Gerard succeeded in creating enough distance between himself and Essex to resume his responsibilities within a few months. In July he wrote to Cecil asking that the Isle of Man garrison be paid in cash, not kind, to benefit the local economy, a measure suggested by George Lloyd, the Bishop of Sodor and Man. In August 1600 Gerard was living in his house at Charing Cross and again carrying out diplomatic escort duties, this time looking after the travel and dietary arrangements of the man he called the "Barbery Embassador" . This was a sensitive and important task, entrusted to him by Cecil. England was in the process of cementing the Anglo-Moroccan alliance. The Sultan of Morocco, Ahmad al-Mansur, was an ally against Spain and a major commercial partner. Gerrard was deputed to arrange accommodation for Abd el-Ouahed ben Messaoud, the sultan's ambassador. On 11 August he wrote to Cecil to explain that he had arranged via the Lord Mayor of London to house the ambassador in Alderman Radclyffe's house. Three days later, Gerard rode down to Gravesend to make first contact with the Moroccan party, who were awaiting a favourable tide to carry them swiftly into the capital. Tactfully, he let them rest overnight before talking further, and then rode back to London to make sure they were fully provided for. When the Essex Rebellion occurred in February 1601, Gerard was among the first to denounce it. It was he who handed over Essex, Rutland, and Southampton at the Tower of London on 9 February. In April both Gerard and Molyneux were put under suspicion by informers in the case of Thurston Hunt and Robert Middleton, two Lancashire Catholic priests who were executed, accusations that Molyneux angrily rebutted. Fortunately both were cleared by the evidence of Hunt himself. Gerard was appointed Custos Rotulorum of Staffordshire in place of Essex sometime in 1601. In October of that year, he was easily returned to parliament as member for Staffordshire. The 1597 election scandal in Staffordshire had discredited Edward Sutton, 5th Baron Dudley, who had frustrated the parliamentary ambitions of Edward Littleton and Essex. With the Essex faction itself also cleared out of the way, Gerard was returned alongside Sir John Egerton, a relative of Thomas Egerton, 1st Viscount Brackley, the Lord Chancellor. Under James I When James I came to the throne in 1603 Gerard was immediately accepted into the new