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KIJVG JAMES THE FIRST.

By LUCY AIKIN.

IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. II.

BOSTON:
WELLS AND LILLY  COURT-STREET.
1822.

CONTENTS.

VOL. II.

CHAPTER XIV.
1615, 1616. Page
King's visit to Cambridge. — Comedy of Ignoramus. — Declining favour of
Somerset. — Rise of Villiers. — Part taken by the archbishop and the
queen in his advancement. — Somerset disappointed of obtaining a gene
ral pardon. — Efforts of the opposing factions. — Detection of Overbury's
murder. — Confession of Weston. — The king's final parting with Somer
set. — Trial and conviction of Weston, of Mrs. Turner and other ac
complices. — Dilatory mode of proceeding against the earl and countess
of Somerset. — Ambiguous conduct of James. — They are found guilty,
but finally pardoned. — Reflections. — Death of Shakspeare. — Remarks
on his character and works — ..--.-. . — — ... — \
CHAPTER XV.
1616.
Disgrace of Coke. — Various causes of it assigned. — Enmity of Coke and
Bacon. — Bacon's letter of expostulation to Coke. — His letters to the
king reflecting on Coke. — Case of Peacham, — of Oliver St. John. — Dis*
pute between the king's bench and chancery. — Affair of commendams.
— The judges summoned before the privy-council. — Coke's spirited con
duct, and dismissal. — Charles created prince of Wales. — Plan for his
marriage to a French princess. — Lord Hay'sjfembassy, — his pomp and
prodigality. — James congratulates Louis XIII. on the murder of mar
shal d'Ancre. — Cautionary towns given up to the Dutch ------ 26

IV t
CHAPTER XVI.
1617? Page
Earl of Worcester resigns the office of lord-privy-seal to Villiers created
earl of Buckingham. — Lord Ellesmere resigns.— Bacon keeper of the
seals. — Circumstances of Ellesmere's resignation. — His death and cha
racter. — James's visit to Scotland. — He attempts to make himself head
of the church, but is opposed by the parliament and clergy ;— estab
lishes a court of high commission,->-imposes five new articles on the
church ; — leaves the country in anger — Court intrigues. — Coke offers
his daughter to Buckingham's brother. — Bacon opposes the match. —
His letters against it to Buckingham and to the king. — They are dis
pleased, and Bacon offers to promote the match. — The king's return
from Scotland. — Bacon ill received by Buckingham, but soon restor
ed to favour. — Coke re-admitted to the council-board.  The mar
riage solemnized. — Coke's wife supported against him. — Book of sports.
•^-Sabbatarian controversy. — Conduct of the lord-mayor of London. —
Arrival and reception of a Russian embassy, — of a Turkish chiaox.
— Death and character of sir Ralph Winwood --- — — - -47
CHAPTER XVII.
1618.
Liberation of Raleigh. — Occurrences during his imprisonment. — His ex
pedition to Guiana. — Return, — imprisonment, — death, — King's antipa
thy to young Raleigh. — Declaration by authority of the motives for
putting Raleigh to death. — Proof that he was sacrificed to Spain.
— Reform of the royal expenditure.— Condemnation of the lord trea
surer for corruption — —  .--.-. -  73

CHAPTER XVIII.
1618.
Alarm at the appearance of a comet. — Death and character of the
queen. — James makes a speech in the star-chamber. — He judgesip per
son the cause of lady Lake. — Publication of his works. — Synod of
Dort.— Divines sent thither by James. — Carleton — Hall — Daven^nt
—Ward — Balcanqual — Goad— Hales.— Account of Selden.— His his
tory of tythes.— Conduct of James to him,— to sir H. Finch.— Rise
of lord-keeper Williams.— Progress of Villiers.— Extravagant grants to
him and his family— < lauses of discontent— Marriage treaty with
Spain.— Suspension of laws against catholics.— Convents founded in
Flanders— Female Jesuits.— The Palatine elected king of Bohemia.
; , —Letter of Abbot respecting him — Pacific politics of James  96

CHAPTER XIX.
Page

1617»to 1620.

