At one time, as has been recently discovered, a young man giving himself out as James's bastard brother (a son of Darnley begotten in England) was professing to bear letters from James to the Pope.

He was arrested on the Continent, and James could not be brought either to avow or disclaim his kinsman! A new Lennox, son of the last, was created a duke; a new Bothwell, Francis Stewart (nephew of Mary's Bothwell), began to rival his uncle in turbulence.

Knowing that Anglo-Scottish plots to capture him again were being woven daily by Angus and others, James, in February 1584, wrote a friendly and compromising letter to the Pope.

In April, Arran (James Stewart) crushed a conspiracy by seizing Gowrie at Dundee, and then routing a force with which Mar and Angus had entered Scotland.

Gowrie, confessing his guilt as a conspirator, was executed at Stirling (May 2, 1584), leaving, of course, his feud to his widow and son.