_Origin of fresh dissension in the Church._

Our eyes again turn to the man to whom the last great religious and political change in Scotland is mainly due--John Knox.

We find him, propped on his staff and supported on the other side by a helping arm, stepping homewards from the church where he had once more performed a religious service: the mult.i.tude of the faithful lined the road, and greeted him with reverence. He could no longer walk alone, or raise his voice as before; it was only in a more confined s.p.a.ce that he used still to gather a little congregation round him, to whom on appointed days and at fixed hours he proclaimed the teaching of the Gospel with unabated fire. He lived to hear of the wildest outbursts of the struggle on the continent, and to p.r.o.nounce his curse on the King of France, who had taken part in the ma.s.sacre of St. Bartholomew; but, in one respect, he was more fortunate than Luther, who in his last days was threatened with mischief from hostile elements about him which he could not control; for around John Knox all was peace. He thanked G.o.d for having granted him grace, that by his means the Gospel was preached throughout Scotland in its simplicity and truth: he now desired nothing more than to depart out of this miserable life; and thus, without pain, in November 1572, after bearing the burden and heat of the day, he fell asleep.

With him and his contemporaries the second generation of the reformers came to an end. They had fought out the battle against the papacy, and had established the foundations of a divergent system: now however a third generation arose, which had to encounter violent storms within the pale of the new confession itself.

In Scotland the Regents Mar and Morton now thought it necessary, even for the sake of the const.i.tution, in which the higher clergy formed an important element, to restore episcopacy, which had been laid low in the tumult of the times; and to fill the vacant offices with Protestant clergy, appointed however in the old way, by the election of the chapters on the recommendation of the Government: it was desired at the same time to invest them with the power of ordination and a certain jurisdiction. Knox was at least not hostile to this measure. The resolution to convene an a.s.sembly of the Church at Leith was formed while he was still alive, and was ratified by Parliament in January 1573.

But in the Church, which had formed itself in perfect independence by means of free a.s.sociation, this project, which besides was spoiled by many blunders in the execution, necessarily provoked strong opposition. Andrew Melville may be regarded as Knox's successor in the exercise of the authority of leader; a man of wide learning, who had in his composition still more of the professor than of the preacher, and united convictions not less firm than those of Knox with an equal gift of eloquence. He however on principle excluded episcopacy in any form from the const.i.tution, as, in his opinion, the Scriptures recognised only individual bishops: he especially disapproved of the connexion between the bishops and the crown. The spiritual and the temporal powers he considered to be distinct kinds of authority, of which the one was as much of divine right as the other. But he did not regard the clergy or ministry of preaching as alone charged with spiritual authority: he thought that the lay elders formed the basis of this authority: that, once elected, they were permanent, had themselves a spiritual rank, watched over the purity of doctrine, took the lead in the call of the preachers, and, together with these, formed a.s.semblies by whose conclusions every member of the congregation was bound. A General a.s.sembly erected on this basis had the legislative authority in the Church, with the right of visitation and of spiritual correction. It was inc.u.mbent on the King to protect them; but he was amenable to their sentence. Such is the discipline laid down in the Second Book, which was approved in the year 1578, in a General a.s.sembly, of which Melville was Moderator.[296]

With these opposite principles before his eyes, the young King grew up. He showed himself to be imbued with the reformed doctrine, but he was decidedly averse to this form of church government, which created a power in the nation intended to counterbalance and withstand that of the monarch. The political views of his teachers, highly popular as they were, awoke in him, as was natural, the inborn feelings of a king. He longed with all his soul for the restoration of episcopacy, which, according to his view, was of almost chief importance for both Crown and Church.

This was indeed a different strife from the battle between Catholicism and Protestantism, which filled the rest of the world: but they had points of contact with one another, inasmuch as the reform of doctrine had almost everywhere put an end to episcopal government. And the larger conflict was constantly exercising fresh influence on the state of the question in Scotland.

