was executed in 1584 for his part in another plot to seize Stirling Castle, and his lands were forfeited to the crown. A keen amateur arboriculturalist, Lord Gowrie is thought to have laid out the gardens at Dirleton, and planted numerous trees. After the attempted coup failed in May 1584, Dorothea Stewart, Countess of Gowrie, was commanded to surrender Dirleton, Ruthven, Cousland, and the Gowrie lodging in Perth to the crown. James VI granted Dirleton to the Earl of Arran, who entertained the King there for twelve days in May 1585, while there was plague in Edinburgh. The entertainment included a sumptuous banquet and a Robin Hood play. The following year, the castle was restored to Dorothea Stewart, widow of the first Earl, and by 1600 had passed to John Ruthven, 3rd Earl of Gowrie (c. 1577–1600), their second son. Dorothea Stewart and her new husband Andrew Kerr of Faldonsyde complained in 1597 about a group of local men who stole rabbits from the links of Dirleton and terrorised her tenants. She was still living in the castle in November 1600. Dirleton played a role in the story of the “Gowrie Conspiracy” of 1600 in that there has long been suspicion that the castle was taken from the Ruthvens and given to Thomas Erskine as a reward for assisting James VI in the murder of Patrick Ruthven's sons: John, 3rd Earl of Gowrie, and his brother Alexander. The official narrative of the Gowrie Conspiracy, provided afterwards by the king, was that he and fifteen retainers, Erskine among them, had arrived at Gowrie House one night in August 1600 because he had been invited there by Alexander. However, as the narrative goes, the two brothers attempted to assassinate James, and in the melee that followed, the two Ruthvens were killed. While this was happening at Gowrie House, the other two Ruthven brothers, William and Patrick, were at Dirleton, apparently unaware of the plot afoot. Finding much to doubt in the king's account, many have argued that James went to Gowrie House with his retinue for the express purpose of murdering John and Alexander, partly because the king owed the Earl of Gowrie a large sum of money and partly because there had long been a rumor that Gowrie was the grandson of James IV, which, if true, would have put him in line for the throne ahead of James VI. After