Ralegh's adversaries, including James, were as persuaded as his friends of his unbounded ability. They hated him for it. They were covetous of gold and territory. They thought he might justify his boasts, and enrich them as well as himself, if he were let go. Failure, on the other hand, would, they calculated, blast his power to hurt. At all events, in the existing popular mood, it was easier to despatch him at his own expense for their contingent gain to America, than to confine him in the Tower. Their personal relations with Spain supplied rather a motive for his liberation for such a purpose than a fatal objection. James longed for a family league with the Escurial. Spain was reserved and proud, and responded coldly to his advances. He did not care what harm came to Ralegh, upon whom, as Mr. Gardiner says, he knew the Spaniards would fall wherever they found him. Meanwhile he hoped to warm his coy allies by letting loose upon the Spanish Main their and his inveterate aversion. Ralegh was a convenient firebrand to show Spain the harm England, if an enemy, could do. He was a scapegoat to immolate in proof of all England was prepared to sacrifice in return for Spain's love. Suddenly, for many mixed reasons, it was decided to free him. He was to be licensed to discover gold mines and affirm the English title to the Orinoko. [Sidenote: _Ralegh's Opportunity._] [Sidenote: _King Christian._] He himself was at the moment in a strong position for demanding liberty and a commission. The arms and hands which had, according to his expression, abused their Sovereign's borrowed authority to fling stones at him, were now, as with doubtful discretion as well as taste he reminded James in the _Prerogative of Parliaments_, 'most of them already rotten.' Robert Cecil, though nowise to be ranked with Howard as demoniacally malevolent, had evinced no disposition to release him. Certainly he would, if only for Ralegh's own sake, not have abetted his wild quest of Guiana gold. But he too was dead. Robert Carr was worse than dead. The terrible exposure of his and his wife's crimes had made James and his counsellors peculiarly sensitive to public opinion. Hallam thinks it 'more likely than anything else that James had listened to some criminal suggestion from Overbury and Somerset, and that, through apprehension of this being disclosed, he had pusillanimously acquiesced in the scheme of Overbury's murder.' That is Hallam's deliberate view of the King who claimed the right to sit in judgment on Ralegh. The country entertained a similar suspicion. It might have been dangerous to hold a national hero confined under the same prison roof with the principals in the crime. Moreover, a sympathetic politician, Sir Ralph Winwood, was Secretary of State. Personally, Winwood was in high favour with the King, notwithstanding discrepancies in their estimates of the value of a Spanish alliance. Of that he and Archbishop Abbot both were vehement opponents.