When the Catholic party was on the point of becoming master of the young King, the Protestant lords, as has been mentioned above, gained possession of his person by the Raid of Ruthven. They were the champions of Presbyterianism in the Church; but as they had been overthrown, and overthrown moreover in consequence of the support which the King received from an amba.s.sador friendly to the Guises, that form of government could not survive their fall. In the Parliament of 1584, which obeyed the wishes of the ruling powers, enactments distinctly opposed to it were pa.s.sed. By these the const.i.tution of the Three Estates united in Parliament was ratified.

They forbade any one to attack the Estates either collectively or singly, and therefore to attack the bishops. No meeting in which resolutions should be taken about temporal or even about spiritual affairs was to be held without the King's approval: no jurisdiction was to be exercised which was not acknowledged by the King and the Estates. The judicial power of the King over all subjects and in all causes, and therefore even in spiritual causes, was therein expressly confirmed.

At that time however Jesuits and Seminarists effected an entrance into Scotland as well as into other countries, and produced a great effect: Father Gordon especially, who belonged to one of the most distinguished families in the country, that of the Earls of Huntly, was exceedingly active; and for two months the King allowed his presence at court. Who could guarantee that the young prince would not be entirely carried away by this current when his chief counsellor, with whom the final decision mainly rested, belonged to the party of the Guises?[297] A great reward was offered to him: he was to be married to an archd.u.c.h.ess; and at some future day, after the victory had been won, he was to be raised to the throne of England and Scotland. When we take into consideration that Melville, who set himself to oppose this influence, had spent ten years at Geneva and among the Huguenots, we see plainly how the struggles which distracted the continent threatened to invade Scotland as well.

_Alliance with England._

In this danger Queen Elizabeth, who for her own sake did not venture to allow matters to go so far, resolved to interfere more actively in the affairs of Scotland than she had hitherto done. It is not perfectly clear what share her government had in the return of the exiled Protestant lords, whose attack had compelled King James to allow the conviction for high treason of his former minister and favourite, who fled to France in consequence. But their return was certainly welcome to her; and she advised the King not to alienate the great men of his kingdom, that is to say the returned lords, from his own side. In the instructions to her amba.s.sador it is expressly said that he should aim at withholding the King from any alliance with the League in France, which was then growing powerful. She had just determined to make open war upon the King of Spain, who guided all the proceedings of the League; what could be more important for her than to retain the King of one division of the island on her own side? For that object she need not require him to support the Presbyterians; his point of view was the same which she contended for in the Netherlands and in France, and very closely akin to her own.

She had besides a great reward to offer him. Distasteful as it was to her to speak of her successor, she then determined to give the King the a.s.surance that nothing should be done which was prejudicial to his claim, and she agreed to a secret acknowledgment of it.[298] Her amba.s.sador gave expression to these views in Scotland, and she herself spoke in similar terms to the Scottish amba.s.sador in England.

The acceptance of these overtures by King James was the decisive event of his life. He was not so blind as not to see that any promise on the part of England, although not binding in regular form, afforded a kind of certainty entirely different from all the a.s.surances of the League, however comprehensive. The Queen moreover pledged herself to a subsidy that was very acceptable to the poverty of the Scots, while her protection served the King himself as a stay against his n.o.bles, whom he dared not alienate, but on whom he could not allow himself to be dependent.

Thus in July 1586 an offensive and defensive alliance was concluded at Berwick between the King and Queen in order to protect the religion adopted in their dominions, which, in the language of the Prayer-book, they termed the 'Catholic,' and to repel, not only every invasion, but every attempt on the person of their majesties or their subjects, without regard to any ties of blood or relationship. The King promised the Queen to come to her a.s.sistance with all his forces in the event of any attack on the Northern counties, and not to allow his subjects to support any hostile movements which might take place in Ireland.

Every word shows how absolutely and entirely in the events that were at hand he identifies the interests of England with his own.[299]

It was of more especial advantage to the Queen that James entirely renounced the cause of his mother. He had exerted himself in her behalf, but his intercession never went beyond the limits of friendly representation. Mary's secret resignation of her claims in favour of Philip II had certainly not been unknown to him; he complained on one occasion that she threatened him on his throne and was as little attached to him as to the Queen of England. He loudly condemned her conspiracies against Elizabeth and gave utterance to the unfeeling remark that she might drain the cup which she had mixed for herself.

