Many months had elapsed since Sir Patrick Gray should have returned to court with an account of his mission. The Regent Livingstone and the chancellor became impatient, and despatched Patrick Lord Glammis, Master of the Household, to the court of Gueldres, from whence he soon returned, with a duplicate of the letters entrusted to Gray, of whom no trace had been discovered, since Prince Adolphus and his retinue had separated from him at Wees, when on his way to the coast, and at the distance of twenty miles from the castle of Gueldres. This was somewhat perplexing; the old chancellor, who had a strong friendship for Gray, now really mourned for him as one who was no more, believing that he had been slain in some mysterious manner, and the young king wept before the Lords of the Secret Council, to whom Glammis made his report. Crichton knew that the earl of Douglas had been in Flanders, with all his chosen followers, and their unscrupulous character made the friends of Sir Patrick fear the worst. In those days, posts there were none, letters were few, travellers fewer, and one half of Europe knew nothing of the other; but, nevertheless, distant rumours informed the regent and chancellor of Scotland that Douglas and his train, with the forfeited duke of Albany, after a brief sojourn at the court of Charles the Seventh, had passed on towards Rome. In his rage at the abbot John, the earl vowed "to raze Tongland Abbey to its ground-stone," and to do many other absurd and impossible things; but one threatening wave of the abbot's hand, and a denunciation from his otherwise good-natured lips, brought the superstitious noble on his knees, grovelling, and in prayer, which was invariably replaced by fury and maledictions as soon as his mentor retired. He promised to forgive Gray, and within the hour despatched Achanna with one of his many letters to the Dyck Graf of Bommel, urging his secret execution. He then ordered the abbot to return to Scotland, and in the same breath begged he would accompany him to Rome; and the abbot, being most anxious for a personal interview with the sovereign pontiff, silently consented to do so, though despising in his heart the titled penitent he followed. John Douglas, abbot of the Premonstratensian monks of Tongland, held for the haughty earl, the keys of heaven and of hell, and made him writhe in his superstitious soul at the terrible conviction. In 1444, as Crichton had arranged, the king took into his own hands the government of the nation, in a convention of the Three Estates, which met within the castle of Stirling, and at the same time, the papal legate came from beyond the sea, in great pomp and bravery, to exact a solemn oath of fealty to Rome from all the Scottish Bishops. Such oaths were beginning to be requisite now, for already had the smoke of those funeral fires, to which they had consigned Resby the Englishman, and Crawar the Bohemian, "infected all on whom it was blown."