In this year, 1606, the assembly, at the bidding of James, enacted that there should be permanent moderators for presbyteries and synods, and Gladstanes was appointed president of the presbytery of St. Andrews, and also of the synod of Fife. The presbytery proved recalcitrant. The privy council issued a special charge (17 January 1607) to the members to obey the act of assembly within twenty-four hours under pain of being put to the horn or denounced rebels. To secure full submission four commissioners from the king attended the synod meeting at Dysart on 18 August to induct Gladstanes as permanent moderator, but resistance continued. The brethren answered severally they ‘would rather abide the horning and all that follows thereupon than lose the liberty of the kirk’. The leaders of the opposition were imprisoned, and one was put to the horn.