The Scottish nobility were turbulent, while the king was working to assert administrative and political control of the country against factional and religious strife.
A Jesuit mission concerned with Scotland included William Crichton and Robert Abercromby; it looked to help from Spain to further the aims of the Counter-Reformation in the British Isles.
[3] The "Spanish blanks" which were found with other letters in a chest on Kerr's boat, were documents signed by four members of the Catholic nobility of Scotland, and otherwise left to be filled in.
The king was confronted by them on 24 October, on the road from Soutra to Fala, south-east of Edinburgh; they explained that the blanks related to their support for the Jesuits in Scotland.
[18][19] Perceptions of James VI shifted after the discoveries: some assumed the affair showed the king had at least tacitly approved dealings with Spain, and many more put it down to slackness in anti-Catholic measures.