y his page and Sr Thomas Erskyn came to where
the king was Where Ramsey runne the poore gentleman thorough, sitting as
is saide vpon his knees.

At this stirr the earle wyth his Mr Stablere and somme other, best
knowing the howse and the wayes, came first to the slaughter where
finding his brother dead and the king retyred (For they had perswaded hym
into a countinghouse) some fight beganne between the earle and the
others. Mr Preston saies that vpon thar relation that the king was
slayne the earle shronke from the pursuyte, and that one of the afornamed
rushing sodainlee to the earle thrust hym through that he fell down and
dyed. This matter seeming to haue an accidentall beginning, to gyve it
an honorable cloake is pursued wyth odious treasons coniurations &c.
imputed to the dead earle, wyth the death of the Mr Stabler, Wyth making
knyghtis the actors, And manye others such as I know are notified to you
long ere this. The ministers as I heare are asked to make a thankgyving
to god, where they think more need of Fasting in Sackclothe and Ashes, to
the kingis much discontenting. This I must not saie (as the scholers
terme yt) to be categoricallie true, but heupatheticallie {98} I take yt
so to be. Wherevpon maie be inferred that as the death of the twoe First
maie be excused by tendering the verie showe of hazard to the King, so is
the making of religion and iustice cloakes to cover accidentall
oversightis a matter which both heaven and earth will iudge. . . .

From Bradley this 2de of Sept.

Yor poore Frend to commannd.

WILLM. BOWES.

{98} Hypothetically?

{103} Calderwood, vi. 84.

{104} Pitcairn, ii. 248 _et seq._

{105a} Calderwood, vi. 98.

{105b} _Ibid._ vi. 130.

{107a} Calderwood, vi. 147.

{107b} _Ibid._ vi. 156.

{110} Mr. Bruce appears to have gone to France in 1599-1600, to call
Gowrie home. In a brief account of his own life, dictated by himself at
about the age of seventy (1624), he says, 'I was in France for the
calling of the _Master_' (he clearly means _Earl_) 'of Gowrie' (Wodrow's
'Life of the Rev. Robert Bruce,' p. 10, 1843). Calderwood possessed, and
Wodrow (_circ._ 1715) acquired, two 'Meditations' by Mr. Bruce of August
3, 4, 1600. Wodrow promises to print them, but does not, and when his
book was edited in 1843, they could not be found. He says that 'Mr.
Bruce appears to have been p