Note 42 — The Identification of the Writer of the Anonymous Letter to Lord Monteagle

Salisbury's statesmanship is evinced by the advice he wrote to James (I.) when King of Scotland, and impatiently awaiting Queen Elizabeth's demise: "Your best approach towards your greatest end, is by your Majesty's clear and temperate courses, to secure the heart of the highest, to whose sex and quality nothing is so improper as either needless expostulations, or over much curiosity in her own actions. The first showing unquietness in yourself; the second challenging some untimely interest in hers; both which, as they are best forborne when there is no cause, so be it far from me (if there shall be cause), to persuade you to receive wrongs and be silent" ("Secret Correspondence," Camden Society, 1860, p. 7).