bran. History has no concern with such
fables. It is certain, however, or at least contemporary letters aver,
that Queen Anne of Denmark was grieved and angered by the slaying of the
Gowries. On October 21, 1600, Carey, writing to Cecil from Woodrington,
mentions this, and the tattle to the effect that, as the Queen is about
to have a child (Charles I.), 'she shall be kept as prisoner ever after.'
Was the Master supposed to be father of the Queen's child? Carey goes
on, 'There is a letter found with a bracelet in it, sent from the Queen
to the Earl of Gowrie, to persuade him to leave his country life and come
to Court, assuring him that he should enjoy any contents that Court could
afford.' {133} Can some amorous promise underlie this, as in the case of
Mr. Pickwick's letter to Mrs. Bardell, about the warming-pan? 'This
letter the King hath,' says Carey. Was it with Gowrie, not the Master,
that the Queen was in love? She was very fond of Beatrix Ruthven, and
would disbelieve in the guilt of her brothers; hence these tears and that
anger of the Queen.

But James also, says Calderwood, was as anxious as Carey declares that
the Queen was, to bring Gowrie to Falkland. 'When the Earl was in
Strabran, fifteen days before the fact, the King wrote sundry letters to
the Earl, desiring him to come and hunt with him in the wood of Falkland;
which letters were found in my Lord's pocket, at his death, as is
reported, but were destroyed.' {134a}

So James was not jealous; both he and the Queen were inviting Gowrie to
their country house, the Queen adding the gift of a bracelet. She may
have worked it herself, like the bracelet which Queen Mary is said to
have sent to Bothwell.

All this is the idlest gossip. But it is certain that, on one occasion,
at the end of July, 'close letters' were sent from the Court at Edinburgh
to Atholl and Gowrie; and, later, to Inchaffray and the Master, the first
three are in Bothwell's list of Catholics ready to meet the Spanish
invaders. The fact of the letters appears from the Treasurer's accounts,
where the money paid to the boy who carried the letters is recorded,
without dates of the days of the month. The boy got 33 shillings, Scots,
for the journey from Edinburgh to the Earls of Gowrie and Atholl; 24 for
the other two, which he carried from Falkland. Craigengelt, in his
deposition, 'denies that during my Lord's being in Strabran, neither yet
in Perth, after his coming from Strabr