Bevis Bulmer re-opened the mine. Samples of ore were sent to London for refining and assay. On 18 February, impatient to receive the next shipment of Scottish ore, the Earl of Salisbury wrote to the courtier Roger Aston, (a courtier who had managed a coal mine at Linlithgow), his expectation that in a few months he could say "Scotland has yielded us the richest mine that ever was discovered in Europe".HMC 9 Salisbury Hatfield, vol. 20 (London, 1968), pp. 74–75.
