Earl Robert. Patrick also feuded with George Sinclair, the Earl of nearby Caithness. In March 1599, James VI ordered Patrick and George to furnish their strongholds against the possibility of an invasion by the exiled Earl of Bothwell. This scare was renewed in July 1601. In 1607 Earl Patrick began the construction of the Earl's Palace in Kirkwall, the capital of Orkney. Patrick joined the King in a hunting trip in Teviotdale in the Scottish borders in March 1600. The hunting party was shadowed by an agent of the English border warden, who noted the Earl's presence. Earl Patrick's financial mismanagement and his brutality against the local population led to him being summoned before the Privy Council in 1609, and then imprisoned, firstly in Edinburgh Castle and then in Dumbarton Castle. Rebellion and death After Earl Patrick's imprisonment, he sent his illegitimate son Robert Stewart to raise a rebellion in Orkney in his favour. Robert seized the Palace of Birsay with thirty companions in May 1614, then occupied the Earl's Palace, the castle and St Magnus' Cathedral in Kirkwall. As many as 700 rebels subscribed to a band which claimed their action was restoring royal justice in Orkney under the direction of Robert Stewart during the Earl's absence. Robert was defeated by a force commanded by the Earl of Caithness at the end of September, after a five-week siege of the Earl's Palace. The Earl of Caithness battered the Palace with 140 cannon shots; he said the castle was so strong that some of his cannonballs broke in two like golf balls. Twelve of Robert's men were hanged at the castle gate. Robert was taken to Edinburgh, put on trial, and hanged with five others. Robert and his father denied they had planned the rebellion together, but Robert's accomplice, Patrick Halcro, insisted he had acted on Earl Patrick's instructions. Evidence was taken in Orkney from Margaret Buchanan, a servant who claimed she had read instructions for Halcro written by the Earl. She said that Halcro showed the paper to Robert, who tore it into pieces and they both told her it were better so, that it could do no hurt in time coming, and "the Earl of Orkney should not want his head for it". Robert's execution evoked much sympathy from the people, owing to his young age, around twenty-two, and his "tall stature and comlie countenance". The trial of