What cement could unite men of-such discordant principles in so dangerous a combination, what end they proposed, or what means proportioned to an undertaking of this nature, has never yet been explained, and cannot easily be imagined.

As Raleigh, Grey, and Cobham were commonly believed, after the queen's death, to have opposed proclaiming the king till conditions should be made with him, they were, upon that account, extremely obnoxious to the court and ministry; and people were apt, at first, to suspect that the plot was merely a contrivance of Secretary Cecil, to get rid of his old confederates, now become his most inveterate enemies.

But the confession, as well as trial, of the criminals, put the matter beyond doubt.[**] And though no one could find any marks of a concerted enterprise, it appeared that men of furious and ambitious spirits, meeting frequently together, and believing all the world discontented like themselves, had entertained very criminal projects, and had even entered, some of them at least, into a correspondence with Aremberg, the Flemish ambassador in order to give disturbance to the new settlement.
* Sully's Memoirs.
** State Trials, p.

180, 2d edit.

Winwood, vol.ii.p.