James's speech against flocking to London. — His conduct to the antiqua
rian society. — His hostility to the common law. — Abuses in the admin
istration of justice. — Chancery. — Star-chamber. — High-commission. —
Torture. — Trials for Witchcraft ------....... ....127
CHAPTER XX.
1620, 1621.
Affaus of Bohemia. — Negotiations of James. — Embassies of sir H. Wot-
ton. — His verses on the queen of Bohemia. — Levies for the war in
Germany. — Earl of Oxford. — James attempts to impose a benevo
lence. — Negotiations of lord Herbert of Chirbury. — Behaviour of a
French embassy. — Preparations for a parliament. — Letter of Bacon.
— Proclamation. — Prohibition of talking of state affairs. — King's speech.
— Prosperous state of Bacon. — His private life, — studies, — powers of
conversation. — The commons accuse him to the lords. — Easter re
cess. — Alarm of Villiers and the monopolists. — Dissolution of parlia
ment advised. — Williams dissuades it. — -Bacon's submission to the
lords. — He is deprived of the seals. — Sentence upon him. — Remarks on
his case. — Treachery of the king and Villiers towards him. — His
after-life and death 1  ......  . J4g
CHAPTER XXI.
1621.
Disaffection of the parliament. — Usher appointed to preach before the
commons, — his conference with James. — Conduct of Laud. — King's
speech against monopolies. — Case of attorney Yelverton. — King's
speech respecting the affairs of the Palatine — Supplies delayed  Par
liament adjourned. — Opposition lords — earls of Essex and Oxford, —
earl of Southampton — his imprisonment. — Lord Say and Sele, — earl
of Warwick. — lord Spencer. — Insulting conduct of the earl of Arun
del ; his office of earl marshal. — Competitors for the post of Chancel
lor  Sir Lionel Cranfield  Deari Williams keeper of the seals  Li
beration of the earl of Northumberland,— of the earl and countess of
Somerset^ — Williams made bishop of Lincoln. — Circumstances of
Laud's appointment to the see of St. David's. — Archbishop Abbot kills
a man by chance, — proceedings respecting him. — Account of bishop An
drews, — Latin elegy on his death by Milton - - - - - - 192

VI

CHAPTER XXII.

1621, 1622. ** Page

Parliament assembled. — Speech of the lord-keeper. — Lord Digby's ac
count of his negotiations. — Petition and remonstrance of the com
mons. — The king's letter to the speaker. — Reply of the commons. —
The king's rejoinder. — His reception of a committee of the house.— Con
ciliatory advice of the lord-keeper neglected by the king. — Notice of
adjournment delivered by the prince of Wales. — Protestation entered
by the house on its journals. — Imprisonment of Philips, Selden, Pym
and Mallory. — Other members sent to Ireland. — Attempts to ruin sir
Edward Coke. — Sir John Savile bought over by the court. — Libera
tion of Selden. — Committal of the earls of Southampton and Oxford.
— Lord Spencer and others reprimanded. — Remonstrance against the
creation of Scotch and Irish peers. — Menacing words of the king to the
earl of Essex. — A benevolence extorted. — Freedom of speech restrain
ed. — Caricatures of king James. — General liberation of Prisoners for
recusancy. — Restraints laid on preachers. — Anecdote of the lord-
keeper -   236
CHAPTER XXIII.
1622, 1623.
Embassy of John Digby, earl of Bristol, to Spain. — Account of him. 
Views of Buckingham. — He persuades the prince to go to Spain ; — their
mode of gaining the king's consent  The prince's journey. — Lines by
Waller. — His arrival and reception at Madrid. — Correspondence of the
king and Buckingham. — James required to own the pope's suprema
cy. — Correspondence of the prince with the pope. — Secret articles ad
ded to the treaty. — Disagreement between Buckingham and the Span
ish ministry — Desponding letter of James,— his steps in favour of rer
cusants — Etiquette of the Spanish court.— Articles signed.— Letter of
Bristol.— Departure of the prince — Letter of Bristol to the prince - - 268
CHAPTER XXIV.
1623, 1624.
State of public opinion respecting the prince and Buckingham.— Policy
adopted by the lord-keeper,— by the lord-treasurer.— Arrival of the
prince and Buckingham in England— Steps taken by their advice to
break off the marriage-treaty— Recall and honourable conduct of Bris
tol— The king compelled into the measures of Buckingham,— his regret
and melancholy— Debates in the council concerning a war with Spain
—Violent Behaviour of Buckingham— His resentment against the lord-

