The Catholic powers of the continent formed many schemes for annoying
or dethroning Elizabeth; and the imprisoned Scottish queen, or her
adherents, were generally concerned in them. The King of Spain,
determined at length to make a decisive effort, commenced the
preparation of a vast fleet, which he termed the Invincible Armada,
and with which he designed to invade the English shores. Elizabeth,
her ministers, and people, beheld the preparations with much concern,
and their fears were increased by the plots which were incessantly
forming amongst her Catholic subjects in behalf of the Queen of Scots.
An act was passed declaring that any person, by or _for_ whom any plot
should be made against the Queen of England, should be guilty of
treason. When, soon after, a gentleman named Babington formed a
conspiracy for assassinating Elizabeth and placing Mary on the throne,
the latter queen became of course liable to the punishment of treason,
although herself innocent. She was subjected to a formal trial in her
prison of Fotheringay Castle, and found guilty. Elizabeth hesitated
for some time to strike an unoffending and unfortunate person, related
to her by blood, and her equal in rank. But at length fears for
herself got the better of her sense of justice, and, it may be added,
of her good sense, and she gave her sanction to an act which leaves an
ineffaceable stain upon her memory. On the 7th of February 1587, Mary
Queen of Scots, was beheaded in the hall of the castle, after an
embittered confinement of more than eighteen years.
James VI was now, after a turbulent minority, in possession of the
reins of government in Scotland, but with little real power, being a
dependent and pensioner of Elizabeth, and at the same time much
controlled by the clergy, who asserted a total independence of all
temporal authority, and considered themselves as the subjects alone of
the Divine founder of the Christian faith. James made many attempts to
assert a control over the church like that enjoyed by the English
monarch, and also to introduce an Episcopal hierarchy, but never could
attain more than a mere shadow of his object. The chief influence he
possessed arose in fact from his being regarded as heir presumptive to
the English crown.