Hesperides.

The palace was destroyed, to furnish a site for a gaol and county
buildings, in 1807, but the most interesting parts had long been in
ruins. {18}

In 1774, an antiquary, Mr. Cant, writes that the palace, after the Forty
Five, was converted into artillery barracks. 'We see nothing but the
remains of its former grandeur.' The coats of arms of 'the nobility and
gentlemen of fortune,' who dwelt in Spey Gate and Water Gate, were, in
1774, still visible on the walls of their houses. A fragment of the old
palace is said to exist to-day in the Gowrie Inn. Into this palace the
King was led by Gowrie: he was taken to the dining chamber on the left of
the great hall; in the hall itself Lennox, Mar, and the rest of the
retinue waited and wearied, for apparently no dinner had been provided,
and even a drink for his thirsty Majesty was long in coming. Gowrie and
the Master kept going in and out, servants were whispered to, and Sir
Thomas Erskine sent a townsman to buy him a pair of green silk stockings
in Perth. {19} He wanted to dine comfortably.

Leaving the King's retinue in the hall, and the King in the dining
chamber off the hall, we may note what, up to this point, the nobles and
gentlemen of the suite had to say, at the trial in November, about the
adventures of that August morning. Mar had not seen the Master at
Falkland; after the kill Mar did not succeed in rejoining James till they
were within two or three miles of Perth.

Drummond of Inchaffray had nodded to the Master, at Falkland, before the
Master met the King at the stables. He later saw the Master in
conference for about a quarter of an hour with James, outside the
stables. The Master then left the King: Inchaffray invited him to
breakfast, but he declined, 'as his Majesty had ordered him to wait upon
him.' (According to other evidence he had already breakfasted at
Falkland.) Inchaffray then breakfasted in Falkland town, and next rode
along the highway towards his own house. On the road he overtook Lennox,
Lindores, Urchill, Hamilton of Grange, Finlay Taylor, the King, and the
Master, riding Perthwards. He joined them, and went with them into
Gowrie House.

Nobody else, among the witnesses, did anything but agree with Lennox's
account up to this point. But four menials of James, for example, a
cellarer and a porter, were at Gowrie House, in addition to the nobles
and gentlemen who gave this evidence.

To return to Lennox's tale: dinn