ncely
favour. Let them say: the King's account is true. This attitude is
certainly more dignified, and wiser, than the easy method of harmonising
all versions before publication. Meanwhile, if there were discrepancies,
they were held by sceptics to prove falsehood; if there had been absolute
harmony, that would really have proved collusion. On one point I suspect
suppression at the trial. Almost all versions aver that Ramsay, or
another, said to Gowrie, 'You have slain the King,' and that Gowrie (who
certainly did not mean murder) then dropped his points and was stabbed.
Of this nothing is said, at the trial, by any witnesses.

VII. THE CONTEMPORARY RUTHVEN VINDICATION

We now come to the evidence which is most fatally damaging to the two
unfortunate Ruthvens. It is the testimony of their contemporary
Vindication. Till a date very uncertain, a tradition hung about Perth
that some old gentlemen remembered having seen a Vindication of the
Ruthvens; written at the time of the events. {80} Antiquaries vainly
asked each other for copies of this valuable apology. Was it printed,
and suppressed by Royal order? Did it circulate only in manuscript?

In 1812 a Mr. Panton published a vehement defence of the Ruthvens.
Speaking of the King's narrative, he says, 'In a short time afterwards a
reply, or counter manifesto, setting forth the matter in its true light,
written by some friend of the Ruthven family, made its appearance. The
discovery of this performance would now be a valuable acquisition; but
there is no probability that any such exists, as the Government instantly
ordered the publication to be suppressed. . . . '

The learned and accurate Lord Hailes, writing in the second half of the
eighteenth century (1757), says, 'It appears by a letter of Sir John
Carey, Governor' (really Deputy Governor) 'of Berwick, to Cecil, 4th
September, 1600, that some treatise had been published in Scotland, in
vindication of Gowrie.' That 'treatise,' or rather newsletter, unsigned,
and overlooked by our historians (as far as my knowledge goes), is extant
in the Record Office. {81} We can identify it as the document mentioned
by Carey to Cecil in his letter of September 4, 1600. Carey was then in
command of Berwick, the great English frontier fortress, for his chief,
'the brave Lord Willoughby,' was absent on sick leave. On September 4,
then, from Berwick, Carey wrote to Sir Robert Cecil, 'I have thought good
to send