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 ha