At the trial of his mother he was content with obtaining an a.s.surance from the English Parliament, which was of great importance to him, that his rights should not be impaired by her condemnation. The claims to the English throne which brought Mary to destruction rather served to strengthen her son, as it threw him altogether on the side of the English system.[300]

On the approach of the Spanish armada James at once placed his power and his person at the disposal of the Queen. He a.s.sured her that he would behave not as a foreign prince, but as if he were her son and a citizen of her realm. With unusual decision he put himself at the head of the Protestant n.o.bles, and pursued the Catholic lords who gave ear to those Spanish overtures which he had resisted.

He now sought for a wife in a Protestant family. With the concurrence, if not at the instigation, of the English ministers, he solicited the hand of a daughter of Frederick II, King of Denmark, whom Elizabeth had praised for adhering to the general interests of the Protestant world. In this enterprise James was influenced by the consideration that if any other state opposed his claims on England, Denmark with its naval power could afford him substantial a.s.sistance. A touch of romance is imparted to his youth by the circ.u.mstance that he set out in person to fetch home his bride, who was detained in Norway by contrary winds, and who had been promised to him by her mother after her father's death. Their marriage was celebrated at Opslo (Nov. 23, 1589), but their homeward voyage was now attended with difficulty; James therefore took his wife over the snow-clad mountains and the Sound, back to her mother to Kronborg and Copenhagen, and spent a couple of months there. He had many conversations with the divines of the country, during which the idea of an union of both Protestant confessions was mooted. He also paid a visit to Tycho Brahe on the island of Hveen, which gave him indescribable pleasure: he believed that in his company he fathomed the marvels of the universe, and lauded the astronomer in spirited Latin verse as the friend of Urania, and as the master of the starry world.[301] And a general influence was exercised in Europe both by his alliance with the house of Oldenburg, and the connexion which he formed through it with many of the most distinguished families in Germany. His consort was niece of the Elector of Saxony, sister-in-law of the Elector of Brandenburg, and granddaughter of the German Nestor, Ulric of Mecklenburg. Her sister had just married Henry Julius Duke of Brunswick; at whose marriage, which was celebrated at Cronberg, a company of North German princes met together, which seemed like one single family. But the days of this a.s.semblage were not occupied with banquets and festivities alone. To the impression which was then made on James may be traced the despatch of an emba.s.sy to the Temporal Electors of the Empire, which he deputed soon after his return to invite them to mediate between England and Spain. If the King of Spain were disinclined for peace, he thought that a powerful alliance should be formed against him for the maintenance of religion.

For such an alliance as this, England and Scotland seemed to offer a centre. In an a.s.semblage of the clergy, the King had once congratulated himself on living at a time when the light of the Gospel was shining; and in the same spirit his Chancellor gave Lord Burleigh to understand, that this British microcosm, severed from the rest of the world, but united internally by language, religion, and the friendship of its princes, could best oppose the bloodthirstiness of an anti-Christian League.[302]

_Renewal of the Episcopal Const.i.tution in Scotland._

In Scotland, as well as elsewhere, the waves of the all-prevailing struggle kept raging.

