encouraged against him, but it is not probable that England was aware of
the famous and mysterious conspiracy of the young Earl of Gowrie, who was
warmly welcomed by Elizabeth on his return from Padua, by way of Paris.
He had been summoned by Bruce, James's chief clerical adversary, and the
Kirk had high hopes of the son of the man of the Raid of Ruthven. He led
the opposition to taxation for national defence in a convention of June-
July 1600. On August 5, in his own house at Perth, where James, summoned
thither by Gowrie's younger brother, had dined with him, Gowrie and his
brother were slain by John Ramsay, a page to the king.

This affair was mysterious. The preachers, and especially Bruce, refused
to accept James's own account of the events, at first, and this was not
surprising. Gowrie was their one hope among the peers, and the story
which James told is so strange that nothing could be stranger or less
credible except the various and manifestly mendacious versions of the
Gowrie party. {156}

James's version of the occurrences must be as much as possible condensed,
and there is no room for the corroborating evidence of Lennox and others.
As the king was leaving Falkland to hunt a buck early on August 5, the
Master of Ruthven, who had ridden over from his brother's house in Perth,
accosted him. The Master declared that he had on the previous evening
arrested a man carrying a pot of gold; had said nothing to Gowrie; had
locked up the man and his gold in a room, and now wished James to come
instantly and examine the fellow. The king's curiosity and cupidity were
less powerful than his love of sport: he would first kill his buck.
During the chase James told the story to Lennox, who corroborated.
Ruthven sent a companion to inform his brother; none the less, when the
king, with a considerable following, did appear at Gowrie's house, no
preparation for his reception had been made.