In September 1597, Preston joined a committee to advise the Scottish mint on the value of foreign silver and gold coins circulating in Scotland.
[3] In January 1599, ploughmen working on his fields at Nether Liberton were threatened by Henry Wardlaw of Baberton and his armed followers.
In January 1599, James VI hoped that Preston and other exchequer officials would guarantee a sum of 1,500 crowns which he owed the goldsmith and financier George Heriot for jewels.
The King had instructed him to repay a sum of money advanced on the security of some of the jewels of Anne of Denmark to George Heriot.
[1] As a member of the Privy Council, Preston went with others to Stirling Castle in May 1603 to discuss and investigate a controversy involving Anne of Denmark who wished to take custody of her son, Prince Henry.
[1] About the end of April 1611 Preston was appointed one of a council of eight—the New Octavians—in whom the financial offices of the treasurership, the collectorship, and the comptrollership were vested.
By his marriage to Elizabeth, daughter of William Turnbull, the younger John Preston became possessor of the lands of Auchie, Fife, on which a mansion-house was erected, named Prestonhall.