They were refusing, in face of the king's licence, to permit a company of English players to act in Edinburgh, for they took various powers into their hands.
Meanwhile James's relations with England, where Elizabeth saw with dismay his victory over her allies, his clergy, were unfriendly.

Plots were encouraged against him, but it is not probable that England was aware of the famous and mysterious conspiracy of the young Earl of Gowrie, who was warmly welcomed by Elizabeth on his return from Padua, by way of Paris.
He had been summoned by Bruce, James's chief clerical adversary, and the Kirk had high hopes of the son of the man of the Raid of Ruthven.

He led the opposition to taxation for national defence in a convention of June- July 1600.

On August 5, in his own house at Perth, where James, summoned thither by Gowrie's younger brother, had dined with him, Gowrie and his brother were slain by John Ramsay, a page to the king.
This affair was mysterious.

The preachers, and especially Bruce, refused to accept James's own account of the events, at first, and this was not surprising.