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THE GOWRIE CONSPIRACY.
James, in reducing the Kirk, relied as much on his cunning and "kingcraft" as on his prerogative.

He summoned a Convention of preachers and of the Estates to Perth at the end of February 1597, and thither he brought many ministers from the north, men unlike the zealots of Lothian and the Lowlands.

He persuaded them to vote themselves a General Assembly; and they admitted his right to propose modifications in Church government, to forbid unusual convocations (as in Edinburgh during the autumn of 1596); they were not to preach against Acts of Parliament or of Council, nor appoint preachers in the great towns without the Royal assent, and were not to attack individuals from the pulpit.

An attempt was to be made to convert the Catholic lords.