The actual circumstances have remained unknown and are only to be found in the official, but _suppressed_, reports of Sprot’s private examinations, now in the muniment room of the Earl of Haddington. These papers enable us partly to unravel a coil which, without them, no ingenuity could disentangle. Sir Thomas Hamilton, the King’s Advocate, popularly styled ‘Tam o’ the Cowgate,’ from his house in that old ‘street of palaces,’ was the ancestor of Lord Haddington, who inherits his papers. Sir Thomas was an eminent financier, lawyer, statesman, and historical collector and inquirer, who later became Lord Binning, and finally Earl of Haddington. As King’s Advocate he held, and preserved, the depositions, letters, and other documents, used in the private examinations of Sprot, on and after July 5, 1608. The records of Sprot’s examinations between April 19 and July 5, 1600, are not known to be extant. Sir Thomas’s collection consists of summonses, or drafts of summonses, for treason, against the dead Logan (1609). There is also a holograph letter of confession (July 5, 1608) from Sprot to the Earl of Dunbar. There are the records of the _private_ examinations of Sprot (July 5-August 11, 1600) and of other persons whom he more or less implicated. There are copies by Sprot, in his ‘course,’ that is, current, handwriting, of two of the five letters in Logan’s hand (or in an imitation of it). These are letters I and IV, produced at the posthumous trial of Logan in June 1609. Finally, there are letters in Logan’s hand (or in an imitation of it), addressed to James Bower and to one Ninian Chirnside, with allusions to the plot, and there is a long memorandum of matters of business, also containing hints about the conspiracy, in Logan’s hand, or in an imitation thereof, addressed to John Bell, and James Bower.