The King was absent from the city at the time attending the marriage festivities of the Earl of Mar, and an urgent request was sent to him by the ministers of Edinburgh and his own Council to return and take steps to bring the conspirators to justice. James, instead of thanking the ministers and councillors for their diligence in the matter, blamed them for their super-serviceableness, and so gave the impression that he was in sympathy with the plot. Kerr himself, in a letter to the King, went the length of saying that he and his friends had no doubt that they would have his countenance in their enterprise; and Calderwood says:--'It appeareth the chief conspirators have had his [the King's] expresse or tacite consent, or at least have perceaved him inclyned that way, whereupon they have presumed.' Events confirmed the suspicion, if it wanted confirmation, of James's secret leanings to the party that had been guilty of treason. Only one of them--Graham, the most insignificant of their number--paid the penalty of his crime; Kerr and the Earl of Angus escaped from prison with the connivance of the authorities; Huntly, who had been summoned to stand trial before the Privy Council, retired to his own territory and defied the Government, and it was only when he could no longer resist the popular will that the King took action against him. At the head of a considerable force, James set out to seize him; but when the army reached Aberdeen it was found that the Earl had retired further north to the Caithness moors. The subsequent treatment of the rebel lords showed that the King had no heart in their prosecution--indeed, in an unguarded moment, while conversing with one of the few nobles who were reckoned friends of the Protestant cause, Lord Hamilton, he let out this fact. Had it not been for the pressure of the ministers, nothing would have been done. James trifled with the business: he scolded and coaxed the ministers in turn; he threatened them, and then gave way and promised to bring the offenders to trial, but still made no move; he allowed the conspirators to appear in public and to have interviews with himself in which he made it apparent that they had little to fear at his hands; he tampered with his own law officers in the traitors' interest; and through his influence with Parliament they were virtually absolved and their forfeitures cancelled. But the ministers were stronger and far more really representative of the nation than the Parliament--a fact which markedly characterises this long crucial period of Scottish history, and which must always be borne in mind for a right understanding of events.