[1] In 1580 Scottish Protestants feared the influence of Counter-Reformation forces in Scotland and were suspicious of King James's Catholic favourite, Ésme Stewart.
[3] In order to allay these fears and demonstrate his fidelity to Protestantism, James commissioned John Craig to draft a confession of faith that would appeal to Protestants and which no Catholic would be able to sign.
[2] Robert Baillie later wrote: In the year 1580 some prime courtiers and others truly popish in their heart, yet for their own ends was content to dissemble and to abjure popery with their owne equivocations and mentall reservations, the King, desiring to stop all starting holes, caused Mr Craige, the pastor of his familie, to draw up a confession of every particular rejecting expressly the most of the Romish errors.
This was met with widespread resistance and many Scots believed that Charles's Archbishop of Canterbury, William Laud, was trying to re-introduce Catholic practices.
Scottish Church leaders took the Negative Confession, with its strident anti-Catholicism, as their inspiration in the campaign against Charles's ecclesiastical policies.