CHAP. VII. Their depositions he left the others, and on entering the garden with Paris, was joined by Hay and Hepburn, who had lighted the match, and released themselves by means of the false keys. They remained there, quite impatient, till the explosion took place, when they ran down to the Cowgate, through the Blackfriars gate, and ascending by different closses, crossed the High-street to a broken part of the town wall in Leith Wynd, which Bothwell was unable, or afraid to leap. The porter therefore was again summoned at the Netherbowgate, through which they returned to the abbey, and Bothwell retired to his bed, where he remained till roused by the alarm which the king's death had at last excited. 3. Nothing can be better authenticated, at preauthentick. sent, than these depositions. The originals taken by the privy council, were produced to a jury ; and were read and examined before the learned Craig. They were acknowledged by the culprits themselves on their trial; and the copies of them still extant in the Cotton library, are attested by Bellenden, the justice clerk. But in Whitaker's opinion, the depositions themselves, the attestation of Sir John Bellenden who never saw them, the records of justiciary where they were never lodged, and of course the whole trial, with the name and authority of Craig, before whom they were never read or exhibited, are the forgeries of Murray, executed during the conferences in England 1o, to Whitaker, iii, 211. 10 VII. Every historical document that refutes his asser- CHAP. tions, turns into a convenient forgery at his touch. But of those writers, to whose distempered imagination all is forgery, it is the peculiar misfortune, that their assertions are strong and vehement in proportion as their arguments are weak and inconclusivc. To them it is incredible that men, without apparent necessity, should confess facts to the destruction of their own lives; as if the records of council and justiciary were not filled with instances of similar confessions, or as if judicial confessions were never made at all. It is incredible that different persons, at distant intervals, should employ the same words and combinations, in their narratives; as if in any subsequent evidence concerning the same fact, the same words were not often dictated by the same commissioner, or recorded by the clerk, from the first deposition which they hold in their hands. It is incredible that men should know each other, when they met in the dark, or distinguish their cloaths and slippers at midnight, soon after the change of the moon; as if it were possible not to discern the persons, the garb, or the disguise of those who met within the Blackfriars gate, with a lighted candle, at ten at night ". But we are told that Dalgleish and Powrie were not arrested till the 17th of July, because their depositions are not once mentioned II " Whitaker, iii. 196. Goodall, i. 385. See Powrie's de posit on, Appendix. VII. CHAP by Throckmorton till then 12; as if Throckmorton, who arrived not at Edinburgh till the 17th of July, could have notified their seizure, or their depositions in June. The proclamation for apprehending Bothwell, issued the same day (June 26th) that Dalgleish was examined, mentions in express terms the depositions of his servants. Throckmorton's first letter from Edinburgh, July 14th, refers directly to the same evidence; "he (Bothwell) being with manifest evidence, noto"riously detected to be the principal murderer;" and his letter of the 18th can allude only to their depositions on the 23d and 26th of June, of which he had heard imperfectly; "That Bothwell's porter, "and one of the other servitors of his chamber "being apprehended, have confessed such sundry "circumstances of the murder, as it appeareth 66 66 evidently that he, the said earl, was one of the principal executors of the murder in his own person, accompanied with sundry others, of “which number I cannot yet certainly learn the "names but of three of them, two of the Ormis"tons of Tweddale, and one Hayburn of Bol"ton 13." If they were arrested only on the 17th of July there was neither time to take, nor occasion to antedate their depositions on the 18th; and being apprehended," no more implies that they were then apprehended, than being copied in the 'દ 12 Whitaker, iii. 201. 13 Anderson, i. 140. Robertson, ii. 447-53. VII. proceedings at Westminster, that the seven seve- CHAP. ral writings produced on the 8th, were transcribed on the spot. jections re But Powrie the porter, according to whose first Minute obdeposition, the trunk and mail containing the moved. gunpowder, had been brought by himself and Wilson on cc tway horses war away;" declared when re-examined, July 3d, that the "carriage of the trunks "and mail containit in his former deposition were carryed by him and Wilson upon ane gray horse, that pertainit to Herman, page to my “lord, at twa sundrie tymes, to the place containit " in his former deposit 15." Powrie was purposely 14 In Anderson this is printed, "the carriage of twa mails and ane tronk, and the uther ane ledderin mail," which affords Whitaker an additional objection, that the two mails and ane tronk shrink, in the second deposition, into a tronk and mail, and ane tocm pulder barrel, is added to make up what was lost. iii. 199. The least attention might have convinced him, that the "twa mails and ane tronk," was misprinted hy Anderson for ane an tronk. On inspecting the original, accordingly I found" the carriage of twa mails the ane que tronk, and the udder ane ane leddern mail.” 15 Goodall, i. 387. Whitaker, iii. 197. Goodall supposes that it was discovered after the first examination, that Bothwell had no horses in town, or that Powrie and Wilson had no access to them: as if a Scotch earl who never stirred abroad without attendants armed, and who had accompanied the queen from Stirling to Edinburgh and to Callender, and VII. CHAP. re-examined to correct a mistake committed from inattention or stupidity, in his first deposition; that the gunpowder had been brought on two horses, instead of two carriages on the same horse; but a forger, to whom it was indifferent whether the powder had been brought on two horses at once, or on one horse twice, would have rendered his first fabrication complete. According to the first deposition, Powrie and Wilson were met at the Blackfriars gate by Bothwell, accompanied by Hob Ormiston, Paris, and two others, with cloaks about their faces; according to his second examination, when they brought the last carriage to the Blackfriars gate, Bothwell came to themwith three more, "quhilk had thayr cloaks and "muils upon their feet 16." Here, instead of a slight contradiction, the two passages refer to the different carriages and arrivals of the powder, which Bothwell, walking up and down the Cowgate, met each time at the Blackfriars gate. In Powrie's deposition the powder in the trunk and mail was contained in pokes or small sacks; in Hay and Hepburn's, the trunk at least was emptied after a secret journey to Whittingham, met her again on the road from Glasgow, had no horses of his own in town. The mistake was probably committed by the clerk, and discovered on the examination of the centinels and others, of whose depositions one was read to Powrie on his second examination. 16 Whitaker, iii, 198. |