m. Erskine was, beyond doubt, in the
street with the rest of the retinue, before the brawl in the turret
reached its crisis, when Gowrie had twice insisted that James had ridden
away.

In any case, to go on with James's tale, he went with Ruthven up a
staircase (the great staircase), 'and through three or four
rooms'--'three or four sundry _houses_'--'the Master ever locking behind
him every door as he passed, and so into a little study'--the turret.
This is perplexing. We nowhere hear in the evidence of more than two
doors, in the suite, which were locked. The staircase perhaps gave on
the long gallery, with a door between them. The gallery gave on a
chamber, which had a door (the door battered by Lennox and Mar), and the
chamber gave on a turret, which had a door between it and the chamber.

We hear, in the evidence, of no other doors, or of no other locked doors.
However, in the Latin indictment of the Ruthvens, 'many doors' are
insisted on. As all the evidence tells of opposition from only _one_
door--that between the gallery and the chamber of death--James's reason
for talking of 'three or four doors' must be left to conjecture. 'The
True Discourse' (MS.) gives but the gallery, chamber, and turret, but
appears to allow for a door between stair and gallery, which the Master
'closed,' while he 'made fast' the next door, that between gallery and
chamber. One Thomas Hamilton, {52a} who writes a long letter (MS.) to a
lady unknown, also speaks of several doors, on the evidence of the King,
and some of the Lords. This manuscript has been neglected by historians.
{52b}

Leaving this point, we ask why a man already suspicious, like James, let
the Master lock any door behind him. We might reply that James had
dined, and that 'wine and beer produce a careless state of mind,' as a
writer on cricket long ago observed. We may also suppose that, till
facts proved the locking of one door at least (for about that there is no
doubt), James did not know that any door _was_ locked. On August 11 the
Rev. Mr. Galloway, in a sermon preached before the King and the populace
at the Cross of Edinburgh, says that the Master led the monarch upstairs,
'and through a _trans_' (a passage), 'the door whereof, so soon as they
had entered, _chekit to with ane lok_, then through a gallery, whose door
also _chekit to_, through a chamber, and the door thereof _chekit to_,
also,' and thence into the turret of which he 'also locked the doo