VII Page
keeper and other councillors.— 'He causes parliament to be assembled,
— and courts the popular party. — Death of the duke of Lenox and
Richmond. — King's speech to parliament disclaiming toleration of the
catholics. — Buckingham's false narration of occurrences in Spain. —
The Spanish ambassador demands his head. — The house defends him.
— Address of both houses in favour of war with Spain. — Temporising
conduct of the king. — Supplies voted. — The king overruled by Buck
ingham. — Letter from him to the king. — King's speech'to parliament.
— Petition against the catholics. — Buckingham accused by the Spanish
ambassadors,— disgraced by the king, — recovers himself by the coun
sels of the lord-keeper. — Curious intrigues of the lord-keeper. — Im
peachment of the lord -treasurer. — Return and disgrace of Bristol. — Dis
solution of Parliament   ... 305
CHAPTER XXV.
1624, 1625.
General rejoicing on the change of measures. — Disappointment.— Mar
riage treaty with France. — Feeble preparations for war. — Troops sent
to serve with the Dutch. — Expedition fitted out under Mansfeldt. — Its
complete failure. — Sickness and death of king James. — His works and
character. — Anecdotes of him. — His funeral sermon by Williams. —
Translation of the bible under his auspices. — Conclusion ----->- 337

OP
THE COURT OF KING JAMES I.

CHAPTER XIV.
1615, 1616.
King's visit to Cambridge. — Comedy of Ignoramus. — Declining favour of So
merset. — Rise of Villiers. — Part taken by the archbishop and the queen in
his advancement. — Somerset disappointed of obtaining a general pardon. —
Efforts of the opposing factions. — Detection of Overbury's murder. — Confes
sion of Weston. — The king's final parting with Somerset. — Trial and con
viction of Weston, of Mrs. Turner and other accomplices. — Dilatory mode
of proceeding against the earl and countess of Somerset. — Ambiguous con
duct of James. — They are found guilty, but finally pardoned. — Reflections.
— Death of Shakspeare. — Remarks on his character and works.
It is somewhat remarkable that James, who had
visited the university of Oxford as early as the year
1605, had not yet paid a similar compliment to that
of Cambridge, though his hunting progress to Roy-
ston brought him annually into its neighbourhood*
At length however, in March 1615, he announced
his intention of repairing thither, accompanied by
the prince and by a numerous court ; and extraor
dinary preparations were made for his magnificent
reception. The earl of Suffolk had been suffered to
succeed his more learned kinsman Northampton in
the dignity of chancellor of the university, and the
house of Howard, which was also elated by its alliance
VOL. II. 1

