THE CHARACTER AND CONDUCT OF JAMES I. 271 



object a letter, with his signature, had been sent to Clement VIII. 

 Elizabeth had obtained some insight into this affair, but was deceiv- 

 ed into a belief of her successor's innocence by his steadfast denials. 

 Peculiarly circumstanced as James was, his motives for conciliating 

 not only the pontiff, but the chief princes of Europe,* cannot but 

 be obvious to the shallowest politician. If we are to place confi- 

 dence in the letters of Cardinal d'Ossat, there was a settled plan 

 formed by the popish princes, and which had the sanction of the 

 pope, to exclude a heretic from the throne of England. The hostile 

 spirit manifested by Henry the Fourth towards the succession of 

 James, which arose from the belief that the union of the two 

 crowns would advance England, in power and influence, above the 

 chief continental states,t is well known. James also was apprized 

 that cabals had been formed in support of the titles of the Lady 

 Arabella Stuart;}: and the Earl of Hertford ; nor was he unapprized 

 of the intrigues carrying on in favour of the Infanta, || the daughter 

 of Pliilip II., who had given broad hints that, if the English would 

 co-operate with him in wresting the sceptre from Elizabeth's hands, 

 a free parliament should elect any Roman Catholic sovereign, not 

 doubting that its choice, under such circumstances, would fall upon 

 the Infanta, especially as he had also thrown out to the merchants 

 the tempting lure of a free trade to the Indies.§ This affair, per- 

 haps, would not have so much alarmed James, had he not been well 



* See his instructions to his ambassadors in Birch's Memoirs, vol. ii., 

 p. 510 — 514. Miss Aikiu observes, " There was not a petty protestant 

 prince allied to him by his marriage, to whom he did not deem it requisite 

 to direct a solemn embassy for the purpose of explaining his right." See 

 iier v^ery able work, Memoirs of the Court of Kiruj James I., vol. i., p. 38. 



-f- See Winwood's Memorials of Affairs of Slate, vol. i., p. 352. 



J Mr. Townshend in h.\% Accusations of History agaiiist the Church of Rome, 

 is mistaken when he asserts that Arabella was a Romanist ; predisposed no 

 doubt she was to that party, but had never professed the Roman Catholic 

 Religion. So late as IfilO, she incurred " some suspicion of being collapsed." 

 — Winwood's Mem., vol. ii., p. 117. 



II The writings of Father Persons or Parsons the Jesuit, prove him a man 

 of great talents, but his iirinciples were detcstible ; for they sought to infuse 

 a distrust of all jjower which did not lead to the establishment of the most 

 com])lete Papal Uesjiotism. In his celebrated work, entitled Dolemaii's 

 Conference on the nest succession to the Croirn of England, he advocates most 

 powerfully the claims of the Infanta, deriving her descent from John of 

 Gaunt, and thus making her the right heir of Lancaster. Many a learned 

 geneah)gist will admit that several of his i)roofs, ])remises and conclusions 

 are founded ujion weiglity and suflicicnt reasons. 



§ I'or this fact, see Bircli's Memoirs, vol. ii., p. 30!!. 



