If Shakspere visited Perth in the autumn of 1601, he was in that city within fourteen months of the period when one of the most extraordinary tragedies in the tragic history of Scotland had been acted within its walls. With the details of this real tragedy Shakspere might have been familiar without a visit to Perth; for The Earle of Gowrie's Conspiracie against the Kingis Maiestie of Scotland, at Saint Johnstoun,* vpon Tuesday the fift of August, 1600,' was printed at London by Valentine Simmes (the printer of several of Shakspe:e's quarto plays) in the same year that the conspiracy took place. Whatever might have been the insinuations of the Presbyterian divines in Scotland, this authorized account could not have presented itself to an unprejudiced English mind except as a circumstantial, consistent, and true relation. The judicial evidence which has been collected and published in recent times sustains this narrative in all essential particulars. Place the poet in the High Gate [High Street] of Perth, looking upon the Castle of Gowrie; let the window be pointed out to him from which the King cried out "I am murdered;" let him enter the "Blak Turnpike," the secret stair which led to the "gallery chalmer" from which the cries proceeded; let him, surrounded with the courtiers of James, listen to the details of terror which would be crowded into the description of such an event; and Scottish history might then be searched for some parallel of a king murdered by an ambitious subject. Let us see if there are any details in the Discourse of the vnnaturall and vile Conspiracie attempted against his Maiesties person, at Saint Johnstoun, upon the fift day of August, being Tuesday, 1600,' or in the judicial evidence before the court held in Perth on the 22nd of August of that year, or in the previous examinations at the King's Palace at Falkland, which have any resemblance to the incidents in the tragedy of Mac beth. John Earl of Gowrie, and his brother Alexander, the Master of Ruthven, were two young noblemen of great popularity. They had travelled; they were accomplished in many branches of knowledge. Amongst the attempts to blacken the character of the unhappy Earl it was desired to be shown that he practised sorceries, and that he conversed with sorcerers. James Weimis, of Bogy, recounts the Earl's conversations with him upon mysterious subjects;—of serpents which could be made to stand still upon pronouncing a Hebrew word; of a necromancer in Italy with whom he had dealings; of a man whose hanging he predicted, and he was hanged; "and that this deponent counselled the Earl to beware with whom he did communicate such speeches, who answered that he would communicate them to none except great scholars." Master William Reid deposed to certain magical characters found in his lord's pocket after his death; that he always kept the characters about him; and that in his opinion. it was for no good. Thus, then, we encounter at the onset something like the belief of Macbeth in matters beyond human reason. "I have learned by the perfectest report, they have more in them than mortal knowledge." According *Saint Johnstoun was another name for Perth. + See Pitcairn's 'Criminal Trials,' vol. ii., p. 146 to p. 332. A Latin treatise was published at Edinburgh, in 1601, 'De execrabili et nefanda fratrvm Rvvenorvm in serenissimi Scotorum Regis caput Conjuratione,' which learnedly dwells upon the to the narrative of the Gowrie Conspiracy, Alexander Ruthven met the King as he was going out of his palace at Falkland, and earnestly solicited him to go to Perth, to examine a man who had discovered a treasure. The King reluctantly consented, but at last did consent. Ruthven then directed "Andrew Henderson, Chamberlain to the said Earl, to ride in all haste to the Earl, commanding him that he should not spare for spilling of his horse, and that he should advertise the Earl that he hoped to move his Majesty to come thither." Compare this with the fifth scene of Macbeth : : Macbeth precedes Duncan. Alexander Ruthven goes before James. The Duke of Lennox says, "After that Master Alexander had come a certain space with his Highness, he rode away and galloped to Perth before the rest of the company towards his brother's lodgings, of purpose, as the deponent believes, to advertise the Earl of Gowrie of his Majesty's coming there." So Macbeth: "Duncan comes here to-night." When Macbeth receives the prophecy of the weird sisters he is so absorbed with "That suggestion Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair, that Banquo exclaims "Look, how our partner's rapt!" King James thought Alexander Ruthven "somewhat beside himself," and noticed his raised and uncouth staring and continued pensiveness." The description of the banquet with which Gowrie receives the King,-sorry cheer, charge against Gowrie of tampering with supernatural aid, and which in one passage bears a still more remarkable resemblance to the original promptings of Macbeth's ambition :-"Quis est enim in noscitandis adolescentum nostri ævi ingenijs adeo peregrinus, qui non continuo subodoretur Govvrium hæreditaria ea scabie prave curiositatis prurientem, atque in patris ac aui mores insti tutaque euntem, consuluisse Magum hunc, quæ sors maneret eum, aut quo fato esset periturus: et veteratoris spiritus astu (ita vt fit) ambigua aliqua rcsponsione fucum illi factum." This is the very Sentiment of Macbeth :- "And be these juggling fiends no more believ'd, That palter with us in a double sense; That keep the word of promise to our ear, according to his Majesty, excused upon the suddenness of his coming--is very remarkable: "His Majesty being set down to his dinner, the said Earl stood very pensive, and with a dejected countenance, at the end of his Majesty's table, oft rounding [whispering] over his shoulder, one while to one of his servants, and another while to another; and oft-times went out and in to the chamber." Very similar to this is the situation expressed by the original stage direction in Macbeth: Enter a Sewer, and divers servants with dishes and service over the stage. Then enter Macbeth." We can imagine Gowrie, on one of the occasions when he went out and in to the chamber, thinking the very thoughts which Macbeth thinks aloud when he has left the King : "If it were done, when 't is done, then 't were well