The Earl of Traquair returned to Scotland, on the 15th of February, with instructions from the King in reference to the affairs of Scotland. He dissembled at first the full tenor of these, in his communications with the leaders of the Tables, and, on the 19th, proceeded, early in the morning, to Stirling, to publish the proclamation of which he was the bearer, before the Presbyterians should be apprized of his intentions, or prepared to offer any show of opposition. Lord Lindsay and Lord Hume, however, being apprised of Traquair’s movements, had outstripped him, and were on the spot to protest against its effects. The proclamation expressed the King’s approval of the Liturgy; declared all the petitions against it derogatory to his supreme authority, and deserving the severest censure, and prohibited the supplicants to assemble again under the penalties of treason.[16] When this proclamation, which was calculated to excite their most gloomy apprehensions, and to extinguish all their hopes of the King ever listening to their remonstrances, was proclaimed by the heralds at Stirling, Lords Hume and Lindsay made formal protestation against it, claiming a right of access to the King by petition; declining the prelates as judges in any court, civil or ecclesiastical; protesting that no act of Council, past or future, (the prelates being members,) should be prejudicial to the supplicants, in their persons or estates; that the Presbyterians should not incur any danger in life or lands, or any political or ecclesiastical pains, for not observing the Book of Liturgy, Canons, Rules, Judicatories, and Proclamations; but that it should be lawful for them to worship God according to His Word and Constitutions of the Church and Kingdom, &c.; and it concluded with professions of loyalty, and a declaration that they only desired the preservation of the true reformed religion, and laws and liberties of the kingdom. A copy of this protestation was affixed to the Cross of Stirling. It was afterwards repeated at Linlithgow and Edinburgh, to the presence of seventeen Peers, and everywhere else where the proclamation was published.