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 assures 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 superstition 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 pass 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 ambassador 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 Essex 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 embassy which he despatched to England after the downfall of the Earl. His ambassadors 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 assured 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 nobles 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 assistance 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 Essex 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.
They were quite ready and willing to meet him. Robert Cecil asserted later that he had by this means best provided for the safety and repose of the Queen, for that by an alliance between the government and the heir to the crown the jealousy of the Queen was best appeased: yet still he observed the closest secrecy with regard to it. It is known that he dismissed a secretary because he feared that he might see through the scheme and then betray it. He thought that he was justified in keeping the Queen in ignorance of a connexion that could only be distasteful to her at her advanced age, which had deepened the suspicion natural to her disposition, although at the same time this connexion was indispensable for her repose. These ministers were tolerably independent in their general conduct of affairs. They had embarked on other negotiations also without the knowledge of the Queen; they thought such conduct quite permissible, if it conduced to the advantage of England. And was not Robert Cecil moreover bound to seize an opportunity of calming the prejudices of the King of Scotland against himself and his house, which dated from his father's participation in the fate of Queen Mary? This was the only way of enabling him to prolong his authority beyond the death of his mistress, with which it would otherwise have expired.
The letters are extant which were exchanged in these secret transactions between Henry Howard, whom the Secretary of State employed as his instrument, and a minister of King James. They are not so instructive as might have been expected; for the Asiatic style of Howard, which serves him as a mask, throws a veil even over much which we should like to know. But they now and then open a view into the movements of parties, especially in reference to the opposition of Cecil and his friends to Raleigh and Cobham, which towards the close of the Queen's reign filled the court with suppressed uneasiness.
The intercourse which had been opened certainly had the effect of once more putting England and Scotland on a friendly footing. One of his most trusty councillors, Ludovic Earl of Lennox, son of that Esmé Stuart who at one time had stood so high in the King's esteem, was sent by James on a mission to the Queen, in order to convince her of his continued attachment;[310] and this ambassador in fact found favour with her. James declared himself ready to send his Highlanders to the assistance of the Queen in Ireland, and to enter as a third party into the alliance with France against Spain, if it were brought about. He did not hesitate to give her information of the advances which had been made by the other side, even by the Roman court. Among these he mentioned a mission of James Lindsay for the purpose of bringing him to promise toleration to the Catholics. It may be doubted whether it is altogether true, as he affirms, that he declined the proposal: but the Roman records attest that Lindsay in fact could get nothing from him but words.[311]