and Cobham on one side, and Cecil and Lord Henry Howard on
the other, as chiefs of opposite camps, with a converging outlook upon
King James. Cecil, like his father, had been regarded by James as
hostile to his proclamation as Elizabeth's heir. The death of 'my martyr
Essex' increased his dislike. He was not assured of the baselessness of
Essex's cry as he rode through the city: 'The crown of England is sold
to the Spaniard!' He may have suspected the existence of schemes for the
elevation of Arabella Stuart. Henry Howard brought him and Cecil to a
mutual understanding. Howard, now remembered chiefly as the builder of
Northumberland House, took a leading part in the machinations of
Elizabeth's and James's reigns. As a Catholic, though at times
conforming, and as brother of the hapless Duke of Norfolk, he had hated
the Cecils. His dislike of Robert Cecil had been inflamed by
partizanship for his kinsman Essex; notwithstanding, with his insatiable
love of intrigue, he is said to have played off the two against one
another. Now, convinced that Cecil was too strong, or too necessary, to
be discarded, and possessing James's full confidence, he set himself to
the cure of the King's distrust. Finally Cecil became for James 'my
dearest Cecil.' James accepted him so entirely as to promise that
Cecil's friends and foes should be his. Thenceforward a league was
formed, and a correspondence was opened, between the King on one side
and Cecil and Howard on the other, which are equally discreditable to
all three.

[Sidenote: _The Succession._]

The compact was not the work of a moment, and Cecil's rivals do not
appear to the end to have understood how absolute it was. Neither was it
of very old standing. For long Elizabeth's councillors hesitated to
throw in their lot with the Scottish claim to the succession. They
could not read clearly the national inclination. The country had been
undecided. As Cecil confessed he had once said, there were several
competitors for whose right it was possible to argue. The Suffolk family
possessed some sort of Parliamentary title. Arabella Stuart was not,
like James, an alien, or a foreign sovereign. Discussion, or even
advocacy, of either title, whether by Cecil, Ralegh, or Cobham, was,
till the actual proclamation of James, not treasonable. But after the
death of Mary Stuart, and, more plainly still, after that of Essex, it
became manifest that the English people meant to crown the King of
Scots.