with the favourite, stood foremost on this occasion of
display. The chancellor himself was lodged m St.
John's College, where he kept his table on so grand
a scale of hospitality, that his consumption of wine
during the five days of the royal visit was estimated
at no less than twenty-five tuns. His lady, with her
daughters the countesses of Salisbury and of So
merset, and other near connexions, were accom
modated at Magdalen college, and were the only
females who graced the festival ; perhaps because
other ladies might be reluctant to appear in the
train of lady Somerset. The king and the prince
occupied Trinity college,, in the spacious hall, of
which. plays were nightly represented. These ex
hibitions for the evenings, with sermons and dispu
tations every morning, sufficiently exercised the
patience of the monarch, who was less disposed to
attend to the . oratory of others -than to display his
own. After listening to a " condo ad clerum" which
occupied an hour and a half, he complained aloud,
" that care had not been taken to prevent tediosity ;"
and on another occasion he is reported to have.
exclaimed, after nine hours of exhibitions of scholar
ship, " What do they think I am made of?" One
of the performances however, though in the opinion
of a person who was present " more than half mar
red with extreme length," proved so peculiarly
grateful to the taste of his majesty that he express
ed the highest delight, and on an after occasion a
second representation was commanded. This piece
was the Latin comedy of Ignoramus, which, contrary
to the common fate of occasional pieces, has held
an enduring place in literature, and, besides being
several times reprinted, was twice within the last
century selected for performance by the Westmin
ster scholars. It is doubtless a very amusing drama,
full of bustle and incident, and abounding with

laughable situations and grotesque characters ; but
its comic merits were not its only or principal re
commendation to the favour of James. The hero
of the piece is a practitioner of the common law, so
much decried by the courtiers of the day ; and the
ridicule attached to his cunning, his pedantry, and
the barbarous jargon of technical terms and latinized
English of which his discourse is compounded, was
no less agreeable to the monarch, than it proved
offensive to the profession of which Ambidexter
Ignoramus is the representative. Those other dis
tinguished objects of his majesty's contempt or
aversion, — the pope, the Jesuits with their doctrine
of equivocation, Garnet's straw, and the puritans,
all came in for a share of the lashing dealt around
by the courtly satirist, and on the repetition of the
piece, a new prologue added to the gratification of
the royal auditor. The author was George Rug-
gle of Clarehall ; a person not ' otherwise distin
guished. Notwithstanding the boasted scholarship of James,
the Latinity of the speech addressed by him to the
university is said to have been very indifferent, and
much inferior to that of queen Elizabeth's harangue
on a similar occasion. That of Nethersole the uni
versity orator was also much criticised, on account of
his addressing the prince as " Jacobissime Carole."
This absurdity among others was ridiculed in a lu
dicrous ballad, composed on the occasion by Richard
Corbet of facetious memory, an Oxonian, and after
wards bishop of Norwich.
Somerset attended the king on his visit to Cam
bridge, and was still regarded as a favourite ; but it
was not difficult to prognosticate his fall. No one
could look upon him without perceiving a total
change. The graces of his youth had all faded
before the withering sense of secret and atrocious

guilt ; he affected solitude ; an air of neglect pre
vailed over his person, his dress and his manners ;
and the king, who ceased to discover in his features
the charms which had first caught his eye and his
fancy, and who found the gaiety which he loved to
cherish among his immediate attendants checked by
the mOroseness and melancholy of his lord-chamber
lain, sought only an excuse for transferring to a new
object his capricious fondness. Nor was the choice
of this object dubious : nearly two years before this
time, the monarch had been struck by the personal
beauty and graceful carriage of a youth named
George Villiers, a younger son of a Leicestershire
knight, who, having lately returned from France a
proficient in the arts of fencing and dancing, had
been equipped with handsome clothes and sent by
his mother and his friends to push his fortune at
court. Almost on his first appearance, the king had
marked his predilection by conferring upon him the
office of his cup-bearer at large ; and soon after, by
admitting him to serve in ordinary, had rendered
him the attendant of his meals, and given him the
opportunity of listening to his conversation and form
ing himself to his humour.
The insolence and rapacity of Somerset, who per
mitted no suit to pass without an enormous bribe,
had rendered him universally odious; and many
hands were eagerly stretched forth to thrust down
the already tottering favourite, or to support in his
ascent the new aspirant. But it seems that James,
among other sage rules of conduct, had laid down
for himself that of never taking for a professed fa
vourite any one who was not formally recommended
to him by his, queen; and the great difficulty was to
induce this princess to co-operate in an affair to which
she evinced a marked repugnance. In this perplex
ity the Villiers faction cast their eyes upon Abbot,

