GOWRIE, JOHN RUTHVEN, 3RD EARL OF (c. 1577-1600), Scottish conspirator, was the second son of William, 4th Lord Ruthven and 1st earl of Gowrie (cr. 1581), by his wife Dorothea, daughter of Henry Stewart, 2nd Lord Methven. The Ruthven family was of ancient Scottish descent, and had owned extensive estates in the time of William the Lion; the Ruthven peerage dated from the year 1488. The 1st earl of Gowrie (? 1541-1584), and his father, Patrick, 3rd Lord Ruthven (c. 1520-1566), had both been concerned in the murder of Rizzio in 1566; and both took an active part on the side of the Kirk in the constant intrigues and factions among the Scottish nobility of the period. The former had been the custodian of Mary, queen of Scots, during her imprisonment in Loch Leven, where, according to the queen, he had pestered her with amorous attentions; he had also been the chief actor in the plot known as the "raid of Ruthven" when King James VI. was treacherously seized while a guest at the castle of Ruthven in 1582, and kept under restraint for several months while the earl remained at the head of the government. Though pardoned for this conspiracy he continued to plot against the king in conjunction with the earls of Mar and Angus; and he was executed for high treason on the 2nd of May 1584; his friends complaining that the confession on which he was convicted of treason was obtained by a promise of pardon from the king. His eldest son, William, 2nd earl of Gowrie, only survived till 1588, the family dignities and estates, which had been forfeited, having been restored to him in 1586.
When, therefore, John Ruthven succeeded to the earldom while still a child, he inherited along with his vast estates family traditions of treason and intrigue. There was also a popular belief, though without foundation, that there was Tudor blood in his veins; and Burnet afterwards asserted that Gowrie stood next in succession to the crown of England after King James VI. Like his father and grandfather before him, the young earl attached himself to the party of the reforming preachers, who procured his election in 1592 as provost of Perth, a post that was almost hereditary in the Ruthven family. He received an excellent education at the grammar school of Perth and the university of Edinburgh, where he was in the summer of 1593, about the time when his mother, and his sister the countess of Atholl, aided Bothwell in forcing himself sword in hand into the king's bedchamber in Holyrood Palace. A few months later Gowrie joined with Atholl and Montrose in offering to serve Queen Elizabeth, then almost openly hostile to the Scottish king; and it is probable that he had also relations with the rebellious Bothwell. Gowrie had thus been already deeply engaged in treasonable conspiracy when, in August 1594, he proceeded to Italy with his tutor, William Rhynd, to study at the university of Padua. On his way home in 1599 he remained for some months at Geneva with the reformer Theodore Beza; and at Paris he made acquaintance with the English ambassador, who reported him to Cecil as devoted to Elizabeth's service, and a nobleman "of whom there may be exceeding use made." In Paris he may also at this time have had further communication with the exiled Bothwell; in London he was received with marked favour by Queen Elizabeth and her ministers.