Emba.s.sies went backwards and forwards between Spain and the powerful lords, Huntly, Errol and Angus, who kept alive Catholicism in the Highlands; and a plan was formed to a.s.semble a force of Scots and Spaniards in Scotland, which should first overthrow the forces of that country, and thence advance into England.[303] King James at least believed that he had gathered a definite statement to this effect from an examination of those who had been arrested. Philip the Second's design of getting the crown of France into his own family would have been powerfully seconded by this undertaking, by which it was designed to treat Great Britain in the same way. In the beginning of 1593 we find James at Aberdeen engaged on a campaign against the Highlands: the lesser n.o.bles and the Protestants were on his side: the great earls were driven back into the most remote districts as far as Caithness, and the larger part of their domains fell into the hands of the King. But they were not yet entirely conquered, and the next Parliament showed that they had the greater part of the n.o.bility on their side. No one wished to be too severe on them;[304] even the legal advisers of the crown recommended the King not to commence a suit against them, in which they might probably be acquitted. It is impossible to describe the displeasure which affected Elizabeth on this turn of affairs, which she ascribed to the pusillanimous and negligent government of James. Did he not know, she asked, that the religion of the rebels was only a cloak for treason? Would he trust men who had so often betrayed him? He could never expect them to keep their plighted faith in the future, if their great offences in the past were not even acknowledged: a lax government set all turbulent spirits in motion, and led to shipwreck. With this advice, and similar suggestions from the clergy, came the news of fresh commotion. Francis Stuart, who had been made Earl of Bothwell by James, but who after this had given great trouble by frequently changing sides, had now joined the Catholic lords; and a plan had been concerted between them to deal with James as they had formerly dealt with his mother, to make him prisoner, and to put the prince just born to him in his place. At last in September 1594 we find the King again in the field. The young Argyle, whom he sent before him as his lieutenant, was met by the earls in open fight, but they did not venture to encounter the King himself. He took Strathbogie, the splendid seat of the Earls of Huntly; Slaines, the princ.i.p.al castle of the Earls of Errol; some strongholds in Angus; Newton, a castle of the Gordons; and had most of them razed. Even in these districts he proceeded at last to erect a regular government in the name of the King. His superiority was so decided that the earls left Scotland in the spring of 1595; Father Gordon also followed them reluctantly, after he had once more said ma.s.s at Elgin. But even this was not such a defeat of the Catholic party as might have been followed by their annihilation. The earls felt the hardships of exile with double force from the loss of the consideration which they had enjoyed at home; and when they offered their submission to the King, and satisfaction to the Scottish Church, James and his Privy Council were quite ready to accede to their offer: for they thought that disunion with his most powerful lieges lessened the reputation of the crown, and might be very dangerous at some future time if the throne of England became vacant; as these important personages might then, like Coriola.n.u.s, side with the enemy.

The only question now was, how the Presbyterian Church would regard this. James had come to a general understanding with the Church, when they made common cause against the League. In the year 1592 an agreement was arrived at, by which the King gave a general recognition to Presbyterianism, although he still left some grave questions undecided; for instance, that of the rights of the Crown, and the General a.s.semblies. But in proportion as he now gave intimation of a retrograde tendency in favour of the Catholic lords, he roused the prejudices of the Protestants against himself. They told him that the lords had been condemned to death according to the laws of G.o.d, and by the sentence of Parliament, the Great a.s.size of the kingdom: that the King had no right to show mercy in opposition to these. He had allowed their return into the country; the Church demanded the renewal of their exile: not till then would it be possible to deliberate upon the satisfaction offered by them. All the pulpits suddenly resounded with invectives against the King. The proud feeling of independent existence was roused in all its force in the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of the churchmen.

Andrew Melville explicitly declared, that there were two kingdoms in Scotland, of which the Church formed one: in that kingdom the sovereign was in his turn a subject; those who had to govern this spiritual realm possessed a sufficient authorisation from G.o.d for the discharge of their functions. The Privy Council might be of opinion that the King must be served alike by Jews and heathens, Protestants and Catholics, and become powerful by their aid; but in wishing to retain both parties he would lose both. The King forced himself to ask support for his projects from Robert Bruce, at that time the most prominent of the preachers, who answered him, that he might make his choice, but that he could not have both the Earl of Huntly and Robert Bruce for his friends at the same time.[305]

By dealing gently with the Catholic lords the King had intended not only to win them over to his side, but also in prospect of the English succession, which was constantly before his eyes, to give the English Catholics a proof of the moderation of his intentions. Even in Scotland he wished not to appear the sovereign of the Presbyterian party alone. It was absolutely repugnant to him to adopt the ideas of the Church entirely as his own. But the leaders of the Church were bent on shutting him within a narrow circle in accordance with their own ideas, from which there should be no escape. In his clemency to Catholic rebels they saw a leaning to that Catholicism which fought against G.o.d and threatened themselves with destruction. The efforts which had been necessary to overpower these adversaries, and the obligations under which they had laid the King himself during the struggle, inspired them with resolution to bind him to their system by every means in their power.

But as the King also adhered to his own views, a conflict now broke out between them which holds a very important place in the history of the State as well as of the Church of Scotland.