who possessed considerable influence with her ma
jesty, and the primate has thought proper to inform
posterity, that it was by his instrumentality that a
knot so worthy the interposition of a christian pre
late was solved. For some time the queen resisted
his most earnest solicitations, saying, " My lord, you
and the rest of your friends know not what you do ;
I know your master better than you all, for if this
young man be once brought in, the first persons that
he will plague must be you that labour for him ;
yea, I shall have my part also ; the king will teach
him to despise and hardly entreat us all, that he may
seem to be beholden to none but himself." In which
words, Abbot confesses that she spoke like a pro
phetess. But importunity prevailed at length, and
about April 1616, she was won to solicit the king to
gratify his own weak and disgraceful partiality in the
preferment of Villiers, whom the delighted monarch
instantly knighted in the queen's apartment, and
swore in a gentleman of the bed-chamber, in spite of
the opposition of Somerset. The archbishop cha
racteristically finished the scene by enjoining upon
the new minion three things, — >to pray to God daily
for grace to serve the king faithfully ; — to do all
good offices between his majesty and the queen and
prince; — and to fill his sovereign's ears with nothing
out the truth. When he had succeeded in teaching
the young man to repeat these precepts "indiffer
ently well" by rote, and had received the king's ac
knowledgment that " it was council fit for a bishop
to give to a young man," the sapient prelate seems
in earnest to have believed that he had sufficiently
guarded his catechumen against all the hazards to
which his virtue might be exposed by so sudden and
so unmerited an elevation; and he experienced as
much surprise as vexation on finding himself and his
counsels speedily consigned to neglect by one who,

as he apprehended, owed him so much, and who, in
the first moments of success, had promised to revere
him as a father.* ' •
Every step of Villiers's progress ia the royal fa
vour rendered more imminent the apprehensions of
Somerset. Destitute alike of personal, merit and of
hereditary consequence, surrounded :by opponents
whom he had no means of conciliating* and deprived
by the death of Northampton of the only adviser
on whose guidance he could repose, he felt that the
favour of the king was the sole remaining barrier
between himself and the disgrace and ruin which he.
had so amply deserved ; and before thiaxeiiance al
so should fail him, he aimed at rendering it the in
strument of his permanent security. 1 With this
view, he represented to his royal masteiythat m the
high offices which he had borne under? :*he crown,
and in the secret and important affairs -with which
it had long been his majesty's pleasure to intrust
him, it was not improbable that he might through
inadvertence have fallen into errors which in strict
ness of law would expose him to the penalties of a
prmmuniire : for his protection against this danger,
he therefore humbly besought his majesty to be
pleased to grant him a pardon under the great seal
for all past offences. James, with his customary fa
cility, assented; and Somerset, on applying. :for pre
cedents to that learned antiquary sir Robert Cotton*
who- was acquainted with his political sectets, was
furnished with a form by which the king was made
to pardon "all manner of treasons, misprisions of
treasons, murders, felonies, and outrages ;, whatso
ever," by him "committed or to be comihitted."
This ample indulgence was signed by the-idonarch
without the smallest scruple ; hut being afterwards
* See Bwgraphva Brit., act. ^bbot,

