In January 1597 the King returned to the capital, and the Estates were called together to confirm the Acts passed by the Council for punishing all whom it chose to hold in blame for the riot of the previous month. In accordance with these Acts, all ministers were to be required, on pain of losing their stipends, to subscribe a bond acknowledging the King to be the only judge of those charged with using treasonable language in the pulpit; authorising magistrates to apprehend any preachers who might be found so doing, and declaring the King to have the power of discharging ministers at his pleasure. Vindictive Acts against the city of Edinburgh were also confirmed. Henceforth no General Assembly was to be held within its walls; the seat of the Presbytery was to be transferred to Musselburgh or Dalkeith; the manses of the city ministers were to be forfeit to the Crown; these ministers were not to be readmitted to their pulpits, nor any others chosen in their places without his Majesty's consent; and no magistrates, any more than ministers, were to be appointed without the royal approval. At the same meeting of the Estates, arrangements were made for the restoration of the Popish lords. The contrast between the King's leniency towards them, and his rigorous and vindictive measures towards the ministers, plainly advertised the disposition of the 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.