will remark that, like Letters
I (?), III, and V, this torn letter is a mere _pastiche_ framed (as Sprot
confessed) on ideas and expressions in Letter IV.

_Letter found among the Haddington MSS. torn into thirteen pieces_ (_one
lost_)--_these have been placed in order_, _but at least one line of the
piece is wanting_.

Brother, according to my promise the last day ve met in the kannogate I
have sent this berair to my lord vith my answer of all thingis, and, I
pray you ryde vith him till his lordschip, and bevar that he speik vith
na other person bot his lordschipis self and M.A. his lordschipis
brother, and specially let nocht his lordschipis pedagog [Mr. Rhynd] ken
ony thing of the matter, bot forder him hame agane, becawse the purpos is
parilouse, as ye knaw the danger. And yit for my ain part I protest
befoir God I sall keip trew condicion till his lordschip, and sall hasard
albeit it var to the vary skafald, and bid his lordschip tak nane other
opinion bot gude of the trustyness of this silly ald man [Bower] for I
dar baldlie concredit my lyf and all other thing I have elliss in this
varld onto his credit, and I trow he sall nocht frustrat my gude
expectacion. Burn or send bak agane as I did vith you, so till meitting,
and ever I rest, Yowre brother to power redy, Restalrige.

Beseik his lordschip bavar [beware] that my lord my brother [Lord Home]
get na intelligense of thir towrnis as he lowfis all owr veillis, for be
God he vill be our greittest enemy. {217}

(A line or more wanting)

* * * * *

On the same day (August 6) Sprot withdrew a deposition (made before July
5) that the Unknown, for whom Letters I, III, V were meant, was the Laird
of Kinfauns, Sir Harry Lindsay, who, in 1603, tried to shoot Patrick
Eviot, one of the Gowrie fugitives. The Constable of Dundee (Sir James
Scrymgeour) Sprot had also accused falsely. The Letters (I (?), III, V),
he says, were 'imagined by me.'

On August 8, three ministers, Patrick Galloway, John Hall, and Peter
Hewatt, were present. The two former were now preachers of the courtly
party, the third received a pension of 500 marks from the King, after the
posthumous trial of Logan (1609), at which the five letters were
produced, but this reward may have been a mere coincidence. The
ministers Hall and Hewatt, in August 1600, had at first, as we saw,
declined to accept James's version of the affair at Gowrie House (pp.
99-103).

Sp