An entry in the Council Register for 20 November 1588 states that:

The Council's chief motive for (re)asserting their ‘power, place, dignitie [sic], and authoritie’ on this particular day was to put an end to the practice among the burgh inhabitants to ‘gather and convene’ to vote on ‘any mater of weycht and importance’ without the Council's express permission. Although a seemingly banal administrative memorandum, the last portion of the entry hints at an underlying current of political unrest within the burgh's magistracy. The entry states that ‘it sall na vayis be lesum [legally permissible] to the prouest, bailleis, deanis of gild, nor yit cousalour, to gif command to warne and convocat the town to the tolbuith or any uther publict place.…without ane ordinance of the counsall.’ This entry reveals the continuing power struggle among senior officers of the burgh, namely the provost, baillies and deans of guild and the larger, elected council. This episode needs to be considered within the larger context of the tensions between the craftsmen, merchants and magistracy in the burgh in the 1580s.