[39] Mr. Tytler’s view is that one of the chief objects of Elizabeth and the English ministers in entering into the League was to make it easier to deal with the Queen of Scots. “Two months before,” he says, “her indefatigable minister, Walsingham, had detected that famous conspiracy known by the name of ‘Babington’s Plot,’ in which Mary was implicated, and for which she afterwards suffered. It had been resolved by Leicester, Burghley, and Walsingham, and probably by the queen herself, that this should be the last plot of the Scottish queen and the Roman Catholic faction; that the time had come when sufferance was criminal and weak; that the life of the unfortunate, but still active and formidable, captive was inconsistent with Elizabeth’s safety and the liberty of the realm. Hence the importance attached to this League, which bound the two kingdoms together, in a treaty offensive and defensive, for the protection of the Protestant faith, and separated the young king from his mother” (_History of Scotland_, viii. 288). [40] _Calendar of Border Papers_, i. 289, 300. [41] This letter, which is very long, will be found in Spotswood, p. 359. “Because,” the bishop says, “the Letter contained the very true reasons that in end moved his Majesty to forbear violence and take a more calm course, I thought meet to set it down word by word, as it standeth in the original.” CHAPTER II THE UNION OF THE CROWNS A few years before the Union of the Crowns, James, in the _Basilikon Doron_, that quaint little volume of “Instructions to his dearest sonne, Henry the Prince,” had alluded to the dangers which were caused by the divided state of the island. “As for the Borders,” he wrote, “because I know, if ye enjoy not this whole Isle, according to God’s right and your lineal descent, ye will never get leave to brooke this North and barrenest part thereof; no, not your own head whereon the crown should stand! I need not in that case trouble you with them; for then they will be the middest part of the Isle, and so as easily ruled as any part thereof.” Hitherto a royal marriage had been the favourite plan for removing these dangers; but after this we enter upon a series of attempts to bring about an Union of a more complete and definite character. James came to the throne of England with his mind full of the subject. The people of Scotland anticipated the removal of the Court to London with dismay. But to the king it opened up a dazzling prospect of power and splendour; and he lost no time in proposing the Union, and pressing it, in season and out of season, with a persistency which brings out, in a remarkable manner, the strong individuality of his character.