RAID OF RUTHVEN. COWRIE CONSPIRACY. 25 



queen* threw herself between her husband and the daggers of his assassins : 

 twice she received the wounds aimed at his person ; and it was not till she 

 was forcibly torn away, that the deed of blood was completed, and the sum 

 of James's woes filled up by an end as tragic as any recorded in history.f 



As few travellers ever quit Perth without a visit to the site of Gowrie House 

 (for the building itself has given place to modern improvements), we annex an 

 abridged statement of the particulars of the inexplicable conspiracy under that 

 name, and to which the incident known in history as the " Raid of Ruthven," 

 may serve as preface. 



James VI., then in his twelfth year, was no sooner released from the stern 

 control of Morton, than he surrendered himself to the guidance of the duke of 

 Lennox and the earl of Arran two designing courtiers, who entangled their royal 

 ward in an unremitting round of amusements, while they themselves exercised 

 the regal authority in a way best calculated to advance their own sinister views. 

 To rescue the young sovereign from this degrading state of subserviency, the earl 

 of Gowrie, at the head of a party of nobles, entered into a secret combination ; 

 and, as the king was returning from stag-hunting in Athol, on his way to 

 Dunfermline, met and solicited him to honour the house of Ruthven with a visit. 

 This loyal invitation was complied with ; but the next day, when the royal visitor 

 offered to take leave, he was informed that he was the earl's prisoner. His surprise 

 and indignation, as natural at this tender age, were expressed in a paroxysm of 

 tears and bitter upbraidings. But, whilst the young king was observed weeping, 

 Sir Thomas Lyon boldly exclaimed " Let the tears run though we be sorry 

 for the cause better that bairns greet than bearded men." 



But the reign of this conspiracy was brief : although it had the good of the 

 country at heart, the party acted in a way little calculated to bring over the young 

 prince to a cordial approbation of the measures thus forcibly imposed upon him. 

 Themselves disciples of the reformed religion, they suffered its ministers to exer- 

 cise undue influence over them in matters pertaining to the civil administration 

 to indulge in strains of vituperation, not only offensive to the king personally, 



The fair " Lady Jane," of whom lie became enamoured, while a prisoner in the Castle of Windsor, 

 and who was afterwards the subject of the " King's Quair," a poem which reflects the highest honour 0:1 

 the poetical talent of this accomplished prince. 



t /Eneas Sylvius, afterwards Pope Eugene IV., who was legate in Scotland at the time of this 

 catastrophe, says, that he was at a loss which most to applaud, the universal grief which overspread the 

 nation on the death of the king, or the resentment to which it was roused, and the just vengeance wlih 

 which his inhuman murderers were pursued. Being all traced and dragged from their lurking-places, 

 they were put to death by the most lingering tortures that human invention could suggest. Athol, after 

 suffering three days' torture, with a rid-hot coronet of iron, was beheaded, and his limbs exposed in the 

 chief cities in the kingdom. 



VOL. II. II 



