History of the life and death of John, Earl of Gowrie

6 LIST OF TRACTS.
4. DAVID MOYSES* MEMOIRS.
David Moyses had been thirty-seven years a ser-
vant of King James VI. At the end of his me-
moirs, he inserts the King's account of the Gowrie
Conspiracy. He blames the Presbyterian ministers
for their remaining incredulous. " Yea," says he,
" after the truth and circumstances of the whole
conspiracy were testified by five hundred gentle-
men, who were at that time at St. Johnston, and
saw with their eyes the form and manner of that
treasonable practice and conspiracy."
But that very circumstance which he mentions
as an argument against the Earl was in his favour,
for it is certain that the King, by some means or
other, had such a number of armed men assembled
from the country, very few of whom indeed knew
the cause of their being called to Perth, that he
was in no danger either from the Earl, or from the
people of the town; and after the King's arrival
with his retinue from Falkland, the Earl had no
longer the command of his own house.