426 REIGN OF ELIZABETH. [CH. 66. formation in Scotland was identical with her own cause. If she was to escape herself from being dethroned, it was necessary for her to uphold the Assembly against King, Bishop, or Jesuit, as the Assembly had upheld her. Notwithstanding the completeness of his January. . success, and the defiant tone which he had as- sumed, the young King was not altogether satisfied. The fixed idea of his life was the English crown. With his mother or without his mother, before, or if not be- fore, then after her, he had fastened his hopes on this .one prize, and he meant to have it ; and it was with no easy feelings that he had learnt the modification of the first plan of the Duke of Guise, and the substitution of England for Scotland as the point where the invasion was to be made. Under the original arrangement he was to have come forward as the champion of his mother, to have demanded her release, and to have invited the co-operation of his cousin. Carried out thus, he could not have been cheated of the profits of the enterprise. The direct invasion of England was a different matter. His first act on his escape from Gowrie had been to in- vite Guise over, and no notice had been taken of him. Were Guise and the Spaniards to throw themselves into Sussex or into Northumberland, were a Catholic insur- rection to follow, and were Elizabeth to be dethroned, his mother would become Queen ; but after the double play in which he had been engaged, he began to fear that his own subsequent succession need not necessarily follow. It was of no great moment that his conversion
