He knew how jealous Elizabeth ever was of her authority, and he therefore carefully concealed from her his attachment to James: but he afterwards asserted, that nothing could be more advantageous to her than this correspondence; because the king of Scots, secure of mounting the throne by his undoubted title, aided by those connections with the English ministry was the less likely to give any disturbance to the present sovereign.

He also persuaded that prince to remain in quiet, and patiently to expect that time should open to him the inheritance of the crown, without pushing his friends on desperate enterprises, which would totally incapacitate them from serving him.

James's equity, as well as his natural facility of disposition, easily inclined him to embrace that resolution;[***] and in this manner the minds of the English were silently but universally disposed to admit, without opposition, the succession of the Scottish line: the death of Essex, by putting an end to faction, had been rather favorable than prejudicial to that great event.
The French king, who was little prepossessed in favor of James, and who, for obvious reasons, was averse to the union of England and Scotland,[****] made his ambassador drop some hints to Cecil of Henry's willingness to concur in any measure for disappointing the hopes of the Scottish monarch; but as Cecil showed an entire disapprobation of such schemes.
* Birch's Memoirs, vol.ii.p.

510.
** Osborne, p.

615.
*** Spotswood, p.