The Earl of Huntly immediately despatched John Gordon of Buckie to Edinburgh, to lay a statement of the affair before the king and the chancellor. The death of the Earl of Murray would have passed quietly over, as an event of ordinary occurrence in those troublesome times; but, as he was one of the heads of the Protestant party, the Presbyterian ministers gave the matter a religious turn by denouncing the Catholic Earl of Huntly as a murderer, who wished to advance the interests of his church by imbruing his hands in the blood of his Protestant countrymen. The effect of the ministers’ denunciations was a tumult among the people in Edinburgh and other parts of the kingdom, which obliged the king to cancel the commission he had granted to the Earl of Huntly. The spirit of discontent became so violent that Captain John Gordon, who had been left at Inverkeithing for the recovery of his wounds, but who had been afterwards taken prisoner by the Earl of Murray’s friends and carried to Edinburgh, was tried before a jury, and, contrary to law and justice, condemned and executed for having assisted the Earl of Huntly acting under a royal commission. The recklessness and severity of this act were still more atrocious, as Captain Gordon’s wounds were incurable, and he was fast hastening to his grave. John Gordon of Buckie, who was master of the king’s household, was obliged to flee from Edinburgh, and made a narrow escape with his life. As for the Earl of Huntly, he was summoned, at the instance of the Lord of St. Colme, brother of the deceased Earl of Murray, to stand trial. He accordingly appeared at Edinburgh, and offered to abide the result of a trial by his peers, and in the meantime was committed a prisoner to the castle of Blackness on the 12th of March, 1591, till the peers should assemble to try him. On giving sufficient surety, however, that he would appear and stand trial on receiving six days’ notice to that effect, he was released by the king on the 20th day of the same month.