Footnote 1: This man, David Drummond, was tried and condemned shortly after, in the first justice court held by the young earl, and was executed for his offence, June 28,1600, as appears by the chronicles of the fair city of Perth.
Footnote 2: This curious anecdote is given in the manuscript memoirs of the Church of Scotland, by Mr. David Calderwood, a contemporary who was at this time about five-and-twenty years of age, and a keen observer of all that was passing.
Footnote 3: It is now the generally received opinion that the Earl of Angus did obtain possession of the treasures of the regent Morton, and that he spent the whole of them in acts of liberality to his fellow exiles.
Footnote 4: This anecdote of court scandal is to be found in Pinkerton's essay on what he calls the Gowrie conspiracy, in which it was inserted on the authority of Lord Hailes. The freedom of manners attributed to Anne of Denmark, both before and after the accession of her husband to the throne of England, and her fondness for several ladies of more than doubtful virtue, are mentioned by almost every writer of the day. All agree, however, that the character of Beatrice Ruthven, afterwards Lady Hume, one of Anne's earliest favourites, was perfectly irreproachable.
Footnote 5: This anecdote of Mr. William Cowper is given by Archbishop Spottiswood, a strong partizan of the king; and it is clear that he mentioned it with the view of supporting, by some independent testimony, the extraordinary statement of James himself--a statement which would not have deceived a child, so absurd, incongruous, and ridiculous it is, had not the friends and flatterers of the monarch exerted themselves, with all the zeal of sycophant ambition, to bolster up a puerile defence of his conduct, by corroborative circumstances often as false, and sometimes as puerile.
Footnote 6: This same Mr. Patrick Galloway, after the earl's death, did very imprudently go the length of saying, in a sermon preached at the market cross of Edinburgh, referring to the murdered nobleman, "He was an atheist, an incarnate devil, in the coat of an angel, a studier of magic, a conjurer with devils, some of whom he had under his command."
Footnote 7: If Henderson ever was at Falkland on that day, as he afterwards swore, he must have arrived at about half-past seven, and to have seen anything of what took place could not have quitted the ground till after eight. Yet he had returned to Perth by ten. He was met by Mr. John Moncrief, about that time, riding into Perth, and stopped to speak with him, so that he performed, in two hours, a journey which had taken Alexander Ruthven three, over the bad and tortuous roads then existing. But the whole of the man's evidence is invalidated by his subsequent perjury in regard to the other transactions of that day.
Footnote 8: The above is actually the story which James not only told to his courtiers, but afterwards wrote to several neighbouring princes, and embodied in his narrative of the events of that day, leaving his hearers and his readers the very unpleasant alternative of looking upon him either as an idiot or a knave. Lennox, in his deposition, very barely conceals what he thought of the story and of the king, for believing, or pretending to believe it.
Footnote 9: Moyses, in his Memoirs, declares that there were no less than five hundred gentlemen in Perth that day who bore testimony to the truth of the king's statement, and therefore were certainly not inimical to James. Yet we are told to believe that in presence of this imposing force of loyal subjects (assembled, who knows how?) Gowrie and his brother, with eight servants, attempted the king's life.
Footnote 10: This fact is indiscreetly suffered to appear in Erskine's deposition, where he says, "When all was over, I said to his majesty, I thought your majesty would have concredited more to me than to have commanded me to await your majesty at the door, if you had thought it not mete to take me with you." That Sir Thomas Erskine knew more of this foul transaction than he deposed to, is indicated by a letter from Nicholson, the Queen of England's agent in Scotland, 22nd September, 1602, in which he mentions that the king was much disturbed because his queen had revealed to Beatrice Ruthven some secrets told her by Sir Thomas Erskine.
Footnote 11: This fact is positively asserted in Calderwood's manuscript Memoirs, quoted by Mr. Scott.
Footnote 12: Lieut. Col. Cowell.