 It was in the following year that he was finally consecrated as a bishop, in Brechin Cathedral.He was alleged to have granted the consent of the Scottish church, dishonestly, to the absolution of the Catholic magnate, George Gordon, 1st Marquess of Huntly, carried out on the king's wishes by the Archbishop of Canterbury.It was perhaps for this reason that, in 1616, Forbes was translated as Bishop of Aberdeen.