rton's brood, and John Colville--who,
with Bothwell and, later, independently, had caught James, had tried to
catch him, and proposed to Essex to catch him again,--were afloat.
Colville was in Paris at the same time as Gowrie; Bothwell was reported
to have come secretly to Scotland in April or May, and this combination
of facts or rumours may have aroused the King's mistrust. Again, the
Kirk was restive; the preachers, in need of a leader, were said by
Colville to have summoned Gowrie home. {140a} Moreover there were
persons about James--for example, Colonel Stewart--who had reason to
dread the Earl's vengeance for his father. The Ruthven Apologist
mentions this fact, and the predilection of the Kirk for Gowrie, among
the motives for destroying him.

Once more there are hints, very vague, that, in 1593, Bothwell aimed at
changing the dynasty. {140b} The fable that Gowrie was a maternal
grandson of Margaret Tudor, widow of James IV, by Henry Stewart, Lord
Methven, her third husband, and that Gowrie was thus a candidate for the
succession to the English throne, perhaps also for the hand of Arabella
Stuart, may conceivably have existed. (Compare Appendix A.) Again,
Gowrie had sided with the burgesses and minor barons, as against the
nobles, by refusing a grant of money to James, in the convention of June
1600, and James owed money to Gowrie, as he did to most people. But we
have already seen that an exemption had been granted to Gowrie for a year
from pursuit of creditors, as far, that is, as regarded his _father's_
debts (80,000_l._ Scots), (June 20, 1600). The College of Justice
refused to grant any new legal summonses of creditors against Gowrie, and
suspended all that were extant.

Mr. Barbe accuses the King of 'utter and unblushing disregard for common
truth and common honesty.' Be this as it may, the exemption granted to
Gowrie was not regarded by his father's creditors as extending to his
mother, after his dishonoured death. On November 1, 1600, Lady Gowrie
implored Elphinstone, the Secretary, to bring her suit for relief before
the King. The security for these debts was on her 'conjunct fee lands,'
and creditors, because, I suppose, the Gowrie estates were about to be
forfeited, pressed Lady Gowrie, who, of course, had no exemption. We
know nothing as to the success of Lady Gowrie's petition, but we have
seen that her daughters married very well. I presume that Gowrie, not
his mother, had previously p