King to both.
Well might Robert Bruce ask in one of his sermons--'What sall the
religius of both countries think of this? Is this the moyen to advance
the Prince's grandeur and to turne the hearts of the people towards his
Hienesse?' Spirited protests were made by the Commissioners of the
Church; they did not mince their language--'We deteast that Act ...
making the King head of the Kirk ... as High Treason and sacriledge
against Christ the onlie King and Head of the Kirk.' The magistrates
did not show the same mettle, but made submission on all the points
required.

Emboldened by the effect of these measures, the King lost no time in
pressing forward his designs against the Church. His next step was to
issue a state paper containing a long series of questions which should
reopen discussion on the established policy, and convening a meeting of
the representatives of the Church and of the Estates for the purpose of
debating and deciding on these questions. The ministers at once began
preparations for the struggle; and it was Melville's Synod--always the
Church's pilot in the storm--that once more took the lead. It appointed
Commissioners to urge the King to abandon the proposed Convention, and
to refer the business to a regular meeting of Assembly. Should the King
refuse this request, the Commissioners were not to acknowledge the
Convention as a lawful meeting of the Assembly, nor to admit its claim
to enter on the Constitution of the Church. In any private discussion
they were strenuously to oppose any movement on the part of the King to
disturb the existing order.

The Convention met in Perth on the last day of February 1597. In
anticipation, the King, knowing well the determined opposition he would
encounter at the hands of those ministers who regularly attended the
Assembly and took part in its business, had despatched one of his
courtiers, Sir Patrick Murray, to do the part of 'Whip' among the
ministers north of the Tay, and so to pack the Assembly with members
who rarely attended it, who were unaccustomed to its business, and who
were more likely to be facile for the King's purposes than their
brethren in the south. Murray--'the Apostle of the North,' as he was
sarcastically called--brought the Highland ministers down in droves,
poisoned their minds with jealousy of the southern ministers, and
flattered them with the assurance of the King's esteem.

After a debate, lasting for three days, the majority agreed to