carried to the chancellor, this officer peremptorily
refused to affix the seal to it, alleging that to do s6
would subject himself to a praemunire. This obsta
cle was found insuperable ; and, deprived of his me
ditated defence, Somerset had nothing left but to
await in secret dtead the result of the thousand ac
cidents which might betray to some one who desired
his destruction, either his intrigues with Spain, or the
black story of ©verbury's fate; known already to
certainly not fewer than eight or ten persons more
or less implicated in the barbarous deed.
Meantime, James went on his summer progress
into the west, during which we are told that he was
entertained at Crflfibourn by William earl of Salis
bury, son-in-law ttrthe earl of Suffolk ; " at Lulworth
and Bindon by the- lord Walden ; at Charlton by sir
Thomas Howard ; ¦ and nothing but one faction brav
ing the other. Their was the king feasted, at Pur-
beck by the lord Hatton, who was of the contrary
faction ; and at a j&ihture-house of sir George Vil
liers' mother, called' <jrotly, where he was magnifi-
eentlJIssstertaiBed:''* This open rivalry '-disturbed the king ; and being
anxious to compose it,: he is said to have directed his
new favourite to wait upon the old one with a court
ly offer of becoming *' his creature," which overture
he caused it to be nftiiftated to Somerset that it was
his pleasure he should receive with graciousness.
But the pride of the earl disdained the compromise ;
and he is reported to have repelled the advances of
Villiers with this "quick and short answer; 'I will1
none of your service, and you shall none of my fa
vour. I will, if I can, break your neck, and of that
be confident.' "
* Weldon's Court of King James, p. 96.

8
It was not till after this ill-timed declaration of
hostilities, that any inquiry was instituted into the
secrets of the prison-house ; and it is, to say the
least, no improbable conjecture of a contemporary
writer, that " had Somerset complied with Villiers,
Overbury's death had still be raked up in his own
ashes."* We do not certainly learn by whom the first im
pulse was given which moved the king to make this
affair the subject of judicial investigation ; but there
is some reason to believe that it was secretary Win-
wood : be this as it may, one of the first steps which
can now be traced was, his majesty's sending for sir
Gervase Elways, lieutenant of the Tower, and ques
tioning him so closely and so ably, — for James prided
himself with some reason on his skill in examinations,
— that the terrified man was brought to a confession
of the following circumstances : — That very soon
after Overbury had been committed to his custody,
he met Weston, whom he had set over him as his
keeper, carrying him his supper, with a small phial
also in his hand. Weston asked, " Shall I give it him
now, sir?" of which words he having required an
explanation, Weston at length owned to him that the
phial came from the countess of Essex, and contain
ed poison : for this, as he averred, he rebuked him
severely, and made him promise to forbear this at
tack on the life of his prisoner. He/ had not how
ever deemed it necessary to remmre Weston from
his office of keeper, and this peipon had since con
fessed to him, that a remedy which a certain apo
thecary had administered to Overbury with his pri
vity and assistance, and for which the apothecary
had a reward of 20Z. from the countess of Essex,
was the cause of his death.
* Weldon's Court of King James, pp. 97, 98.

On this information the king directed the chief-
justice to apprehend and examine Weston. This
wretch was with some difficulty brought to confirm
the whole story of the lieutenant, only protesting
that he did not in reality administer the liquor in the
phial to Overbury, He owned however that he had
repeatedly carried to him tarts and jellies sent by the
countess, which he believed to be poisoned, and was
enjoined not to taste. It also came out, that he had
received a sum of money from this lady, through her
agent Mrs. Turner, as a reward on the death of
Overbury. Another part of Weston's statement,
corroborated by a second witness, was, that Somer
set sent a letter to Overbury in the Tower, inclosing
a white powder, which he requested him to take,
and not to fear though it should make him sick, for
out of his sickness he would draw an argument for
his liberation.
Several other accomplices were now traced out
and strictly examined, and James, who appears to
have personally directed every part of the proceed
ings, found it necessary, on their united testimony,
to instruct the chief-justice to issue his warrant for
the commitment of the earl and countess of Somer
set to private custody, which was executed on Oc
tober 15, 1615. The remarkable circumstances of
the king's final parting with his once-loved Carr,
are thus recorded by Weldon :
" The king with this took his farewell for a time
of London, and was accompanied with Somerset to
Royston; where no sooner he brought him, but in
stantly took his leave, little imagining what viper lay
among the herbs. Nor must I forget to let you
know how perfect the king was in the art of dissi
mulation, or, to give it in his own phrase, king-craft.
The earl of Somerset never parted from him with
more seeming affection than at this time, when he
vol* n. 2-

