Note 466 — Chapter VI
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The explicit declaration on her death-bed ascribed to her by Hume and most other writers, that her kingsman the King of Scots should succeed her, is not confirmed by Carey, who was there at the time. "She was speechless when the council proposed the King of Scots to succeed her, but put her hand to her head as if in token of approbation." E. of Monmouth's Memoirs, p. 176. But her uniform conduct shows her intentions. See, however, D'Israeli's Curiosities of Literature, iii. 107.
It is impossible to justify Elizabeth's conduct towards James in his own kingdom. What is best to be said for it is, that his indiscretion, his suspicious intrigues at Rome and Madrid, the dangerous influence of his favourites, and the evident purpose of the court of Spain to make him its tool, rendered it necessary to keep a very strict watch over his proceedings. If she excited the peers and presbyters of Scotland against their king, he was not behind her in some of the last years of her reign. It appears by a letter from the Earl of Mar, in Dalrymple's Secret Correspondence, p. 2, that James had hopes of a rebellion in England in 1601, which he would have had no scruple in abetting. And a letter from him to Tyrone, in the Lansdowne MSS. lxxxiv. 36, dated 22nd Dec. 1597, when the latter was at least preparing for rebellion, though rather cautious, is full of expressions of favour, and of promises to receive his assistance thankfully at the queen's death. This letter being found in the collection once belonging to Sir Michael Hicks, must have been in Lord Burleigh's, and probably in Elizabeth's hands; it would not make her less inclined to instigate conspiracies across the Tweed. The letter is not an original, and may have been communicated by some one about the King of Scots in the pay of England.