With Lennox and most of the
others, Mar ran to the rescue up the main staircase of the house,
where they were stopped by a locked door, which they could not break
open. Gowrie had not gone with his guests to aid the King; he was
standing in the street, asking, 'What is the matter? I know nothing;'
when two of the King's household, Thomas and James Erskine, tried to
seize him, the 'treason' being perpetrated under Gowrie's own roof.
_His_ friends drove the Erskines off, and some of the Murrays of
Tullibardine, who were attending a wedding in Perth, surrounded him.
Gowrie retreated, drew a pair of 'twin swords,' and, accompanied by
Cranstoun and others, made his way into the quadrangle of his house.
At the foot of a small dark staircase they saw the body of a man
lying--wounded or dead. Cranstoun now rushed up the dark stairs,
followed by Gowrie, two Ruthvens, Hew Moncrieff, Patrick Eviot, and
perhaps others. At the head of the narrow spiral stair they found, in
a room called the Gallery Chamber, Sir Thomas Erskine, a lame Dr.
Herries, a young gentleman of the Royal Household named John Ramsay,
and Wilson, a servant, with drawn swords.
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