When James VI's cries of murder brought his gentlemen running from the courtyard below, they fought their way into Gowrie House. John Ruthven, Earl of Gowrie himself, hearing the commotion and perhaps believing Alexander had succeeded, rushed to the scene with his own sword and was killed in hand-to-hand fighting on the stairs. Both Ruthven brothers were dead within minutes. The Earl of Gowrie had been head of the family that had kidnapped James VI as a boy in the Ruthven Raid of 1582 and whose father had been executed for it — the Ruthven family's destruction was now complete. The bodies were tried posthumously for treason.
Aubrey generates in-depth historical research for any location in Britain — drawing on Domesday records, scheduled monuments, Victorian OS maps, geological data and archaeological archives to tell the full story of a place.
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