indeed 'a valuable acquisition.' Gowrie and Cranstoun,
and they alone, the apologist avers, were now permitted by James's
servants to enter the house. We know that many of James's men were
really battering at the locked door, and we know that others of Gowrie's
people, besides Cranstoun, entered the house, and were wounded in the
scuffle. Cranstoun himself says nothing of any opposition to their entry
to the house, after Gowrie drew his two swords.

Cranstoun, according to the apologist, first entered the chamber, alone,
and was wounded, and drawn back by Gowrie--which Cranstoun, in his own
statement, denies. After his wounds he fled, he says, seeing no more of
Gowrie. Then, according to the apologist, Gowrie himself at last entered
the chamber; the King's friends attacked him, but he was too cunning of
fence for them. They therefore parleyed, and promised to let him see the
King (who was in the turret). Gowrie dropped his points, Ramsay stabbed
him, he died committing his soul to God, and declaring that he was a true
subject.

This narrative, we are told by its author, is partly derived from the
King's men, partly from the confessions of Cranstoun, Craigengelt, and
Baron (accused of having been in the chamber-fight, and active in the
tumult). All these three were tried and hanged. The apologist adds that
James's companions will swear to whatever he pleases. This was unjust;
Ramsay would not venture to recognise the man of whom he caught a glimpse
in the turret, and nobody pretended to have seen Henderson at Falkland,
though the presence of Henderson at Falkland and in the chamber was an
essential point. But, among the King's crew of perjurers, not a man
swore to either fact.

What follows relates to Gowrie's character; 'he had paid all his father's
debts,' which most assuredly he had not done. As to the causes of his
taking off, they are explained by the apologist, but belong to a later
part of the inquiry.

Such was the contemporary Vindication of Gowrie, sent to Carey, at
Berwick, for English reading, and forwarded by Carey to Cecil. The
narrative is manifestly false, on the points which we have noted. It is
ingeniously asserted by the vindicator that _a servant of James_ brought
the report that he had ridden away. It is not added that the false
report was really brought by Cranstoun, and twice confirmed by Gowrie,
once after he had gone to make inquiry upstairs. Again, the apologist
never even hi