, only two days before the day fixed for the intended surprise of
Stirling castle, when he was unexpectedly apprehended, by Captain
William Stewart of the royal guard, in the house of one William
Drummond, a burgess of Dundee. He made considerable resistance, and
attempted to defend the house in which he lodged, but Stewart procured
some pieces of ordnance from the vessels in the harbour, and the earl
was compelled to surrender. He was conveyed by sea to Leith, and
committed a prisoner in Edinburgh. Hopes being held out to him that he
might save his life by revealing the plans of the conspirators, he
emitted a confession under his own hand, which is preserved in
Spottiswood’s History (page 331). He was subsequently, by the king’s
order, removed to Stirling, where he wrote a letter on the 30th
of the same month to the king, earnestly entreating an interview in
order to reveal a secret, “which,” he said, “might have endangered the
life and estate of your mother and yourself, if I had not stayed and
impeded the same, the revealing whereof may avail your majesty more
than the lives and livings of five hundred such as myself.” The
interview was refused, and the earl was brought to trial for high
treason on the 4th of May. To the charges exhibited against
him he urged a variety of objections, which were all overruled. He was
found guilty, and beheaded between eight and nine o’clock the same
evening. His titles and estates were at the same time declared to be
forfeited. He made a long speech on the scaffold, in which he
maintained that all his actions were intended for the benefit of the
king, concluding with expressing the same regret which many great men
have done in similar cases, “that if he had served God as faithfully
as he wished to have done the king, he would not have come to that
end.” Archbishop Spottiswood describes him as “a man wise, but said to
have been too curious, and to have consulted with wizards touching the
state of things in future times.” [Spottiswood’s History, p.
332.]
By his
countess, Dorothea Stewart, second daughter of Henry Lord Methven, he
had, with seven daughters, five sons. James, the eldest son, was
second earl; and John, the second son, third and last earl of Gowrie.
Alexander, the third son, was killed with his brother, the third earl,
in what is called “the Gowrie conspiracy,” against King James at
Gowrie House, Perth, 5th August, 1600, afterwards referred
to. William, the fourth son, retired to the continent, and
distinguished himself by his knowledge in chemistry. Patrick, the
youngest son, an eminent physician, was confined for many years in the
Tower of London, whence he was not released till 1619. The eldest
daughter, Lady Margaret Ruthven, married James, fourth earl of
Montrose, and was the mother of the great marquis of Montrose. All his
other daughters married titled persons, three of them noblemen, except
the youngest, Lady Dorothea, who became the wife of James Wemyss of
Pittencrieff in Fife. An extraordinary exploit of one of the first
earl’s daughters, probably the youngest, is recorded in Pennant’s tour
through Scotland. She was courted by a young gentleman, wh was held by
her parents to be of inferior rank, and whose addresses were,
therefore, not encouraged by her family. When a visitor at Ruthven
castle, which then had two towers, he was lodged in the opposite one
to that of the young lady. One night when the lovers were together in
his apartment, some prying domestic acquainted her mother with the
circumstance. The countess hastened to surprise them, and the young
lady, hearing her footsteps, ran to the top of the leads, and took the
desperate leap of nine feet four inches over a chasm of 60 feet.
Alighting in safety on the battlements of the other tower, she crept
into her own bed, where her astonished mother found her, and was
immediately convinced of the injustice of the suspicions entertained
of her. Next night the young lady eloped with her lover, and was
married. The place between the two towers was ever after known as “the
Maiden’s Leap.” After the earl’s execution his countess was left
destitute, and could obtain no favour from the court. At the meeting
of parliament on 22d August following, the king and lords went on foot
to the Tolbooth, and when they were going up the High Street, the
countess of Gowrie went down on her knees, crying to the king for
grace to her and her poor ‘bairns,’ who never had offended his
majesty. The favourite Arran would not suffer her to come near, but
thrust her down, and hurt her back and her hand. She fainted on the
spot, and lay on the street till they were in the Tolbooth, when she
was taken into a house. “This,” says Calderwood, “was the reward she
received for saving Arran’s life at the Raid of Ruthven.”
James, the
second earl, was restored to his titles and estates in 1586, and died
in 1588, in his 14th year. Although so young, he held the
office of provost of Perth.
His next
brother, John, third earl and sixth Lord Ruthven, succeeded when about
eleven years old. He was educated at the grammar school of Perth, and
carefully instructed in the doctrines of the protestant religion.
While attending the university of Edinburgh, he was elected, though a
minor like his brother, provost of Perth. In August 1594, he went to
the continent to prosecute his studies, and on his departure the town
council of Perth, as a testimony of their respect for the Ruthven
family, bound themselves and their successors in office by a written
obligation, to choose him annually as their provost during his
absence. He was away nearly six years, and returned to Perth on 20th
May 1600, being then in the 22d year of his age. He was killed in his
own house on 5th August following, with his brother, the
Hon. Alexander Ruthven, in an alleged treasonable attempt on the
person of the king; for an account of which the reader is referred to
the life of James the Sixth. The mystery connected with their fate has
never yet been unravelled, and in all probability never will. All the
evidence respecting what is historically known by the name of the
“Gowrie Conspiracy,” will be found in Pitcairn’s ‘Criminal Trials of
Scotland,’ where the subject is ably investigated; but all the
inquiries that have been made into the circumstances of the
transaction leave an impression unfavourable to James, which no
special pleading has yet been able to remove. The great
accomplishments of the two brothers, thus untimely slain, their
popular manners, generous disposition, and religious character,
rendered their countrymen slow to believe their guilt, and no motive
could be imputed to them for perpetrating such a crime, as an attempt
to assassinate their sovereign, but that of a desire to avenge on the
king the execution of their father. The presbyterian clergy, in
particular, entertained doubts of their treason, and the great Robert
Bruce, minister of Edinburgh, was exiled from Scotland for refusing to
offer up thanks in his pulpit for the king’s deliverance. James
himself showed a suspicious anxiety to fasten the crime of treason on
their memory. In 1600 appeared ‘A Discourse of the unnatural
conspiracy attempted against his majesty’s person at St. Johnstone,’
on the 5th of August that year, which is reputed to be the
king’s own account of the matter. He volunteered to give the city of
Perth, where the Ruthven family were held in the highest estimation, a
charter of confirmation of rights and privileges, besides entering his
name on the guildry book as a burgess of the town. The conduct pursued
towards the two unfortunate young men after death showed a marked
hostility to their name and house. Douglas states, (vol. I. P. 602)
that their dead bodies were removed to Edinburgh, and an indictment of
high treason preferred against them. After the examination of
witnesses, parliament, on 15th November of the same year,
pronounced sentence, declaring them guilty of treason, and decerning
their name, memory, and dignity to be extinguished; their arms to be
cancelled; their whole estate forfeited and annexed to the crown;
their bodies to be drawn, hanged, and quartered at the cross of
Edinburgh; the name of Ruthven to be abolished; and their posterity
and surviving brothers to be incapable of succeeding to, or of holding
any offices, honours or possessions. The fifth day of August, the day
of the king’s miraculous escape, was also ordered to be held annually
as a day of public thanksgiving; but, besides its never being very
popular, it was soon superseded b y the more memorable event of the
Gunpowder Plot.
