With regard to the election of Bailies, the Council was less accommodating. The letter brought by Elphinstone directed that the leet from which a selection was to be made should be submitted, not to himself, but to the Sheriff, to whom he delegated his authority. Such a course was objected to as being both derogatory and contrary to use and wont; and the Council firmly refused to present the leet to any substitute, or to recognize any nomination but such as came from his Lordship's own mouth. In accordance with the resolution arrived at in vindication of their dignity, the Corporation sent Thomas Pettigrew, as its commissioner, to Brechin, where the Duke was staying at the time, and, through him, submitted a list of eight names from which Lennox was to select three. Unprepared as was Duke Ludovic for such prompt and resolute action on the part of the Glasgow Municipality, he adopted the judicious course of yielding temporary acquiescence to its claims, and on October 7th, Pettigrew was able to report, as the successful result of his mission, that Robert Rowat, James Forett, and Alexander Baillie had been chosen to fill the vacant magisterial seats. Owing to a regrettable gap of nearly four years in the Burgh Records, it is impossible to ascertain what further steps were taken by either side during the period extending from October 27th, 1601, to June 13th, 1605. The only available information bearing on this point is to be gathered from the Register of the Privy Council of Scotland. From a statement to be found there, it appears that Lennox had not maintained his conciliatory attitude towards the Town Council, but that, persisting in his original course, he had devised a means by which the Stewarts of Minto had, under him, "the exercise of the officeis of the said town in their personis".[277] By August 3rd, 1605, the Municipal Authorities had realized that a greater power than theirs was required to secure for them the free exercise of what they claimed to be rights and privileges sanctioned by the King. On that day a deputation, headed by Sir George Elphinstone and consisting of the Dean of Guild, of one of the Bailies, and of four Councillors, was appointed to go to Edinburgh to settle and end the matter by an appeal to the Privy Council. This further step having proved unavailing, the Corporation, on the 27th of the same month, "ernestlie requestit and desyrit" their Provost to undertake a journey to London, in order to invoke the intervention and aid of James himself. Thanks to Sir George's personal influence and to the favour in which he stood with his sovereign, as much, perhaps, as to the justice of his cause, Lennox was at length prevailed upon to grant the persistent petitioners "the full libertie, fredome, and priviledge of the electioun of thair Magistrattis", without, however, renouncing in any other respect his right of justiciary and bailliary of regality within and around the city.