The chief preachers fled; Andrew Melville was already in exile, with several others, in England.

Melville, in February, had been charged with preaching seditious sermons, had brandished a Hebrew Bible at the Privy Council, had refused secular jurisdiction and appealed to a spiritual court, by which he was certain to be acquitted.

Henceforward, when charged with uttering treasonable libels from the pulpit, the preachers were wont to appeal, in the first instance, to a court of their own cloth, and on this point James in the long-run triumphed over the Kirk.
In a Parliament of May 18, 1584, such declinature of royal jurisdiction was, by "The Black Acts," made treason: Episcopacy was established; the heirs of Gowrie were disinherited; Angus, Mar, and other rebels were forfeited.

But such forfeitures never held long in Scotland.
In August 1584 a new turn was given to James's policy by Arran, who was Protestant, if anything, in belief, and hoped to win over Elizabeth, the harbourer of all enemies of James.

Arran's instrument was the beautiful young Master of Gray, in France a Catholic, a partisan of Mary, and leagued with the Guises.