Spanish blanks plot

The Spanish Armada had failed in its attempt to conquer England in 1588. The undeclared Anglo-Spanish War continued, however. The Kingdom of Scotland under James VI was divided over religion, despite the formal ascendancy of the Church of Scotland, at this time in a presbyterian form. The Scottish nobility were turbulent, while the king was working to assert administrative and political control of the country against factional and religious strife. A Jesuit mission concerned with Scotland included William Crichton and Robert Abercromby; it looked to help from Spain to further the aims of the Counter-Reformation in the British Isles.

Andrew Knox, Minister of Paisley was sent to arrest George Kerr,{{ODNBweb|id=15780|title=Knox, Andrew|first=James|last=Kirk}} son of Mark Kerr of Newbattle. George Kerr was about to sail to Spain from the west coast of Scotland and carried incriminating correspondence. He was arrested at night on the Isle of Cumbrae.{{cite book|author1=Thomas M. McCoog|author2=Campion Hall (University of Oxford)|title=The Reckoned Expense: Edmund Campion and the Early English Jesuits: Essays in Celebration of the First Centenary of Campion Hall, Oxford (1896-1996)|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=f01RY4H7MfoC&pg=PA216|access-date=24 May 2012|year=1996|publisher=Boydell & Brewer Ltd|isbn=978-0-85115-590-6|page=216}} The "Spanish blanks" which were found with other letters in a chest on Kerr's boat, were documents signed by four members of the Catholic nobility of Scotland, and otherwise left to be filled in. At first, the English diplomat Robert Bowes supposed the blanks had been written in invisible ink written with "white vitriol".Calendar State Papers Scotland, vol. 10 (Edinburgh, 1936), pp. 823, 828–9, describes the blanks.

James VI and Anne of Denmark were at Alloa Tower celebrating the wedding of the Earl of Mar and Marie Stewart, festivities were cut short when Sir John Carmichael and Sir George Home arrived from Edinburgh with news of the crisis. James VI rode to Edinburgh, where the kirk minister Robert Bruce and Robert Bowes explained their understanding of the situation and threat to him.Thomas Thomson, The historie and life of King James the Sext (Edinburgh, 1825), pp. 260-1.

George Kerr, his servant, and the letters were taken to Edinburgh and examined by the Privy Council on 2 January 1593.Calendar State Papers Scotland, vol. 10 (Edinburgh, 1936), pp. 829–833, with a list of the letters, not including the royal "position paper." Under torture, Kerr said that the blanks were to be filled in by Crichton, to forward a Spanish invasion.{{cite book|author=Thomas M. McCoog|title=The Society of Jesus in Ireland, Scotland, and England, 1589-1597: Building the Faith Saint Peter Upon the King of Spain's Monarchy|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=N5YZ_idaHqQC&pg=PA81|access-date=24 May 2012|date=1 January 2012|publisher=Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.|isbn=978-1-4094-3772-7|pages=81–4}} Damagingly for James VI (it has been said), Kerr was also carrying a copy of a position paper by the king on the possible advantages to him in accepting Spanish help.{{cite book|author=Marion A. Taylor|title=Bottom, Thou Art Translated: Political Allegory in a Midsummer Night's Dream and Related Literature|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=86Xkd_MVmlMC&pg=PA180|access-date=24 May 2012|date=1 June 1975 |publisher=Rodopi |isbn=978-90-6203-038-5|pages=180–1}}

Three prominent Earls were directly implicated:

• William Douglas, 10th Earl of Angus{{ODNBweb|id=7931|title=|first=Allan|last=White}}
• Francis Hay, 9th Earl of Erroll{{ODNBweb|id=12715|title=Hay, Francis|first=Concepcion|last=Saenz}}
• George Gordon, 6th Earl of Huntly{{ODNBweb|id=11036|title=Gordon, George|first=J. R. M.|last= Sizer}}

The fourth signature on the papers discovered was that of Sir Patrick Gordon of Auchindoun.{{cite book|author=W. B. Patterson|title=King James VI and I and the Reunion of Christendom|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zYK_Czpa1WwC&pg=PA14|access-date=24 May 2012|date=14 September 2000|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-79385-8|page=14}} Erroll and Huntly were given a date of 5 February to appear and explain themselves: they did not do so, and went to ground in the north. The king was confronted by them on 24 October, on the road from Soutra to Fala, south-east of Edinburgh; they explained that the blanks related to their support for the Jesuits in Scotland.

Others involved were:

• Alexander, Lord Home
• Sir James Chisholm of Cromlix{{ODNBweb|id=19758|title=|first=George|last=Molland}}
• David Graham, Laird of Fintry. A Catholic, he was questioned by John Cockburn of Ormiston and others,Annie Cameron, Calendar State Papers Scotland, vol. 11 (Edinburgh, 1936), p. 58 no. 30. and executed on 15 February 1593.{{cite book|author=P. G. Maxwell-Stuart|title=Satan's Conspiracy: Magic and Witchcraft in Sixteenth-Century Scotland|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=scqlhsB7CEQC&pg=PA158|access-date=24 May 2012|year=2001|publisher=Dundurn Press Ltd.|isbn=978-1-86232-136-6|page=158}}
• Hew Barclay of Ladyland{{cite book|author=Helena Mennie Shire|title=Song, Dance and Poetry of the Court of Scotland Under King James VI|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=i06ueHfXmKgC&pg=PA113|access-date=25 May 2012|date=26 August 2010|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-14829-0|page=113}}
• John Ogilvy{{ODNBweb|id=20600|title=|first=A. J|last=Loomie}}

An official account of the plot appeared in February 1593; it is assumed it was edited by John Davidson. It by no means included all the intercepted letters; but it printed a number concerned with William Sempill in 1589; the connection was that when Sempill's servant Pringle was found in England carrying letters to the Duke of Parma, they had included some from Huntly and Erroll.John Rawson Elder, Spanish Influences in Scottish History (1920), p. 188; [https://archive.org/stream/cu31924028145526#page/n203/mode/2up archive.org].{{cite DNB|wstitle=Sempill, William}}

Perceptions of James VI shifted after the discoveries: some assumed the affair showed the king had at least tacitly approved dealings with Spain, and many more put it down to slackness in anti-Catholic measures.{{cite book|author1=Crawford Gribben|author2=David George Mullan|title=Literature and the Scottish Reformation|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RMZD6zBkzbcC&pg=PA138|access-date=24 May 2012|year=2009|publisher=Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.|isbn=978-0-7546-6715-5|page=138}}

{{reflist}}

• Saenz-Cambra, Concepción, '[http://www.tiemposmodernos.org/tm3/index.php/tm/article/viewFile/71/105 Colonel William Sempill of Lochwinnoch (1546-1630): A Strategist for Spain]', Tiempos Modernos, no.13 (2006).

{{Plots and conspiracies}}

Category:1592 in Scotland

Category:1592 in Christianity

Category:16th-century Catholicism

Category:Conspiracies

Category:History of Catholicism in Scotland

Category:James VI and I