lgence the attachment of the
former. Several Calvinistic ministers, during the course of the reign,
were subjected even to capital punishment on account of the scruples
which they entertained respecting the lawfulness of acknowledging the
queen's supremacy: on the other hand, the attempts of sir Francis
Knowles to inspire her majesty with jealousy of the designs of the
archbishop, by whom some advances were made towards claiming for the
episcopal order an authority by divine right, independently of the
appointment of the head of the church, failed entirely of success. No
ecclesiastic had ever been able to acquire so great an ascendency over
the mind of Elizabeth as Whitgift; there was a conformity in their
views, and in some points a sympathy in their characters; which seem to
have secured to the primate in all his undertakings the sanction and
approval of his sovereign: his favor continued unimpaired to the latest
hour of her life: it was from his lips that she desired to receive the
final consolations of religion; and regret for her loss, from the
apprehension of unwelcome changes in the ecclesiastical establishment
under the auspices of her successor, is believed to have contributed to
the attack which carried off the archbishop within a year after the
decease of his gracious and lamented mistress.

Elizabeth took an important though secret part in the struggles for
power among the Scottish nobles of opposite factions by which that
kingdom was now agitated during several years. It has been suspected,
but seems scarcely probable, that she was concerned in the conspiracy of
the earl of Gowry for seizing the person of the young king; she
certainly however interposed afterwards to mitigate his just anger
against the participators in that dark design. On the whole, she was
generally enabled to gain all the influence in the court of Scotland
which she found necessary to her ends; for James could always be
intimidated, and his minions most frequently bribed or cajoled. She
regarded it however as an object of some consequence to gain an accurate
knowledge of the character and capacity of her young kinsman, from one
on whom she could rely; and for this purpose she prevailed on
Walsingham, notwithstanding his age and infirmities, to undertake an
embassy into Scotland, of which the ostensible objects were so trifling
that its real purpose became perfectly evident to the more sagacious of
James's counsellors. Melvil confesses, t