When James VI. of Scotland, the son of the Catholic Mary Queen of Scots, ascended the throne, rendered vacant by the death of Elizabeth, as James I. of England, no voice was raised in favour of any other claimant, and[59] "the Catholics, flattered by the reports of their agents, hailed with joy the succession of a prince who was said to have promised the toleration of their worship, in return for the attachment which they had so often displayed for the house of Stuart." King James owed toleration, says Lingard, "to their sufferings in the cause of his unfortunate mother;" and "he had bound himself to it, by promises to their envoys, and to the princes of their communion." [59] Lingard, Vol. vii. chap. i. The opinion that the new king would upset and even reverse the anti-Catholic legislation of Elizabeth was not confined to the Catholic body: many Protestants had taken alarm on this very score, as may be inferred from a contemporary tract, entitled[60]_Advertisements of a loyal subject to his gracious Sovereign, drawn from the Observation of the People's Speeches_, in which the following passage occurs:--"The plebes, I wotte not what they call them, but some there bee who most unnaturally and unreverentlie, by most egregious lies, wound the honour of our deceased soveraigne, not onlie touching her government and good fame, but her person with sundry untruthes," and after going on in this strain for some lines it adds:--"Suerlie these slanders be the doings of the papists, ayming thereby at the deformation of the gospell." [61] On the other hand, there were both Catholics and Puritans who were distrustful of James. Sir Everard cannot have been long a Catholic, when a dangerous conspiracy was on foot. Sir Griffin Markham, a Catholic, and George Brooke, a Protestant, and a brother of Lord Cobham's, hatched the well-known plot which was denominated "the Bye," and, among many others who joined it, were two priests, Watson and Clarke, both of whom were eventually executed on that account. Its object appears to have been to seize the king's person, and wring from him guarantees of toleration for both Puritans and Catholics. Father Gerard acquired some knowledge of this conspiracy, as also did Father Garnet, the Provincial of the Jesuits, and Blackwell, the Archpriest; and they insisted upon the information being laid instantly before the Government. Before they had time to carry out their intention, however, it had already been communicated, and the complete failure of the attempt is notorious. The result was to injure the causes of both the Catholics and the Puritans, and James never afterwards trusted the professions of either. [60] Somers Tracts, Vol. ii. p. 147. From the Cotton Library, Faustina, c. 11, 12, fol. 61.