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‘Further the said George Sprot remembers that in the summertide of 1601, the Laird of Restalrig had indented with the Lord Willoughby, then Governor of Berwick, concerning my Lord’s ship then built and lying at Berwick, whereof the Laird should have been equal partner with my Lord, and to take voyage with the said ship, either by the Laird himself, or some other person whom it pleased him to appoint . . . to pass to the Indies, the Canarys, and through the Straits, for such conditions as were set down in the indenture betwixt my Lord and him, which was framed by Sir John Guevara,’ Willoughby’s cousin, the kidnapper of Ashfield in 1599.
None of them signs the record, which, in this case only, is merely attested by the signature of Primrose, the Clerk of Council, one of Lord Rosebery’s family. In this session Sprot said nothing about forging the letters. The Archbishop was not to know.
Bower rode off with the letter, and Logan bade Sprot be silent about all these things, for he had learned, from Bower, that Sprot knew a good deal. Here the amateur of the art of fiction asks, why did Sprot drag in Mr. John Baillie of Littlegill? If Logan, as Sprot swore, informed Baillie about the burned letters, then Baillie had a guilty knowledge of the conspiracy.
This, however, he denied, with truth, yet he lied variously about the nature of his confessed forgeries. Sprot was so false, that Government might conceive his very confession of having forged the letters to be untrue.
Eight days later, Matthew took Sprot to Coldingham, to meet Bower, and get his answer to the letters. It was a Sunday; these devotees heard sermon, and then dined together at John Corsar’s. After dinner Bower took Sprot apart, and showed him two letters. Would Sprot read to him the first few words, that he might know which letter he had to answer?
But, two years later, in letting a portion of his property, Napier introduced the condition that his tenant should never sublet it to any person of the name of Logan! If he found the gold he probably was not allowed to carry off his third share. Logan being a resolute character of this kind, Sprot, a cowering creature, would not forge letters to blackmail him.
It follows that the whole affair of Sprot, and of the alleged Logan letters, adds nothing certain to the reasons for believing that there was a Gowrie conspiracy. Such is a brief summary of the facts.
Meanwhile, just after Logan’s death, in autumn 1606, Sprot forges Letters I, II, III, IV, V, and the torn letter, with two compromising letters to Bower, two to Ninian Chirnside, and an ‘eik,’ or addition, of compromising items to a memorandum on business, which, in September 1605, Logan gave to Bower and John Bell before he started for London and Paris. So far, all is clear.
Logan is in a plot; Sprot knows it, and yet Sprot forges letters to prove Logan’s guilt, and these letters, found in Sprot’s possession, prove his own guilty knowledge. There seems no sense in such behaviour. It might have been guessed that Sprot knew of Logan’s guilt, but had no documentary evidence of it, and therefore forged evidence for the purpose of extorting blackmail from Logan.
In July, Dunbar comes down from town, treats Sprot leniently, and gives him medical attendance. Sprot now confesses to his genuine knowledge of the plot, but unflinchingly maintains that all the papers so far produced are forgeries, based on facts. Why does he do this? He has a better chance of pardon, if he returns to the statement that they are genuine.
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