Colonel William Stewart was sent as ambassador by the regime to England in April 1583 to ask for £10,000 and yearly £5000 as an income from the English lands of Matthew Stewart, 4th Earl of Lennox, and for the ratification and renewal of the 1560 Treaty of Edinburgh. The Colonel was to enquire discreetly after the succession to the English throne. Robert Bowes, the English diplomat, stayed in Edinburgh and followed events. As it seemed opportune, he was instructed by Francis Walsingham to seek out the casket letters which had been used to incriminate Queen Mary in 1568, but the Earl of Gowrie refused to hand them over.