en Ramsay attacked Ruthven, but later, when Ruthven
had already been slain. Mr. Bisset's theory was that Henderson had never
been in the turret during the crisis, but had entered the dark staircase
from a door of the dining-hall on the first floor. Such a door existed,
according to Lord Hailes, but when he wrote (1757) no traces of this
arrangement were extant. If such a door there was, Henderson may have
slunk into the hall, out of the dark staircase, and slipped forth again,
at the moment when Robertson, in his first deposition, swore to having
seen him. But Murray of Arbany cannot well have been there at that
moment, as he was with the party of Lennox and Mar, battering at the door
of the gallery chamber.--Bisset, _Essays in Historical Truth_, pp.
228-237. Hailes, _Annals_. Third Edition, vol. iii. p. 369. Note
(1819).

{63a} _Privy Council Register_, vi. 149, 150.

{63b} Pitcairn, ii. 250.

{64} Mr. Panton, who, in 1812, published at Perth, and with Longmans, a
defence of the Ruthvens, is very strong on the improbability that
Henderson was at Falkland. Why were not the people to whose house in
Falkland he went, called as witnesses? Indeed we do not know. But as
Mr. Panton looked on the King's witnesses as a gang of murderous
perjurers, it is odd that he did not ask himself why they, and the King,
did not perjure themselves on this point. (_A Dissertation on the Gowry
Conspiracy_, pp. 127-131.)

{67a} Pitcairn, ii. 222, 223.

{67b} Hudson to Cecil, Oct. 19,1600, Edinburgh. State Papers, Scotland
(Elizabeth), vol. lxvi. No. 78.

{69a} _James Hudson to Sir Robert Cecil_.

'. . . I have had conference of this last acsyon, first wth the
King, at lenght, & then wth Henderson, but my speache was first wth
Henderson befoar the King came over the watter, betwixt whoame I
fynde no defference but yt boath alegethe takinge the dager frome
Alexander Ruthven, wch stryf on the one part maie seame to agment
honor, & on the other to move mersy by moar merit: it is plaen yt the
King only by god's help deffended his owin lyff wel & that a longe
tyme, or els he had lost it: it is not trew that Mr. Alex spok wth
his brother when he went owt, nor that Henderson vnlokt the door, but
hast & neglect of Mr. Alex, left it opin, wherat Sr Jhon Ramsay
entrid, & after hime Sr Tho. Ereskyn Sr Hew Haris & Wilsone. Yt it
is not generally trustid is of mallice & preoccupass