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

180 THE LIFE AND DEATH OF
not been long there when a report was raised, that
his Majesty, instead of lingering in the private
apartment, had mounted his horse to return to
Falkland. Mr. Thomas Cranston, a domestic of
the Earl, came into the garden and intimated the
report. The Earl wished to give the King a con-
voy, and asked for his horse, and Cranston told
him that his horse was in the town *.
I was assured, nearly fifty years ago, by an aged
person in Perth, remarkably intelligent in histori-
cal matters, and to whom an account of the Gow-
rie conspiracy had been transmitted only through
two or three generations, that the King, who was
of a cowardly temper, did not venture to go to the
Earl's closet with Mr. Alexander, there to be ac-
tive in the bloody part of the plot, till he was cer-
tified that one or more persons had been placed
there for his protection. The King had brought
with him from Falkland at least four menial ser-
vants. According to their own depositions, they
were Robert Galbraith, a stout man of thirty years
of age ; Robert Brown, another menial servant j
James Bog, his Majesty's porter ; and John Bog,
* Lennox's Deposition.