Page 40 - Scottish Alchemists

powers of darkness and employment of their services, would have had Her
Majesty bring him into question on that account. His son, the first Earl of
Gowrie, inherited the same tastes, and he was, according to Spottiswoode, “a
man wise, but said to have been too curious, and to have consulted with
wizards touching the state of things in future times.” The third Earl and his
brother Alexander Ruthven, the chief actors in the Gowrie conspiracy, were
two of the earliest graduates of the University of Edinburgh, - the Earl having
taking his degree of M.A. in 1593 and Alexander the same degree in 1598.
The Earl seems to have retained his fondness for scientific study to the last;
and it was stated that when his pockets were searched after he was killed on
the occasion of the conspiracy, there was found in them “a little close
parchment bag, full of magical characters and words of enchantment,
wherein it seemed that he had put his confidence, thinking himself never safe
without them, and therefore ever carried them about with him.”

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It is interesting, as showing the popular feeling of the period in Scotland
with regard to scientific research, that the mysterious hieroglyphics in which
the Earl indulged were the cause of great uneasiness to his tutor, William
Rhynd. “The tutor would sometimes get hold of the paper,” says Dr Craik,
“and anxiously ask the Earl for what purpose he kept it about him; the only
answer be got was, “Can you not let it be? It will do you no harm.” Rhynd
was so troubled in his mind about the matter that lie several times intended to
have burned the characters, and was only deterred by the apprehension of
his pupil’s wrath and anger; for if at any time he took them out of the Earl’s
pocket, my Lord, he says, would be in such a rage with him, that for a
certain space he would not speak with him, nor could the unhappy tutor by
any means regain his good countenance. In Rhynd’s opinion, my Lord was
never at ease if he had not the characters about him to the hour of his death.
And he was constrained to believe that he kept them for no good. The
talismanic words or letters it seems were partly Latin, partly Hebrew, and

11 Facsimile of signature of the third Earl of Gowrie, in Laureation Book of the
University of Edinburgh, anno 1593.

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