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The English, though a long peace had deprived them of all experience, were strongly possessed of military genius; and the advantages gained by the prince of Parma were not attributed to the superior bravery and discipline of the Spaniards, but solely to the want of military abilities in Leicester. The states were much discontented with his management of the war; still more with his arbitrary and imperious conduct; and at the end of the campaign, they applied to him for a redress of all their grievances. But Leicester, without giving them any satisfaction, departed soon after for England.[*]
* Camden, p. 512. Bentivoglio, part ii. lib. iv.
The queen, while she provoked so powerful an enemy as the king of Spain, was not forgetful to secure herself on the side of Scotland; and she endeavored both to cultivate the friendship and alliance of her kinsman James, and to remove all grounds of quarrel between them. An attempt which she had made some time before was not well calculated to gain Ihe confidence of that prince. She had despatched Wotton as her ambassador to Scotland; but though she gave him private instructions with regard to her affairs, she informed James, that when she had any political business to discuss with him, she would employ another minister; that this man was not fitted for serious negotiations; and that her chief purpose in sending him, was to entertain the king with witty and facetious conversation, and to partake without reserve of his pleasures and amusements. Wotton was master of profound dissimulation, and knew how to cover, under the appearance of a careless gayety, the deepest designs and most dangerous artifices. When but a youth of twenty, he had been employed by his uncle, Dr. Wotton, ambassador in France during the reign of Mary, to insnare the constable Montmorency; and had not his purpose been frustrated by pure accident, his cunning had prevailed over all the caution and experience of that aged minister. It is no wonder that, after years had improved him in all the arts of deceit, he should gain an ascendant over a young prince of so open and unguarded a temper as James; especially when the queen’s recommendation prepared the way for his reception. He was admitted into all the pleasures of the king; made himself master of his secrets; and had so much the more authority with him in political transactions, as he did not seem to pay the least attention to these matters. The Scottish ministers, who observed the growing interest of this man, endeavored to acquire his friendship; and scrupled not to sacrifice to his intrigues the most essential interests of their master. Elizabeth’s usual jealousies with regard to her heirs began now to be levelled against James; and as that prince had attained the years proper for marriage, she was apprehensive lest, by being strengthened by children and alliances, he should acquire the greater interest and authority with her English subjects. She directed Wotton to form a secret concert with some Scottish noblemen, and to procure their promise, that James, during three years, should not on any account be permitted to marry. In consequence of this view, they endeavored to embroil him with the king of Denmark, who had sent ambassadors to Scotland on pretence of demanding restitution of the Orkneys, but really with a view of opening a proposal of marriage between James and his daughter. Wotton is said to have employed his intrigues to purposes still more dangerous. He formed, it is pretended, a conspiracy with some malecontents, to seize the person of the king, and to deliver him into the hands of Elizabeth, who would probably have denied all concurrence in the design, but would have been sure to retain him in perpetual thraldom, if not captivity. The conspiracy was detected; and Wotton fled hastily from Scotland, without taking leave of the king.[*]
James’s situation obliged him to dissemble his resentment of this traitorous attempt, and his natural temper inclined him soon to forgive and forget it. The queen, found no difficulty in renewing the negotiations for a strict alliance between Scotland and England; and the more effectually to gain the prince’s friendship, she granted him a pension, equivalent to his claim on the inheritance of his grand mother, the countess of Lenox, lately deceased.[**] A league was formed between Elizabeth and James for the mutual defence of their dominions and of their religion, now menaced by the open combination of all the Catholic powers of Europe. It was stipulated, that if Elizabeth were invaded, James should aid her with a body of two thousand horse and five thousand foot; that Elizabeth, in a like case, should send to his assistance three thousand horse and six thousand foot; that the charge of these armies should be defrayed by the prince who demanded assistance; that if the invasion should be made upon England, within sixty miles of the frontiers of Scotland, this latter kingdom should march its whole force to the assistance of the former; and that the present league should supersede all former alliances of either state with any foreign kingdom, so far as religion was concerned.[***]
* Melvil. ** Spotswood, p. 351. *** Spotswood, p. 349. Camden, p. 513. Rymer, tom. xv. p. 803.
By this league, James secured himself against all attempts from abroad, opened a way for acquiring the confidence and affections of the English, and might entertain some prospect of domestic tranquillity, which, while he lived on bad terms with Elizabeth, he could never expect long to enjoy. Besides the turbulent disposition and inveterate feuds of the nobility,—ancient maladies of the Scottish government,—the spirit of fanaticism had introduced a new disorder; so much the more dangerous, as religion, when corrupted by false opinion, is not restrained by any rules of morality, and is even scarcely to be accounted for in its operations by any principles of ordinary conduct and policy. The insolence of the preachers, who triumphed in their dominion over the populace, had at this time reached an extreme height; and they carried their arrogance so far, not only against the king, but against the whole civil power, that they excommunicated the archbishop of St. Andrews, because he had been active in parliament for promoting a law which restrained their seditious sermons; [*] nor could that prelate save himself by any expedient from this terrible sentence, but by renouncing all pretensions to ecclesiastical authority. One Gibson said in the pulpit that Captain James Stuart (meaning the late earl of Arran) and his wife, Jezebel, had been deemed the chief persecutors of the church; but it was now seen that the king himself was the great offender; and for this crime the preacher denounced against him the curse which fell on Jeroboam, that he should die childless, and be the last of his race.[**]
The secretary, Thirlstone, perceiving the king so much molested with ecclesiastical affairs, and with the refractory disposition of the clergy, advised him to leave them to their own courses; for that in a short time they would become so intolerable, that the people would rise against them, and drive them out of the country. “True,” replied the king; “if I purposed to undo the church and religion, your counsel were good; but my intention is to maintain both; therefore cannot I suffer the clergy to follow such a conduct, as will in the end bring religion into contempt and derision.”[***]
* Spotswood, p. 346, 346. * Spotswood, p. 34[**?]. * Spotswood, p. 348.
