e inscrutable spy-work, and intrigues for the murder of King
James. The Mowbrays were old friends of Logan: they had been engaged in
privateering enterprises together, but could produce no letters of
marque! In 1603, Francis Mowbray, abandoned and extradited by Cecil, was
killed in an attempt to escape from Edinburgh Castle. He had been
accused, by an Italian fencing-master, of a conspiracy to kill James.
Cecil had, of course, by this time made peace and alliance with James,
who was on the point of ascending the English throne, and he gave up
Francis. Mowbray challenged the Italian fencing-master to judicial
combat; the Italian came down to fight him, the lists were actually
pitched at Holyrood, when (January 31, 1603) Francis preferred to try the
chance of flight; the rope of knotted sheet to which he trusted broke,
and he was dashed to pieces on the Castle rocks. {160a}

Since 1592, Mowbray had been corresponding with Logan's friend, Archibald
Douglas, and offering his services to Cecil. To Cecil, in September
1600, he was again applying, regarding Elizabeth as his debtor. In 1600,
he was in touch with Henry Locke, who had been Cecil's go-between in his
darkest intrigues against James, and his agent with Bothwell, Atholl, and
the Gowrie slain on August 5, 1600. But, in the autumn of 1602, Cecil
had become the secret ally of James, and gave up poor Francis, a broken
tool of his and of Elizabeth's. {160b}

We have now learned a good deal about Logan's habitual associates, and we
have merely glanced at a few of the numberless plots against James which
were encouraged by the English Government. If James was nervously
apprehensive of treason, he had good cause. But of Logan at the moment
of the Gowrie Plot, we know nothing from public documents. We do know,
however, on evidence which has previously been in part unpublished, in
part unobserved, that from August 1600 onwards, Logan was oddly excited
and restless. Though not in debt--or at least though no record of his
'horning' exists--he took to selling his lands, Restalrig, Flemington,
Gunnisgreen, Fastcastle. {161} After 1600 he sold them all; he wallowed
in drink; he made his wife wretched; with his eldest son he was on ill
terms; he wandered to London, and to France in 1605, and he returned to
die (of plague, it seems) in the Canongate, a landless but a monied man,
in July 1606.

Why did Logan sell all his lands, investing in shipping property? The
natura