l. ii. p. 442, 443.

*** Sidney's Letters, vol. ii. p. 171.

**** See note KK, at the end of the volume.

There was also an expedient employed by Essex, which, if possible,
was more provoking to the queen than those sarcasms on her age and
deformity; and that was, his secret applications to the king of Scots,
her heir and successor. That prince had this year very narrowly escaped
a dangerous, though ill-formed conspiracy of the earl of Gowry; and even
his deliverance was attended with this disagreeable circumstance,
that the obstinate ecclesiastics persisted, in spite of the most
incontestable evidence, to maintain to his face, that there had been
no such conspiracy. James, harassed with his turbulent and factious
subjects, cast a wishful eye to the succession of England; and in
proportion as the queen advanced in years, his desire increased of
mounting that throne, on which, besides acquiring a great addition of
power and splendor, he hoped to govern a people so much more tractable
and submissive. He negotiated with all the courts of Europe, in order to
insure himself friends and partisans: he even neglected not the court
of Rome and that of Spain; and though he engaged himself in no positive
promise, he flattered the Catholics with hopes that, in the event of
his succession, they might expect some more liberty than was at present
indulged them. Elizabeth was the only sovereign in Europe to whom he
never dared to mention his right of succession: he knew that, though
her advanced age might now invite her to think of fixing an heir to
the crown, she never could bear the prospect of her own death
without horror, and was determined still to retain him, and all other
competitors, in an entire dependence upon her.

Essex was descended by females from the royal family and some of his
sanguine partisans had been so imprudent as to mention his name among
those of other pretenders to the crown; but the earl took care, by means
of Henry Lee, whom he secretly sent into Scotland, to assure James, that
so far from entertaining such ambitious views, he was determined to use
every expedient for extorting an immediate declaration in favor of
that monarch's right of succession. James willingly hearkened to
this proposal, but did not approve of the violent methods which Essex
intended to employ. Essex had communicated his scheme to Mountjoy,
deputy of Ireland; and as no man ever commanded more the cordial
affection and atta