One explanation may be suggested. It is quite impossible that Fletcher could have told the Earl Marischal that he left England because Monmouth was proclaimed King; but it is possible that when Fletcher was hurried on board the _Helderenberg_ to save him from the fury of the mob, there was an understanding that he would return. When, however, he heard that Monmouth had assumed the royal title, he may have changed his mind. He may have said something to this effect to the Earl Marischal, who misunderstood him. At the same time, it is to be observed, he was soon in situations where he could scarcely have heard of the proclamation until after the battle of Sedgemoor, and perhaps not until after the execution of Monmouth. All that can be said is that there was some misunderstanding on the part either of the Earl Marischal or of Lord Buchan. The Government in Scotland had put Henry Fletcher, Saltoun’s brother, under lock and key as soon as they heard of Argyll’s expedition; and they now took proceedings against Andrew. In August, Buyse, the Brandenburger, and Captain Robert Bruce, who were to be called as witnesses, reached Leith in one of the royal yachts; but it was not until the 21st of December that the case came on in the High Court of Justiciary at Edinburgh. By that time Monmouth was dead; but he was cited, as Duke of Buccleuch, along with his widow and children.[1] At the same time Sir James Dalrymple and Fletcher were arraigned. [1] James vi. Parl. 6, Act 69.--‘Though regularly crimes die with the committers, and cannot be punished after their death, yet by this Act it is ordained that Treason may be pursued after the committer’s death.’--Sir George Mackenzie’s _Observations on the Statutes_, p. 136. Sir George Mackenzie, then Lord Advocate, prosecuted. The charge was that Monmouth, Dalrymple, and Fletcher had, in the year 1683, entered into a plot with Shaftesbury, Argyll, Russell, and others, to kill the King; in short, they were accused, in the first place, of complicity in the Whig Plot and the Rye-House Plot. But the most serious charge against Fletcher was that he had come from Holland with Monmouth. The indictment against him set forth that he ‘landed with him (Monmouth) and rode up and down the country with him, and was in great esteem with him at Lyme for two or three days, and continued in open rebellion with him, till, having killed one Dare, an English goldsmith, who was likewise with them in the said rebellion, he was forced to fly in the frigotts in which they came, and make his escape.’ When the case against Fletcher came on, it was found that of forty-five jurymen who had been summoned only thirteen were in attendance; and the proceedings were adjourned until the 4th of January. On that day the charge of complicity in the Whig and Rye-House Plots was withdrawn, and he was accused only of taking part in Monmouth’s invasion.