We might conjecture from this circumstance that Arabella was a catholic, and so Mr. Butler has recently told us; but I know of no other authority than Dodd, the catholic historian, who has inscribed her name among his party.  Parsons, the wily Jesuit, was so doubtful how the lady, when young, stood disposed towards Catholicism, that he describes “her religion to be as tender, green, and flexible as is her age and sex, and to be wrought hereafter and settled according to future events and times.”  Yet, in 1611, when she was finally sent into confinement, one well informed of court affairs writes, “that the Lady Arabella hath not been found inclinable to popery."[327]

Even Henry the Fourth of France was not unfriendly to this papistical project of placing an Italian cardinal on the English throne.  It had always been the state interest of the French cabinet to favour any scheme which might preserve the realms of England and Scotland as separate kingdoms.  The manuscript correspondence of Charles the Ninth with his ambassador at the court of London, which I have seen, tends solely to this great purpose, and perhaps it was her French and Spanish allies which finally hastened the political martyrdom of the Scottish Mary.

Thus we have discovered two chimerical husbands of the Lady Arabella.  The pretensions of this lady to the throne had evidently become an object with speculating politicians; and perhaps it was to withdraw herself from the embarrassments into which she was thrown, that, according to De Thou, she intended to marry a son of the Earl of Northumberland; but, to the jealous terror of Elizabeth, an English Earl was not an object of less magnitude than a Scotch Duke.  This is the third shadowy husband.

When James the First ascended the English throne, there existed an Anti-Scottish party.  Hardly had the northern monarch entered into the “Land of Promise,” when his southern throne was shaken by a foolish plot, which one writer calls “a state riddle;” it involved Rawleigh, and unexpectedly the Lady Arabella.  The Scottish monarch was to be got rid of, and Arabella was to be crowned.  Some of these silly conspirators having written to her, requesting letters to be addressed to the King of Spain, she laughed at the letter she received, and sent it to the king.  Thus for a second time was Arabella to have been Queen of England.  This occurred in 1603, but was followed by no harsh measures from James the First.

In the following year, 1604, I have discovered that for the third time the lady was offered a crown!  “A great ambassador is coming from the King of Poland, whose chief errand is to demand my Lady Arabella in marriage for his master.  So may your princess of the blood grow a great queen, and then we shall be safe from the danger of missuperscribing letters."[328] This last passage seems to allude to something.  What is meant by “the danger of missuperscribing letters?”