net's father had every means of knowing the belief of the
contemporaries of Gowrie, and he may conceivably be Burnet's source for
the tale of Gowrie's Tudor descent and Royal claims. They were almost or
rather quite baseless, but they were current.

In fact, Dorothea Stewart, mother of Gowrie, was certainly a daughter of
Henry Stewart, Lord Methven, and of Janet Stewart, of the House of
Atholl. We find no trace of issue born to Margaret Tudor by her third
husband, Lord Methven. Yet Gowrie's emblem, adopted by him at Padua in
1597, and his device left in the Paduan dancing school, do distinctly
point to some wild idea of his that some crown or other was 'for him
alone.' At the trial of Gowrie's father, in 1584, we find mention of his
'challenginge that honor to be of his Hignes blud,' but _that_ must refer
to the relationship of the Ruthvens and the King through the Angus branch
of the Douglases. {250a}

This question as to the meaning of Gowrie's emblem came rather early into
the controversy. William Sanderson, in 1656, published Lives of Mary and
of James VI; he says: 'I have a manuscript which relates that, in Padua,
the Earl of Gowrie, among other impressa (_sic_) in a fencing school,
caused to be painted, for his devise, a hand and sword aiming at a
crown.' {250b} Mr. Scott, in 1818, replied that the device, with the
Ruthven arms, 'is engraven on a stone taken from Gowrie House in Perth,
and preserved in the house of Freeland' (a Ruthven house). 'There is
also, I have been told, a seal with the same engraving upon it, which
probably had been used by the Earls of Gowrie and by their predecessors,
the Lords of Ruthven.' {251a} But we know of no such seal among Gowrie
or Ruthven seals, nor do we know the date of the engraving on stone cited
by Mr. Scott. In his opinion the armed man and crown might be an
addition granted by James III to William, first Lord Ruthven, in 1487-88.
Ruthven took the part of the unhappy King, who was mysteriously slain
near Bannockburn. Mr. Scott then guesses that this addition of 1488
implied that the armed man pointed his sword at the crown, and exclaimed
_Tibi Soli_, meaning 'For Thee, O James III alone, _not_ for thy
rebellious son,' James IV. It may be so, but we have no evidence for the
use of the emblem before 1597. Moreover, in Gowrie's arms, in Workman's
MS., the sword is sheathed. Again, the emblem at Padua showed a
'black-a-more,' or negro, and Sir Robert Douglas could