It were done quickly." : We can fancy the Master of Ruthven seeking his brother, (the favourite of the people of Perth,) as Lady Macbeth sought her husband "Lady M. He has almost supp'd: Why have you left the chamber? Macb. We will proceel no further in this business : King James is led by Master Alexander "up a turnpike, and through two or three chambers, the said Master Alexander ever locking behind him every door as he passed." Then comes the attempt at assassination. The circumstances in Macbeth are of course essentially different; but the ambition which prompted the murder of Duncan, and the attempt upon James, are identical. The King is held to have said while he was in the death grip of the Master of Ruthven, "Albeit ye bereave me of my life, ye will nought be King of Scotland, for I have both sons and daughters." So "We will establish our estate upon Our eldest Malcolm." It is a singular characteristic of the Gowrie tragedy that the chief conspirators, the Earl of Gowrie and the Master of Ruthven, were put to death in so sudden a way that the real circumstances of the case must always be involved in some doubt. The evidence is not wholly satisfactory. The Duke of Lennox, who was the chief witness of credit, says of himself, the Earl of Mar, and their company, that "Notwithstanding long forcing with hammers, they got nought entry at the said chamber until after the Earl of Gowrie and his brother were both slain. And at their first entry they saw the Earl of Gowrie lying dead in the chamber, Master Alexander Ruthven being slain and taken down the stair before their entry." The official account says that Sir John Ramsey, finding the turnpike-door open (not the regular entrance, but one that led direct from the street), entered the chamber where the King and the Master were struggling. He struck the traitor with his dagger, "who was no sooner shot out at the door but he was met by Sir Thomas Erskine and Sir Hugh Herries, who there upon the stair ended him." The Eari of Gowrie followed these servants of the King; and then the Earl was "stricken dead with a stroke through the heart which the said Sir John Ramsey gave him." Sir Thomas Erskine and Sir John Ramsey confirm this account. The people of Perth believed that the Earl of Gowrie, their Provost, was unjustly slain; and their cry was, "Bloody butchers, traitors, murderers, ye shall all die! give us forth our Provost! Woe worth ye greencoats, woe worth this day for ever! Traitors and thieves that have slain the Earl of Gowrie!" The slaying of the two brothers gave rise to the belief that "the King was a doer, and not a sufferer."* It was this belief that moved the people of Perth to utter "most irreverent and undutiful speeches against his Majesty," even though the Earl was denounced as "a studier of magic, and a conjurer of devils." Macbeth has furnished the excuse for such a sudden slaying of the brothers : The people of Perth, however, became reconciled to James. On the 15th of April, 1601, "The King's Majesty came to Perth, and was made burgess at the Galloway's Discourse before the King. Market Cross. There was eight puncneous of wine set there, and all drunken out. He received the banquet at the town, and subscribed the guild-book with his own hand, Jacobus Rex, parcere subjectis, et debellare superbos."" In a paper read to the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, by John Anderson, Esq., On the Site of Macbeth's Castle at Inverness,'* the author says, "The extreme accuracy with which Shakspere has followed the minutiae of Macbeth's career has given rise to the opinion that he himself visited those scenes which are immortalized by his pen." It is our duty to examine this opinion somewhat particularly, whatever be the conclusions to which the examination may conduct us. The story of Macbeth was presented to Shakspere in a sufficiently complete form by the chronicler from whom he derived so many other materials, Holinshed. In testing, therefore, "the extreme accuracy with which Shakspere has followed the minutiae of Macbeth's career "--by which we understand the writer to mean the accuracy of the poet in details of locality-we must inquire how far he agrees with, or differs from, and how far he expands, or curtails, the local statements or allusions of his chief authority. In the tragedy, Macbeth and Banquo, returning from their victory, are proceeding to Forres : • How far is 't called to Forres?" In the chronicler we find," It fortuned as Macbeth and Banquo journeyed towards Forres, where the king then lay." So far there is agreement as to the scene. The historian thus proceeds: "They went sporting by the way together without other company, passing thorough the woods and fields, when suddenly, in the middest of a laund, there met them three women in strange and wild apparel." This description presents to us the idea of a pleasant and fertile place. The very spot where the supernatural soliciting occurs is a laund, or meadow amongst trees. The poet chose his scene with greater art. The witches meet "upon the heath;" they stop the way of Macbeth and Banquo upon the “blasted heath.” But the poet was also more accurate than the historian in his traditionary topography. The country around Forres is wild moorland. Boswell, passing from Elgin to Forres in company with Johnson, says, "In the afternoon we drove over the very heath where Macbeth met the witches, according to tradition. Dr. Johnson again solemnly repeated, How far is 't called to Forres?' &c." But, opposed to this, the more general tradition holds that the "blasted heath" was on the east of Forres, between that town and Nairn. A more dreary piece of moorland is not to be found in all Scotland. . . . . There is something startling to a stranger in seeing the solitary figure of the peat-digger or rush-gatherer moving amidst the waste in the sunshine of a calm autumn day; but the desolation of the scene in stormy weather, or when the twilight fogs are trailing over the pathless heath, or settling down upon the pools, must be indescribable." We thus see that, whether Macbeth met the weird sisters to the east or west of Forres, there was in cach place that desolation which was best fitted for such an event, and not * Transactions,' vol. iii., 28th January, 1828. A laund is described by Camden as "a plain amongst trees." |