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It is, of course, a forgery by Sprot, to enable Chirnside to terrorise his creditors, Logan’s executors. But, as it directly implicates Chirnside himself in the Gowrie conspiracy, probably he disliked it, and tore it up. Yet the artist could not part with his work; it still lies, now reconstructed, in the old folio sheet of paper.
Yet the two were boon companions; Sprot was always loitering and watching at Gunnisgreen, always a guest at the great Christmas festivals, given by the Laird to his rough neighbours. The death of Logan was a disaster to Sprot, and to all the parasites of the Laird. Logan died, we saw, in July 1606. In April, 1608, Sprot was arrested by a legal official, named Watty Doig.
If they are, the Government, which he must propitiate, has a far stronger hand, for the forgeries then defied detection. However, for no conceivable reason, unless it be either conscience or the vanity of the artist, Sprot now insists on claiming the letters as his own handiwork. On this point he was inaccessible to temptation, if temptation was offered.
He discouraged the whole affair, but Logan said, in the hearing of several persons, that he would hazard his life with Gowrie. Bower and Logan had a long conference in the open air. Sprot was lounging and spying about beside the river; a sea-fisher had taken a basket of blenneys, or ‘green-banes.’ Logan called to Sprot to bring him the fish, and they all supped.
This tract was published by Bradewood, London, in 1608, and is reprinted by Pitcairn. After a verbose, pious, and pedantic diatribe, Abbot comes to the point. Sprot was arrested in April 1608, first on the strength ‘of some words that fell from himself,’ and, next, ‘of some papers found upon him.’ What papers? They are never mentioned in the Indictment of Sprot.
I do not feel assured that Sprot really maintained the genuineness of the handwriting of Letter IV. His remark that he kept Logan’s letter only till he forged others on it, as a model, certainly implies that he did not keep it after he had done his forgeries, and therefore that our Letter IV is, confessedly, not Logan’s original. Certainly it is not. This can only be denied by ignorance.
It appears, then, that Willoughby, unable to maintain his ship, and not subsidised by Government, in the summer of 1601 admitted Logan to a half of the venture, carrying great expenses. Logan settled the business at Robert Jackson’s house, in Bridge Street, Berwick, being accompanied by Sprot, Bower, and Matthew Logan.
That it is genuine, in substance, and was copied by Sprot from a real letter of Logan’s in an imitation of Logan’s hand, and that, if so, it proves Logan’s accession to the conspiracy, is my own private opinion.
Calderwood hints that Mr. Mr. What are we to believe? Did Sprot go wherever he went with a blasphemous lie in his mouth? A motive for such vehemence of religious hypocrisy is difficult to find. Conceivably he had promise of benefits to his family.
Bower, the messenger, was dead. Baillie was now called. He denied on oath that he had ever received the letter from Logan. He had never seen Gowrie, ‘except on the day he came first home, and rode up the street of Edinburgh.’ Confronted with Baillie, ‘Sprot abides by his deposition.’ Willie Crockett was then called.