s,' Logan of Restalrig bears the mark of the
secret conspirator. He had relations with persons more distinguished
than his Chirnsides and Whittingham Douglases, though they were of near
kin to the Earl of Morton. His mother, a daughter of Lord Gray, married
Lord Home, after the death of Logan's father. The Laird of Restalrig was
thus a half-brother of the new Lord Home, a Warden of the Border, and
also was first cousin of the beautiful, accomplished, and infamous Master
of Gray, the double spy of England and of Rome.

Logan, too, like the Master, had diplomatic ambitions. In 1586 (July 29)
we find him corresponding with the infamous Archibald Douglas, one of
Darnley's murderers, whom James had sent, in the crisis of his mother's
fate, as his ambassador to Elizabeth. In 1586, Logan, with two other
Logans, was on the packed jury which acquitted Douglas of Darnley's
murder. Logan was a retainer of Bothwell, that meteor-like adventurer
and king-catcher, and he asks Douglas to try to procure him employment
(of course as a spy) from Walsingham, the English statesman. {157}

In October of the same year, we find the Master of Gray writing to
Douglas, thus: 'Of late I was forced, at Restalrig's suit, to pawn some
of my plate, and the best jewel I had, to get him money for his
marriage'--his second marriage, apparently. By December 1586 we find
Logan riding to London, as part of the suite of the Master of Gray, who
was to plead with Elizabeth for Mary's life. He was the Master's most
intimate confidant, and, as such, in February-March 1587, proposed to
sell all his secrets to Walsingham! Nevertheless, when Gray was driven
into exile, later in 1587, Logan was one of his 'cautioners,' or
sureties. He had been of the party of Gowrie's father, during that
nobleman's brief tenure of power in 1582, 1583, and, when Gowrie fell,
Logan was ordered to hand his eyrie of Fastcastle over, at six hours'
notice, to the officers of the King. Through the stormy years of
Bothwell's repeated raids on James (1592-1594) Logan had been his
partisan, and had been denounced a rebel. Later he appears in trouble
for highway robbery committed by his retainers. Among the diversions of
this country gentleman was flat burglary. In December 1593, 'when nichts
are lang and mirk,' the Laird helped himself to the plate-chest of
William Nesbit of Newton. 'Under silence of night he took spuilzie of
certain gold and silver to the value of three thousa