Moreover, Robert Oliphant, M.A., said, in private talk, that the part of the man in the turret had, some time earlier, been offered to him by Gowrie; he refused and left the Earl's service.

It is manifest that James could not have arranged this set of circumstances: the thing is impossible.
Therefore the two Ruthvens plotted to get him into their hands early in the day; and, when he arrived late, with a considerable train, they endeavoured to send these gentlemen after the king, by averring that he had ridden homewards.

The dead Ruthvens with their house were forfeited.
Among the preachers who refused publicly to accept James's account of the events in Gowrie's house on August 5, Mr Bruce was the most eminent and the most obstinate.

He had, on the day after the famous riot of December 1596, written to Hamilton asking him to countenance, as a chief nobleman, "the godly barons and others who had convened themselves," at that time, in the cause of the Kirk.

Bruce admitted that he knew Hamilton to be ambitious, but Hamilton's ambition did not induce him to appear as captain of a new congregation.