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

26 COUNTESS OF GOWRIE.
reign. The date is not mentioned in the copy ;
but one of the advices was, that the English Queen
should seek and cultivate the friendship of the Lord
Ruthven, (that is, of William Lord Ruthven, who
was afterwards the first Earl of Gowrie,) which she
might hope easily to obtain, " because of the affi-
nity which he bore to her."
Queen Margaret had been Queen Elizabeth's
aunt. Therefore, if Lord Ruthven's wife, Doro-
thea Stewart, was the immediate daughter of Queen
Margaret, she was Elizabeth's first cousin. But
Mr. Crawfurd, and others of his persuasion, might
have alleged, that Queen Mary's words did not
imply so near an affinity ; that she only meant that
Lord Ruthven's Lady was a descendant of the first
Lord Methven, who, while he lived, was Queen
Elizabeth's uncle-in-law, as being the third hus-
band of her aunt Queen Margaret.
Mr. Crawfurd, in his " Lives of the Officers of
State," acknowledges, that all the time in which
Bishop Burnet lived in Scotland, the story of the
royal parentage of Dorothea Stewart was univer-
sally believed. * I shall mention one remarkable
* Page 66.