banquets and
festivities alone. To the impression which was then made on James may
be traced the despatch of an embassy 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 assemblage 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 Constitution in Scotland._

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

Embassies 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 assemble 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 nobles 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 nobility 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 pusill