The King ordered the Commissioners of the Church, who made demands so distasteful to him, to leave the capital. The preachers then turned to the people. From the pulpit Robert Bruce set before an already excited congregation the danger into which the ecclesiastical commonwealth had fallen owing to the return of the Catholic lords and the indulgence vouchsafed to them; and invited those present to pledge themselves by holding up their hands to the defence of their religion on its present footing. They not only gave him their a.s.sent, but went so far as to make a tumultuous rush for the council-house in which the King was sitting with some members of the Privy Council and the Lords of Session. With difficulty was the tumult so far quieted as to allow James to retire to Holyrood.[306] Here a demand was laid before him to remove his councillors, to allow the commissioners to resume their functions, and to banish the lords again from the country. It was intended that religious profession should supply a rule for the guidance of the State.

But in political conflicts nothing is more dangerous than to overstep the law by any act of violence. It was the violence attempted by the leaders of the Presbyterians against the King, their attack on the rights of his crown, that procured him the means of resistance. He betook himself with his court to Linlithgow and there collected the n.o.bles, who for the most part stood by him, the borderers, whose leaders the Humes and Kerrs took up arms for him, and bodies of Highlanders, a force to which the magistrates succ.u.mbed, not wishing their city to be destroyed; so that even the ministers thought it advisable to leave. On New-Year's Day 1597 James made his entry with a warlike retinue into Edinburgh, where a convention of the Estates met and pa.s.sed decisive resolutions in his favour. Both the provost and baillies of the town were obliged to take a new oath of fealty by which they bound themselves to suffer no insults to the King and his councillors from the pulpit: and it was resolved that the citizens should henceforth submit the magistrates of their choice to the King for his approval. The right of deposing the ministers was a.s.signed to the King, who was acknowledged sole judge of all offences, even of those committed in sermons and public worship.[307]

The King had now the Temporal Estates on his side; for however popular the footing on which the Presbyterian Church might be const.i.tuted, no one wished to give it uncontrolled sway. King James was able to form plans for transforming its const.i.tution in such a manner as to make it consistent with the authority of the crown.

A series of questions which he dedicated to the consideration of the public was well calculated to further his end. He asked whether the external regimen of the Church might not be controlled both by King and clergy, and the legislative power be vested in them in common.

Might not the King, as a religious and pious magistrate, have the power of summoning General a.s.semblies? Might he not annul unjust sentences of excommunication? Might he not interfere if the clergy neglected their duties, or if the bounds of the two jurisdictions became doubtful.

At the next a.s.sembly of the Church at Perth (Feb. 1597) the current set in the opposite direction. 'Mine eyes,' so says one of the most zealous adherents of the Church, 'witnessed a new sight, preachers going into the King's palace sometimes by night, sometimes in the morning,--mine ears heard new sounds.' The greatest pains had been taken to secure the presence of a number of ministers from the northern provinces, who were still more anxious about the spread of their doctrines than about controversies touching the const.i.tution of the Church; and who rather reproached the clergy of the southern counties with having taken on themselves the government of the Church.

But even among the latter the King, who spared neither threats nor flatteries, won adherents. Moreover an opinion gained ground that concessions must be made to him, as far as conscience allowed, in order not to alienate him entirely from the Church or drive him to take the opposite side. The answers to his questions contained admissions. The right of taking the initiative in everything relating to the external government of the Church was conceded to him, together with a share in the nomination of ministers in the princ.i.p.al towns; properly speaking the patronage of the Church in these towns was made over to him. The Church itself made a most important concession in renouncing its right of using the pulpit to attack the crown.

Henceforward no one was to venture to impugn the measures of the King, until an officer of the Church had made a remonstrance to him on the subject. And the same ideas prevailed also in the subsequent a.s.semblies at Dundee and Perth. The former of these conceded to the King a share in all the business which the Church took in hand; it allowed him to stay the proceedings of the Presbyteries when they ran counter to the royal jurisdiction or to recognised rights. In Dundee the excommunicated lords were admitted to a reconciliation and acknowledged as true va.s.sals of the King, after making a declaration by which they acknowledged the Scottish to be the true Church; although the stricter party would not even then forgive them. But the point of chief importance was that the King succeeded in getting a Commission formed to co-operate with him in maintaining peace and obedience in the kingdom. Invested with full powers by the Church but dependent on the King, this Commission procured him a preponderating influence in all ecclesiastical affairs. For the most part it consisted of men of moderate views.

