On the same day, August 5, 1569, Stewart wrote from the Castle a piteous letter to ‘the most merciful Regent.’ He declared, as to the conspiracy of 1568, that he only knew of it by public talk. ‘The bruit of your Grace’s murder was tossed up and down at Edinburgh.’ Even if Stewart foreknew and concealed the plot, ‘yet till the principal devisers are tried and convicted, I cannot be accused.’ Stewart himself first heard of the conspiracy on July 21, 1568, from Patrick Hepburn. The comptroller (Tullibardine) had, on that day, ‘purged himself’ of the affair at Stirling. Now July 21 was the day after Drury gave his second notice of the treasure-hunt by magic, somehow involving a new regent, in which Stewart was concerned. Stewart cannot be accurate in referring his first hearsay knowledge of the conspiracy to July 21, 1568. He goes on excusing himself. He could not believe that the persons implicated by Patrick Hepburn ever contemplated the murder of Moray, who knows their names. Moreover, there is some one who predicted many events to Stewart, such as Darnley’s murder, the fall of Bothwell, ‘the death of Lyon Herald, and my promotion, the Queen’s deliverance,’ Langside, ‘and other predictions which have proved true.’ This soothsayer said that Moray was only in danger from ‘domestical treason.’ Therefore, Stewart disbelieved wholly in Patrick Hepburn’s story of a plot, and so did not divulge it. As witness, he cites ‘a certain courtier’ to whom he had given the same reason for his scepticism, in the middle of July, 1568. He adds that he thinks it wrong, following St. Paul, to resist ‘tyrants and usurpers.’ He regarded Moray as a tyrant and usurper, we have seen, in August, 1568. He ends by offering disclosures, privately, and asking for mercy.[412] On August 15, 1569, ‘William Stewart, being convictit for witcherie, was burnt, and the said Paris, convictit for ane of the slayaris of the King, wes hangit in Sanctandrois,’ says the ‘Diurnal.’ Now, why was Lyon Herald burned? If there was a conspiracy, in July, 1568, no others suffered for it. It was easy to convict Stewart for ‘witchery’: he confessed to dealings with a soothsayer, and the Kirk was beginning its campaign against witches. But what was the political or personal reason for Moray’s cruelty? Had he seen Stewart’s letter of August 19, 1568? As to the soothsayer, he may have been a familiar spirit, but he may also have been the Laird of Merchistoun, Napier, the father of the inventor of Logarithms. One of his prophecies to Stewart dealt with Mary’s escape from Loch Leven. And Nau, Mary’s secretary, writes, ‘The Laird of Merchistoun, who had the reputation of being a great wizard, made bets with several persons, to the amount of 500 crowns, that by the 5th of May, her Majesty would be out of Loch Leven.’[413] Thus there were two wizard Lairds of Merchistoun, the scientific son (the treasure-hunter for the laird of Restalrig) and his father.