rmline.
Calderwood reports that, after Gowrie's speech, Sir David Murray said,
'Yonder is an unhappy man; they are but seeking occasion of his death,
which now he has given.' This is absurd: Fyvie and the Laird of Easter
Wemyss opposed the King as stoutly, and no harm followed to them; Fyvie
rising steadily (and he had opposed the King yet more sturdily before) to
the highest official position.

Calderwood adds a silly tale of Dr. Herries. Beatrix Ruthven laughed at
his lame leg; he looked in her palm, and predicted a great disaster. The
same anecdote, with, of course, another subject, is told of Gowrie's own
prediction that a certain man would come to be hanged, which was
fulfilled. Gowrie had been at Perth, before the convention at Holyrood
of June 21. To Perth he returned; thence, some time in July (about the
20th), {131c} he went to his castle of Strabran, in Atholl, to hunt.
Whether his brother the Master remained with him continuously till the
Earl's return to Perth on Saturday, August 2, I know not how to
ascertain. If there is anything genuine in the plot-letters produced
eight years later, the Master once or twice visited Edinburgh in July,
but that may have been before going to Strabran.

Concerning the Master, a romantic story of unknown source, but certainly
never alluded to in the surviving gossip of the day, was published, late
in the eighteenth century, by Lord Hailes. 'A report is handed down that
Lord _Gowrie's_ brother received from the Queen a ribbon which she had
got from the King, that _Mr. Alexander_ went into the King's garden at
Falkland on a sultry hot day, and lay down in a shade, and fell asleep.
His breast being open, the King passed that way and discovered part of
the ribbon about his neck below his cravat, upon which he made quick
haste into the palace, which was observed by one of the Queen's ladies
who passed the same way. She instantly took the ribbon from his neck,
went a near way to the Queen's closet, where she found her Majesty at her
toilet, whom she requested to lay the ribbon in a drawer.' James
entered, and asked to be shown the ribbon. The Queen produced it, and
James retired, muttering, 'Devil tak' me, but like is an ill mark.'

Legend does not say when, or in what year this occurred. But the fancy
of authors has identified the Queen's lady with Beatrix Ruthven, and has
added that the Master, in disgrace (though undetected), retired with
Gowrie to Strabane, or Stra