, with his name and
titles, _viz._ "Joannes Ruthven, Comes de Gowry, Dominus de Ruthven,"
&c., in my hands.'

In 1597, as the archives of the Faculty of Law, in the University of
Padua, show, Gowrie was a student of Padua. It is also probable that, in
1597, he attained his majority. He certainly had his arms richly
illuminated, and he added to his ancestral bearings what Crawfurd
describes thus: 'On the dexter a chivaleer, garnish'd with the Earl's
coat of arms, _pointing with a sword upward to an imperial crown_, with
this device, TIBI SOLI.'

In Workman's MS., the figure points to the crown with the open right
hand, and the left hand is on the sword-hilt. The illuminated copy of
1597, once in the possession of Crawfurd, must be the more authentic; the
figure _here_ points the sword at a crown, which is _Tibi Soli_, 'For
thee' (Gowrie?) 'alone.'

Now on no known Ruthven seal, as we saw, does this figure appear, not
even on a seal of Gowrie himself, used in 1597. Thus it is perhaps not
too daring to suppose that Gowrie, when in Italy in 1597, added this
emblematic figure to his ancestral bearings. What does the figure
symbolise?

On this point we have a very curious piece of evidence. On June 22,
1609, Ottavio Baldi wrote, from Venice, to James, now King of England.
His letter was forwarded by Sir Henry Wotton. Baldi says that he has
received from Sir Robert Douglas, and is sending to the King by his
nephew--a Cambridge student--'a strange relique out of this country.' He
obtained it thus: Sir Robert Douglas, while at home in Scotland, had
'heard speech' of 'a certain emblem or impresa,' left by Gowrie in Padua.
Meeting a Scot in Padua, Douglas asked where this emblem now was, and he
was directed to the school of a teacher of dancing. There the emblem
hung, 'among other devices and remembrances of his scholars.' Douglas
had a copy of the emblem made; and immediately 'acquainted me with the
quality of the thing,' says Baldi. 'We agreed together, that it should
be fit, if possible, to obtain the very original itself, and to leave in
the room thereof the copy that he had already taken, which he did effect
by well handling the matter.

'Thus hath your Majesty now a view, _in umbra_, of those detestable
thoughts which afterwards appeared _in facto_, according to the said
Earl's own _mot_. For what other sense or allusion can the reaching at a
crown with a sword in a stretched posture, and the impersonating