"Whereas it is said there is a colonel and certain captains levying men to go to Sweden, we wonder that any subject of ours dare presume in that kind to serve any foreign prince, not only without our licence but directly against our meaning and special promise made to our dear brother the King of Denmark[31].... It is therefore our pleasure that ye certify as to what that levying of soldiers meaneth; by what authority it is done; and that ye make stay of all proceedings therein till ye shall be advertised of our further pleasure concerning that matter." Nine days later, the king wrote to his envoy at Copenhagen[32] that he had heard, "by mere accident, of levies in Scotland ready to embark under Ramsay, Steward, and some other captains;" and "being displeased, gave order presently for the stay of the levy. And whereas good numbers of them were already embarked before His Majesty heard the news, or ready to embark, His Highness hath given order to discharge them, and doth utterly disavow any acts of theirs," etc. But the Danish king was already well acquainted with those proceedings; for the British envoy at Copenhagen wrote to King James on the 10th August 1612 (the king had written to him on the 9th August) that the King of Denmark was informed that "one Menigowe, a Fleming, having in company with him fifteen hundred men, is to meet with Andrew Ramsay in some part of the north of Scotland, about Caithness or Orkney, who has more than a thousand Scottish men with him; and so they mind to join their forces together, and to fall upon Norway and spoil some towns, and so go into Sweden." The King of Denmark, added the envoy, had been informed by persons from Scotland that Ramsay had levied men about Edinburgh and embarked them at Leith; and His Majesty argued that "such levies so near Edinburgh could not be done without permission of the State." Indeed, the excuses of the Scottish Privy Council, to the effect that the levies had been made secretly, did not satisfy even King James, who wrote to his envoy that, to quote his own expression, he "misliked some dulness of theirs." The action taken by the Scottish Privy Council immediately on receipt of the peremptory orders of the king was as follows:--