from public affairs. As Queen Elizabeth was displeased by the fall of the Ruthven Regime, Walsingham was sent as ambassador to Scotland in September 1583. He spoke to James VI at Perth, and was convinced that Queen Mary's influence was dominant in Scotland, and working to the young king's confusion. He wrote to Elizabeth that Mary, "though she cannot live many years" would see his overthrow. James VI had not enjoyed the Ruthven government. Walsingham found the King unable to take his complaints seriously, and he laughed at Walsingham, "falling into a distemperture", telling him that he was an "absolute King" and would order his subjects as he would "best lyke himself." Arran and the Earl of Crawford hired Kate the Witch to disrupt Walsingham's visit, with £6 and a length of plaid cloth. She stood outside the royal palaces complaining about the amity with England, the kirk, and the nobility. Last of the Oliphants Two of those implicated in the Raid, the eldest son of the Chief of Clan Oliphant, Laurence Master of Oliphant, and his brother-in-law Robert Douglas, Master of Morton, were exiled in 1584. The ship in which they sailed to France was lost at sea, and it was rumoured that their ship had been captured by a Dutch ship and they were killed in the fighting or drowned with their ship. Later, there were reports that they had been sold to a Turkish slave ship. In 1589, a Scot, James Hudson, with the Scottish ambassador, appealed to Francis Walsingham for his help finding the men, reported to be slaves in the castle of Algiers. In 1601, Robert Oliphant went to Algiers to look for his kinsmen, carrying a letter of introduction to Sultan Mehmed III written by Queen Elizabeth, who also recommended her ambassador John Wroth help the search. A plaque to their memory was raised in the English church in Algiers. The 17th-century historian of the Douglas family, David Hume of Godscroft laid the blame for their loss on Robert's mother, Agnes Leslie, Countess of Morton, for her attempt in 1584 to prevent them supporting the Earl of Gowrie, which was considered misguided. See also John Colville Robert Boyd, 5th Lord Boyd References The Ruthven Raid History of Scottish Earls External links Moysie, David, Memoirs of the Affairs of Scotland, vol.1 Bannatyne Club (1830) Stevenson, Joseph, ed., Correspondence of Robert Bowes, the ambassador of Queen