[3] Around this time, King James had difficult financing the two royal households, and years later, he wrote that Alexander Seton joked that his "house could not be kept upon epigrams", meaning that fine words alone would not raise money.
[6] It was said that at the end of December 1595, the Queen's council, newly appointed as the Octavians, gave Anne of Denmark a purse of gold which she then presented to the king as a New Year's Day gift.
[11] The Octavians appointed Henry Wardlaw of Pitreavie as Receiver General, responsible for the income from the Comptrollery, the New Augmentations (duties paid from former church lands), and the mint.
[16] But the concept of the commission as an extension of the exchequer into government persisted, and under the name of New Octavians it played a part in Scottish administration into the reign of Charles I. John Preston of Fentonbarns was already involved in crown finance.
A letter from James VI of June 1599 mentions that he had instructed him to repay a sum of money advanced on the security of some of the jewels of Anne of Denmark to the goldsmith and financier George Heriot.