Pitcairn, ii. 405-407.

{160b} See Thorpe's _Calendar_, vol. ii., s. v. 'Mowbray, Francis' in
the Index.

{161} He had sold Nether Gogar in 1596.

{162} Some of the papers are in the General Register House, Edinburgh.

{164} The evidence for all that occurred to Sprot, between April and
July 1608, is that of a manuscript _History of the Kirk of Scotland_, now
in the Advocates' Library. It is written in an early seventeenth-century
hand. Calderwood follows it almost textually up to a certain point where
the author of the MS. history says that Sprot, on the scaffold, declared
that he had no promise of benefit to his family. But Calderwood
declares, or says that others declare, that Sprot was really condemned as
a forger (which is untrue), but confessed to the Gowrie conspiracy in
return for boons to his wife and children.

We have, of course, no evidence that anything was done by Government, or
by any one, for Mrs. Sprot and the children. The author of the MS.,
which Calderwood used as he pleased, avers that Sprot denied on the
scaffold the fact that he had any promise. Neither draft nor official
account confirms the MS. history on the point of no promise. The
official _draft_ of his last moments (from its interlineations, each
signed by the Clerk of Council) appears to have been drawn up on the
spot, or hurriedly, as soon as Sprot was dead. This is the aspect of the
_draft_ of the account; the official _printed_ account says that there
was 'no place of writing on the scaffold, in respect of the press and
multitude of people' (Pitcairn, ii. 261).

{169} Vol. ii. pp. 282-7.

{170} Letter I is a peculiar case, and was not, perhaps, spoken of by
Sprot at all.

{183} Laing, _Charters_, Nos. 1452, 1474-76, 2029.

{198} _Hatfield Calendar_, iv. 659.

{199a} Pitcairn, iii. Appendix vii.

{199b} _Border Calendar_, i. 486, 487.

{202} Thorpe, ii. 614, 616, 617. _Border Calendar_, i. 457.

{203} _Privy Council Register_, viii. 150-2, 605.

{206a} Pitcairn, ii. 287, _n_ 2.

{206b} Neville to Cecil, Paris, Feb. 27, 1600. Willoughby to Cecil,
Berwick, April 22, 1600. _Winwood Memorials_, p. 166. _Border
Calendar_, ii. 645.

{217} The peculiarities of spelling are those recognised as Logan's, and
easily imitated by the forger.

{221} He had not the letter before him at this moment, and may have
forgotten.

{222} Spottiswoode, vol. iii. pp. 274, 282.

{224} Cromarty, _An Historica