There is a contemporary narrative of the decay of the Church in Scotland which begins from this date. For here, it was thought, ended the period during which the word revealed from Sinai and Zion to the apostles and prophets was the only rule of doctrine and Church discipline without any mixture of Babylon or the City of the Seven Hills, or of policy of man's devising; when the Church was 'Beautiful as the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun, terrible as an army with banners.'

James, who regarded all this as due merely to the opposition of enemies, went on his way without bestowing further consideration on the depth, strength, and inward significance of this spirit which was destined once more to agitate the world. He again took up in serious earnest the design of erecting a Protestant episcopacy which had been entertained by Mar and Morton. Not only was this necessary for the const.i.tution but for the sake of the clergy also: as George Gladstaine explained before a large a.s.sembly at Dundee, it was desirable that they should take part in the exercise of the legislative power. A small majority, but still a majority, in this a.s.sembly decided in favour of the proposal. The King a.s.sured them that he wished neither for a Papistical nor for an English prelacy; he wished only that the best clergy should take cognizance of the affairs of the Church in the council of the nation. In order to unite both interests he desired that the General a.s.sembly should propose to the King six candidates for each vacancy and should have the right of giving instructions to the King's nominee for his Parliamentary action, and of demanding an account from him of his execution of the same. The King esteemed it a great triumph when in the Parliament of 1600 he was able actually to introduce two bishops whom he had nominated with the concurrence of a Commission of the Synods.

It appears a general result worth noticing that he had again brought both parties in the country into subjection to the crown, the one however by open battle, the other by compliance which had somewhat the air of inclination towards it.

_Preparations for the Succession to the English Throne._

That the former of these parties was properly speaking Protestant, and the latter in its sentiment Catholic, created a certain feeling of surprise. Queen Elizabeth, who had been attacked and insulted by the Presbyterians sometimes even from the pulpit, could not find fault with the crown for liberating itself from the ascendancy of the new Church as it had done from that of the old: on the contrary she had expressly approved of this policy; but she warned the King not to allow himself to be so blinded by personal preference as again to put confidence in any traitor, and not to separate himself from the flock which must fight for him if he wished to stand. In the case of Scotland, as well as in the case of her own dominions, she always kept before her eyes the contrast between the Catholic and the Protestant principle, in comparison with which all other differences appeared to her subordinate.

In his own views less rigid and consistent, King James had on the contrary even made advances to the Papacy. He at one time found it advisable to enter into relations with Pope Clement VIII, whose behaviour about the absolution of Henry IV showed that he did not at least belong to the party of Spain and the zealots. A letter to the Pope was forwarded from the Scottish cabinet addressing him as Holy Father, with the signature of the King as his obedient son. A Scot, by profession a Catholic, afterwards made the statement that, at the time when Pope Clement was encamped before Ferrara, he had been sent to him in order to seek his friendship, and to promise him religious liberty for the Catholics if King James should ascend the English throne.[308]

According to the account of King James himself Pope Clement invited him to return to the Catholic faith; to whom he made answer, that the prevailing controversies might be again submitted to a general council; and that to the decision of such a council he would submit himself unconditionally. Clement replied that he need not speak of a council, for at Rome no one would hear of it; that the King had better remain as he was. These transactions are still enveloped in doubt and obscurity: the announcements of pretended agents cannot be depended on. There were often men who did not fully share in the secret and who in consequence far outran their commission.[309] But it cannot be denied that there were attempts at an approximation. Among the English refugees after Mary's death two parties had arisen, one of which supported the Spanish claims, while the other was quite ready to acknowledge King James supposing that some concessions were made.

