Papers relating to William, first Earl of Gowrie, and Patrick Ruthven, his fifth and last surviving son

Preface. ix
Gustavus Adolphus, a letter and another paper of Patrick
Ruthven of the Tower, a Note on the Descent of the Earldom
of Gowrie, contributed by Sir Charles George Young, Garter,
an English Abstract of the deed of 28th February, 1 583, and
a Note on a Relic from Ruthven Castle, by Colonel Cowell
Stepney, in the latter of which he has briefly stated his views
of the circumstances which brought down ruin upon the House
of Ruthven.
It may finally be remarked, that these papers have also the
peculiar degree of incompleteness which belonged to all histo-
rical inquiries written at that particular period, on account of
the restrictions which prevented access to what we were even
then accustomed to call our Public Archives. At that time
the State Papers were in the custody of jealous guardians, who
gave admission only to particular individuals, and as a personal
or official favour ; the Public.Records were practically inacces-
sible by reason of fees ; and the Prerogative Office was con-
temptuously closed against all literary inquiry. Some remarks
were made upon this subject at the close of the second of the
following papers, and it is not to be doubted that it operated
very prejudicially against both of them. Among the State
Papers is another copy of the Paper No. I., printed at p. 25,
which was sent by Davison, then the English Ambassador in
Scotland, to the Government of Queen Elizabeth, besides a
very valuable contemporary correspondence from Edinburgh,
of which I should gladly have availed myself, if it had then
been accessible. It would have enabled me to treat the sub-
ject in a more comprehensive way than I was induced to do
by the materials then before me.
Fortunately for those who come after us, these old restric-
tions are now entirely at an end. The State Papers and the
Public Records have been thrown open to all inquirers, with-
out restriction and without fee, and the Prerogative Office
b