Bowes had met Preston, whom James sent to Elizabeth with his version of the Gowrie affair. Bowes’s theory of it all was this: James, the Master, ‘and one other attending’ (the man of the turret) were alone in a chamber of Gowrie House. Speech arose about the late Earl of Gowrie, Ruthven’s father, whether by occasion of his portrait on the wall, or otherwise. ‘The King angrily said he was a traitor, whereat the youth showing a grieved and expostulatory countenance, and haplie Scotlike words, the King, seeing himself alone and without weapon, cried Treason!’ The Master placed his hand on James’s mouth, and knelt to deprecate his anger, but Ramsay stabbed him as he knelt, and Gowrie was slain, Preston said, after Ramsay had made him drop his guard by crying that the King was murdered. The tale of the conspiracy was invented by James to cover the true state of the case. {96} This Bowes only puts forth as a working hypothesis. It breaks down on the King’s narrative to Lennox about Ruthven’s captive and hoard. It breaks down on ‘one other attending’—the man in the turret—whatever else he may have been, he was no harmless attendant. It breaks down on the locked door between the King, and Lennox and Mar, which Bowes omits. It is ruined by Gowrie’s repeated false assurances that the King had ridden away, which Bowes ignores. The third hypothesis, the _via media_, is impossible. There was a deliberate plot on one side or the other. To make the theory of Bowes quite clear, his letter is appended to this section. {97} IX. CONTEMPORARY CLERICAL CRITICISM The most resolute sceptics as to the guilt of the Ruthvens were the Edinburgh preachers. They were in constant opposition to the King, and the young Gowrie was their favourite nobleman. As to what occurred when the news of the tragedy reached Edinburgh, early on July 6, we have the narrative of Mr. Robert Bruce, then the leader of the Presbyterians. His own version is printed in the first volume of the Bannatyne Club Miscellany, and is embodied, with modifications, and without acknowledgment (as references to such sources were usually omitted at that period), in Calderwood’s History. It is thus better to follow Mr. Bruce’s own account, as far as it goes. The preachers heard the ‘bruit,’ or rumour of the tragedy, by nine o’clock on the morning of August 6. By ten o’clock arrived a letter from James to the Privy Council: the preachers were called first ‘before the Council of the town,’ and the King’s epistle was read to them. ‘_It bore that his Majesty was delivered out of a peril_, and therefore that we should be commanded to go to our Kirks, convene our people, ring bells, and give God praises.’ While the preachers were answering, the _Privy_ Council sent for the Provost and some of the _Town_ Council.