by W. J. Hay_, _Edinburgh_
FASTCASTLE (_circ._ 1820) 154

_From a picture by the Rev. Mr. Thomson_, _of
Duddingston_, _in the possession of Mrs.
Blackwood-Porter_
FASTCASTLE _to face p._ 176

_From a Photograph by J. Valentine & Sons_,
_Dundee_
FASTCASTLE

_From a Photograph by J. Valentine & Sons_,
_Dundee_
HANDWRITING OF LOGAN (_January_ 1585-6) 196
HAND OF LOGAN AS FORGED BY SPROT (second page of 202
Letter IV)
HANDWRITING OF SPROT (_July_ 5, 1608) 210
_PLANS_
SITUATION AND TOPOGRAPHY OF GOWRIE HOUSE 15
INTERIOR OF GOWRIE HOUSE 16
THE GALLERY CHAMBER AND THE TURRET, GOWRIE HOUSE 59

I. THE MYSTERY AND THE EVIDENCE

There are enigmas in the annals of most peoples; riddles put by the
Sphinx of the Past to the curious of the new generations. These
questions do not greatly concern the scientific historian, who is busy
with constitution-making, statistics, progress, degeneration, in short
with human evolution. These high matters, these streams of tendency,
form the staple of history, but the problems of personal character and
action still interest some inquiring minds. Among these enigmas nearly
the most obscure, 'The Gowrie Conspiracy,' is our topic.

This affair is one of the haunting mysteries of the past, one of the
problems that nobody has solved. The events occurred in 1600, but the
interest which they excited was so keen that belief in the guilt or
innocence of the two noble brothers who perished in an August afternoon,
was a party shibboleth in the Wars of the Saints against the Malignants,
the strife of Cavaliers and Roundheads. The problem has ever since
attracted the curious, as do the enigma of Perkin Warbeck, the true
character of Richard III, the real face behind 'The Iron Mask,' the
identity of the False Pucelle, and the innocence or guilt of Mary Stuart.

In certain respects the Gowrie mystery is necessarily less attractive
than that of 'the fairest and most pitiless Queen on earth.' There is no
woman in the story. The world, of course, when the Ruthvens died, at
once acted on the maxim, _cherchez la femme_. The woman in the case, men
said, was the beautiful Queen, Anne of Denmark, wife of James VI.