Every day men who were inclined to Catholicism were seen rising into favour at the Scottish court. It was remarked that the Secretary of State, the Lord Justice, and the tutors of the royal children, were Catholics. Queen Anne of Scotland does not deny that many attempts were made to bring her back to the old religion: though she a.s.sures us that she did not hearken to them, it is notwithstanding undeniable that she felt a strong impulse in that direction. She received relics which were sent her from Rome, probably from superst.i.tion rather than from reverence for the saints, but at all events she received them.

Her intimate friend, the Countess of Huntly, who often shared the same bed with the Queen, fostered these views in her. King James remained unaffected by them. He attended sermons three times a week; he was riveted to Protestantism by convictions which rest on learning: but how did it come to pa.s.s that he allowed these deviations from Protestantism about him? Was it from weakness and connivance, or was it from policy?

With the English Catholics also he established a connexion. Offers and conditions with a view to his succession were put before him; and English Catholics presented themselves at his court in order to proceed with the business or to maintain the connexion.

All this threw Queen Elizabeth into a state of great excitement. It was insufferable to her that any one should even speak of her death, or, as she said, celebrate her funeral beforehand. But now when James without her knowledge formed relations with her subjects, she regarded his conduct as an affront. Through her amba.s.sador in Scotland she had an English agent named Ashfield arrested, and gained possession of his papers. Great irritation on both sides ensued, of which the above-mentioned correspondence between the King and Queen gives evidence. In angry letters the latter complained of the disparaging expressions which James had let fall in his Parliament. In respectful language but with unusual emphasis the King complained that the accusations of an adventurer charging him with a plot against the life of the Queen were not repressed in England with proper severity. A period followed during which James expected nothing but further acts of hostility from Elizabeth's ministers. He pretended to know that the claims to the throne advanced by his cousin the Lady Arabella, daughter of Charles Darnley, the younger brother of his father Henry, who had the advantage of not being a foreigner, supplied them with a motive for their proceedings. He even thought it possible that a book published by Parsons under the name of Doleman, which maintained the claims of Isabella daughter of King Philip, was inspired by the English ministers themselves in order to throw his rights into the background. He ascribed to them the intention of coming to an agreement with the Spaniards to his disadvantage, only in order to maintain their own power.

So far the dislikes of King James and the Earl of Ess.e.x coincided.

Although a formal understanding between them cannot be proved, they were nevertheless allies up to the point of regarding the Queen's ministers as their enemies.

Very significant were the instructions which James gave to an emba.s.sy which he despatched to England after the downfall of the Earl. His amba.s.sadors were directed to ascertain whether the popular discontent went so far as to contemplate the overthrow of the Queen and her ministers, in which case they were to take care that the people 'invoked no other saint,' i.e. sought protection and support from no one else but him. Above all he wished to be a.s.sured with regard to the capital that it would acknowledge his right: he wished to form ties with the leading men in the civic and learned corporations; the greater and lesser n.o.bles who inclined to him were to have early information what to do in certain contingencies, and to keep themselves under arms. As he had always thought it possible that he might require naval a.s.sistance from Denmark, so now he instigated a sort of free confederation of the magnates and barons of Scotland: they were to prepare their military retainers in order to enforce his rights. Not that he had formed any design against the Queen, but he believed that after her death he must give battle to her ministers in order to gain the crown, and he appeared determined not to decline the contest.

In reality however this mode of action was foreign to his nature. How often he had said that a man must let fruit ripen before plucking it: and a foreign prince, to whose sayings he attached great value, had advised him to proceed by the safest path. This was the Grand Duke Ferdinand of Tuscany, who then played a certain part in Europe, as he had set on foot the alliance between Henry IV and the Pope in opposition to Spain: Mary de' Medici, Queen of France, was his niece.

With the house of Stuart also he stood on the footing of a relation: his consort, like the mother of King James, was a scion of the house of Lorraine, and a marriage at some future day between the King's eldest son and the daughter of the Grand Duke was already talked of.

This relationship, and Ferdinand's reputation for great political far-sightedness and prudence, caused his advice to exercise great influence on James's decisions, as James himself tells us. So long as victory wavered between Ess.e.x and his opponents, or, as he conceived, between the existing government and the people, James did not declare himself: when the issue was decided he gave his policy a different direction and made advances to the ruling ministers, whom up to this time he had regarded as his enemies.