secretary, with having sent it without authority: Balmerino pleaded guilty, and was dismissed from his office of secretary, but continued in the possession of an ample income: he was much considered by James, and frequently corresponded with him *.

There is other evidence of James's connection with Rome. Father Persons, in a letter to the general of his ordert, after stating that he had obtained for James and his mother 24,000 crowns from the king of Spain, mentions his having received 4,000 crowns from pope Gregory for the same purpose.

With the death of Philip the second, and the marriage of the infanta with duke D'Albert, all the hopes of father Persons, to place a catholic prince on the thrones of England and Scotland, failed.-Soon after the accession of James, he published the "Three "Conversions of England," his most important

* Kennett's Complete History of England, vol. ii. p. 666, note.-Strype, (Ann. vol. iv. n. 267), has inserted a letter, written by James to lord Hambledon, one of his agents in England, in which he desires that nobleman "to assure all "honest men, on the princely word of a king, that, as he "had ever, without swerving, professed and maintained the "only true religion professed and by law established in "both the countries, within all the bounds of his kingdom, "so might they assure themselves, how soon it should please "God lawfully to possess him with the crown of that king. "dom, he should not only maintain and continue the profes"sion of the gospel there, but withal not suffer or permit any other religion to be professed and avowed within the "bounds of that kingdom."

+ More, p. 119.

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work-in the preface to it, he thus addresses the English catholics :-" As to the person now advanced," meaning James," I know there was never any difference among you; among you; but that you σε ever desired his advancement, above all others, as "the only heir of that renowned mother, for whom your fervent zeal is known to the world, and how you have suffered by her adversaries for the same. Yet do I confess, that touching the disposition of "the person for the place, and the manner of his "advancement, all zealous catholics have both "wished and prayed, that he might first be a catholic, and then a king, this being our bounden

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duty to wish, and the greatest good to be ob"tained for him: and to this end, and no other, "hath been directed whatsoever may have been “said,written, or done by any catholic, which, with "some

some others, might breed disgust." Sir Francis Winwood, in a letter to secretary Cecil, dated 27th February 1601, mentions that Persons had, the week before, addressed a letter to the ambassador of Spain, excusing himself for what he had written against the Scottish monarch, and desiring, by his mediation, to find admittance into his majesty's favour and grace, protesting that he would relinquish the service of any other, and adhere only to him, upon the smallest show of the least favour to catholics*.

t

Some reason,-perhaps a wish to soothe the British government,-induced Clement the eighth, about this time, to express to Aquaviva, the general * Winwood, vol. i. p. 388.

of the society, a wish that Persons should leave Rome for a time; he accordingly retired to Naples, and did not return to Rome until after the death of Clement *.

CHAP. XLII.

THE CONSPIRACY OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH.

1603.

THE conspiracy of sir Walter Raleigh and his associates appears to be involved in impenetrable obscurity. The ultimate objects of it were indistinctly understood by the conspirators; but, in their first measure,--the placing of lady Arabella Stuart on the throne, they were all agreed. It has been mentioned in a former part of this work, that Henry the eighth, by his will, limited the crown, in default of issue of his daughters Mary and Elizabeth, to Eleanor, the second daughter of his younger sister Mary, and the heirs of her body, to the entire exclusion of the Scottish line, or the descendants of Margaret his eldest sister. The validity of his will was questioned; and, so far as it regarded the limitation of the crown to the lady Eleanor, it was entirely disregarded. Margaret, as we have seen, was married, first to James the fourth of Scotland, and after his decease, to Archibald earl of Angus. James, the English king, was the great-grandson and heir of the first mar* More, p. 386.

riage; lady Arabella Stuart was the great-granddaughter and heiress of the second. By the act of the twenty-seventh of queen Elizabeth, a person found guilty of pretending to the crown, or attempting any invasion, insurrection, or assassination against queen Elizabeth, was excluded from all claim to the succession. The queen of Scots was evidently within the provisions of this act; and, supposing it to extend to James, the lady Arabella was legal heir to the crown*.

Some time before the death of Elizabeth, Cecil, by the mediation of sir George Hume, afterwards created earl of Dunbar, made his peace with James, and afterwards kept a correspondence with him, through the remainder of the reign of Elizabeth. On the accession of James to the throne of England, he gave his entire confidence to Cecil, and neglected Raleigh. This irritated the latter †, and brought him into acquaintance and familiarity with men as discontented as himself; differing in their views, but agreeing in the wish of a new order of things, and particularly in the removal of James,

* This was strongly urged against James, by Persons. (Doleman, part ii. ch. iv.)

+ Kennett, (Compl. Hist. of England, vol. ii. p. 663), says, that Raleigh presented a memorial to James, in which, "with "a singular bitterness of style, he vindicates queen Elizabeth "from the death of Mary, and lays the death of that unfor"tunate queen, chiefly at the door of Cecil, the monarch's "minister, and his father; for which he appeals to Davison, "then in prison, the man that had despatched the warrant "for her execution, contrary to queen Elizabeth's express "command."

and the placing of the crown on Arabella, as a necessary measure to accomplish their objects. A conspiracy was never framed of more discordant materials: Raleigh was generally thought to be a deist; lord Grey was a puritan, lord Cobham a professed debauchee; they were joined by half-adozen other gentlemen, and by Watson and Clarke, two roman-catholic priests. All were tried, and found by the jury to have been guilty of high treason. The execution of sir Walter Raleigh was respited; Cobham, Grey, and Markham, were pardoned; Brooke, Watson, and Clarke, suffered the punishment of traitors. "The two priests," says an eye witness, in a letter published in the Hardwicke State Papers*, "led the way to the execu❝tion, and were both very bloodily handled; for

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they were both cut down alive; and Clarke, to "whom favour was intended, had the worse luck, "for he both strove to help himself, and spoke "after he was cut down. They died boldly both; "Watson, as he would have it seem, willing;

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wishing he had more lives to spend, and one to "lose for every one he had by his treachery drawn "into this treason. Clarke stood somewhat upon "his justification, and thought he had hard meabut imputed it to his function, and there"fore thought his death meritorious, a kind of martyrdom."

sure;

The whole of this transaction is yet a mystery. Sir John Hawles, solicitor general in the reign of