[460] Harborowe of True and Faithful Subjects, 1559. Most of this passage is quoted by Dr. M'Crie, in his Life of Knox, vol. i. note BB, to whom I am indebted for pointing it out.
[461] Commonwealth of England, b. ii. c. 3.
[462] Bodin says the English ambassador, M. Dail (Mr. Dale), had assured him, not only that the king may assent to or refuse a bill as he pleases, but that il ne laisse pas d'en ordonner à son plaisir, et centre la volonté des estats, comme on a vu Henry VIII. avoir toujours usé de sa puissance souveraine. He admitted, however, that taxes could only be imposed in parliament. De la République, l. i. c. 8.
[463] The misrepresentations of Hume as to the English constitution under Elizabeth, and the general administration of her reign, have been exposed since the present chapter was written, by Mr. Brodie, in his History of the British Empire from the Accession of Charles I. to the Restoration, vol. i. c. 3. In some respects, Mr. B. seems to have gone too far in an opposite system, and to represent the practical course of government as less arbitrary than I can admit it to have been.
[464] Father Persons, a subtle and lying Jesuit, published in 1594, under the name of Doleman, a treatise entitled Conference about the next Succession to the Crown of England. This book is dedicated to Lord Essex, whether from any hopes entertained of him, or as was then supposed, in order to injure his fame and his credit with the queen. Sidney Papers, i. 357; Birch's Memoirs, i. 313. It is written with much art, to show the extreme uncertainty of the succession, and to perplex men's minds by multiplying the number of competitors. This, however, is but the second part of his Conference, the aim of the first being to prove the right of commonwealths to depose sovereigns, much more to exclude the right heir, especially for want of true religion. "I affirm and hold," he says, "that for any man to give his help, consent, or assistance towards the making of a king whom he judgeth or believeth to be faulty in religion, and consequently would advance either no religion, or the wrong, if he were in authority, is a most grievous and damnable sin to him that doth it, of what side soever the truth be, or how good or bad soever the party be that is preferred."—P. 216. He pretends to have found very few who favour the King of Scots' title; an assertion by which we may appreciate his veracity. The protestant party, he tells us, was wont to favour the house of Hertford, but of late have gone more towards Arabella, whose claim the Lord Burleigh is supposed to countenance. P. 241. The drift of the whole is to recommend the infanta, by means of perverted history and bad law, yet ingeniously contrived to ensnare ignorant persons. In his former and more celebrated treatise, Leicester's Commonwealth, though he harps much on the embarrassments attending the succession, Persons argues with all his power in favour of the Scottish title, Mary being still alive, and James's return to the faith not desperate. Both these works are full of the mendacity generally and justly ascribed to his order; yet they are worthy to be read by any one who is curious about the secret politics of the queen's reign.
Philip II. held out assurances, that if the English would aid him in dethroning Elizabeth, a free parliament should elect any catholic sovereign at their pleasure, not doubting that their choice would fall on the infanta. He promised also to enlarge the privileges of the people, to give the merchants a free trade to the Indies, with many other flattering inducements. Birch's Memoirs, ii. 308. But most of the catholic gentry, it is just to observe, would never concur in the invasion of the kingdom by foreigners, preferring the elevation of Arabella, according to the pope's project. This difference of opinion gave rise, among other causes, to the violent dissensions of that party in the latter years of Elizabeth's reign; dissensions that began soon after the death of Mary, in favour of whom they were all united, though they could never afterwards agree on any project for the succession. Winwood's Memorials, i. 57; Lettres du Cardinal d'Ossat, ii. 501.
For the life and character of the famous Father Persons, or Parsons, above mentioned, see Dodd's Church History, the Biographia Britannica, or Miss Aikin's James I., i. 360. Mr. Butler is too favourably inclined towards a man without patriotism or veracity. Dodd plainly thinks worse of him than he dares speak.
[465] D'Ossat, ubi suprà. Clement had, some years before, indulged the idle hope that France and Spain might unite to conquer England, and either bestow the kingdom on some catholic prince or divide it between themselves, as Louis XII. and Ferdinand had done with Naples in 1501; an example not very inviting to the French. D'Ossat, Henry's minister at Rome, pointed out the difficulties of such an enterprise, England being the greatest naval power in the world, and the people warlike. The pope only replied, that the kingdom had been once conquered, and might be so again; and especially being governed by an old woman, whom he was ignorant enough to compare with Joanna II. of Naples. Vol. i. 399. Henry IV. would not even encourage the project of setting up Arabella, which he declared to be both unjust and chimerical. Mem. de Sully, l. 15. A knot of protestants were also busy about the interests of Arabella, or suspected of being so; Raleigh, Cobham, Northumberland, though perhaps the last was catholic. Their intrigues occupy a great part of the letters of other intriguers, Cecil and Lord Henry Howard, in the Secret Correspondence with King James, published by Sir David Dalrymple, vol. i. passim.
[466] The explicit declaration on her death-bed ascribed to her by Hume and most other writers, that her kingsman the King of Scots should succeed her, is not confirmed by Carey, who was there at the time. "She was speechless when the council proposed the King of Scots to succeed her, but put her hand to her head as if in token of approbation." E. of Monmouth's Memoirs, p. 176. But her uniform conduct shows her intentions. See, however, D'Israeli's Curiosities of Literature, iii. 107.
It is impossible to justify Elizabeth's conduct towards James in his own kingdom. What is best to be said for it is, that his indiscretion, his suspicious intrigues at Rome and Madrid, the dangerous influence of his favourites, and the evident purpose of the court of Spain to make him its tool, rendered it necessary to keep a very strict watch over his proceedings. If she excited the peers and presbyters of Scotland against their king, he was not behind her in some of the last years of her reign. It appears by a letter from the Earl of Mar, in Dalrymple's Secret Correspondence, p. 2, that James had hopes of a rebellion in England in 1601, which he would have had no scruple in abetting. And a letter from him to Tyrone, in the Lansdowne MSS. lxxxiv. 36, dated 22nd Dec. 1597, when the latter was at least preparing for rebellion, though rather cautious, is full of expressions of favour, and of promises to receive his assistance thankfully at the queen's death. This letter being found in the collection once belonging to Sir Michael Hicks, must have been in Lord Burleigh's, and probably in Elizabeth's hands; it would not make her less inclined to instigate conspiracies across the Tweed. The letter is not an original, and may have been communicated by some one about the King of Scots in the pay of England.