[1] James wrote to Cardinal Wolsey on the subject, and requested him to lay the matter before Henry VIII, so that the English king might use his influence with the pope to annul the appointment of Durie.
The Earl of Arran also wrote to Cardinal Wolsey to remind him that he had promised before to obtain the pope's consent to the appointment of his friends to the bishopric of Moray and to the abbey of Melrose, both of which charges were then vacant.
The 'Vatican Papers' contain a letter from Henry VIII to the pope on the subject, dated Hertford, 2 December 1524, in which he recommends John Maxwell of Dundrennan to the abbey of Melrose.
In giving his advice to the queen-regent, Mary of Guise, regarding a concourse of protestant preachers that had assembled in Edinburgh, he is reported to have said: "Madame, because they are come without order, I rede ye, send them to the border".
He was an inveterate enemy to protestantism, and vowed openly that, in spite of God, so long as they that then were prelates lived, that word called the gospel should never be preached within the realm.