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They are never alluded to in the sequel of Abbot’s pamphlet, containing the official account, by Sir William Hart, of Sprot’s Trial and Examinations. In mentioning ‘some papers found upon’ Sprot, Dr. Abbot ‘let the cat out of the bag,’ but writers like Mr. Napier, and other sceptics of his way of thinking, deny that any of the compromising letters were found at all.
Three of Sprot’s other victims, Maul, Crockett, and William Galloway, were set free on their personal recognisances, but Mossman and Matthew Logan were kept in prison, and Chirnside was not out of danger of the law for several years, as we learn from the Privy Council Register. Nothing was ever proved against any of these men.
The records of Sprot’s examinations between April 19 and July 5, 1600, are not known to be extant. These are letters I and IV, produced at the posthumous trial of Logan in June 1609. Of these compromising papers, one, a letter to Chirnside, was found by the Rev. Mr. Mr. Anderson has placed the pieces together, and copied the letter. He was condemned, we said, merely on his own confession.
Lord Cromarty’s averment that it was found in Sprot’s kist was disbelieved. It is true, however, and now we ask, why did Sprot keep back Letter IV to the last, and why, having so long concealed it, did he say where it was, after all hope of life was over? The answer can only be conjectural.
He had been blabbing in his cups, it is said, about the Gowrie affair; certainly most compromising documents, apparently in Logan’s hand, and with his signature, were found on Sprot’s person. They still bear the worn softened look of papers carried for long in the pockets.
This document did not come into the hands of Government till after the Indictment, containing Sprot’s quotation of the letter from memory, was written, or, if it did, was kept back. All this has presently to be proved in detail. The Indictment or ‘dittay’ against Sprot, on August 12, 1608, is a public document, but not an honest one. It contains the following among other averments.
To put the matter briefly, the forged letters present the marked peculiarities of Logan’s orthography, noted by the witnesses in 1609. But they also contain many peculiarities of spelling which are not Logan’s, but are Sprot’s. The very dotting of the ‘i’s’ is Sprot’s, not Logan’s. The long ‘s’ of Logan is heavily and clumsily imitated.
The contempt for Lord Home as a conspirator—‘in good faith he will never help his friend or harm his foe’—and the praises of Bower, are characteristic, and, here, are in place; elsewhere they are idle repetitions, mere copies. The apology for bad writing—Logan could not employ a secretary in this case—is natural: the two days writing agrees with Sprot’s evidence.
Robert Bruce, writing to ask Lord Hamilton to head the party of the Kirk, is said to request him to return his own letter by the bearer. Gowrie and Logan practised the same method. It contained a long passage of which the ‘substance’ is quoted. This passage as printed in Sprot’s Indictment is not to be found textually, in any of the five letters later produced.
We have stated the difficulties involved in this obvious falsehood. Sprot was trying every ruse to conceal his alleged source and model, Letter IV. Sprot was next asked about a certain memorandum by Logan directed to Bower and to one John Bell, in 1605. This document was actually found in Sprot’s ‘pocquet’ when he was arrested, and it contained certain very compromising items.
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