10
knew Somerset should never see him more; and
had you seen that seeming affection, as the author
himself did, you would rather have believed he was
in his rising than setting. The earl, when he kissed
his hand, the king hung about his neck, slabbering
his cheeks, saying, 'For God's sake when shall I
see thee again? On my soul I shall neither eat nor
sleep until you come again.' The earl told him, ' on
Monday,' this being on the Friday. 'For God's
sake let me,' said the king. — 'Shall I, shall I?'
then lolled about his neck. ' Then for God's sake
give thy lady this kiss for me.' In the same man
ner at the stairs' head, at the middle of the stairs,
and at the stairs' foot. The earl was not in his
coach when the king used these very words, in the
hearing of four servants, one of whom was Somer
set's great creature, and of the bed-chamber, who
reported it instantly to the author of this history ;
" I shall never see his face more."*
Roger Coke in his "Detection" has related this
part of the story with some variation. According to
him, the warrant of the chief-justice was served upon
Somerset at Royston, who exclaiming, that " Never
such an affront was offered to a peer of England in
presence of the king," — " Nay, man," said the king
" if Coke sends for me, I must go." And when he
was gone, " Now the de'el go with thee," said the
king, " for I will never see thy face more." But it
is unlike James to, have inculcated on any occasion
such an idea of the power of a chief-justice ; ¦ and
there also appears to be sufficient evidence that the
arrest of Somerset took place in London. The
chief-justice however, fearful of taking upon him
self the sole responsibility of an affair in which so
great a personage was implicated, posted the same
* Weldon's Court of King James, p. 104.

11
day to Royston to petition the king that other com
missioners might be joined with him in taking the
necessary examinations : this was granted, and, ac
cording to our author, the king on the same occa
sion expressed great indignation against Somerset
and his wife, for having, as he said, made him an
agent in their adultery and murder; "and he impre
cated a solemn curse upon Coke and his posterity,
if he spared any, and upon himself and his if he par
doned any of them."*
Weston was now arraigned ; but by the direction
of serjeant Yelverton, who was " an obliged servant
to the house of Howard," he stood mute ; to the
great perplexity of Coke, who well knew that unless
the principal in the murder were convicted, the ac
cessaries could not be put on their trials. He pro
ceeded nevertheless to cause all the examinations
and confessions which had been taken to be publicly
read, a step apparently of doubtful legality ; after
this he adjourned the court for a few days, to give
the prisoner leisure to meditate on the horrors of the
peine forte et dure, which he had set before him.
On his re-appearance he was found more tractable,
and pleading Not guilty, the trial proceeded. It was
now proved, in addition to what has been already
stated, that Weston had lived as a servant with Mrs.
Turner; that whilst in this situation he had been
employed as a trusty messenger and letter-carrier
between the countess of Essex and her paramour
lord Rochester ; and that it was at this lady's request,
expressed though sir Thomas Monson, that Elways
had received him into his service and set him over
the prisoner.
Another very striking piece of evidence was that
of sir David Wood, to the following effect : — That
* Coke's Peleclion, p. 78.

12
he had obtained the king's consent to a suit in which
he was a petitioner, and which would have been
worth 2200/. to him ; but that he was crossed in it
by lord Rochester, who refused to let it pass unless
he would give him 1200.* and by sir Thomas Over
bury, who had given him words for which he in
tended to bastinado him. That, upon this, the
countess of Essex had sent for him, and told him
that she understood he had received much wrong ,
from Overbury, and that he was a gentleman who
could revenge himself; adding, that sir Thomas had
also injured her. He replied, that Overbury had
refused him the field : she then endeavoured to per
suade him to assassinate him, promising him 1000£
for his reward, and protection from his enemies.
This offer he refused, saying that he should be loth
to hazard Tyburn on a woman's word ; yet she con
tinued to urge it, saying that he might easily kill
his enemy as he returned late from sir Charles Wil-
mot's in his coach. After a strong charge from the
chief-justice, in which he could not resist the tempta
tion of remarking that poisoning was "a popish
trick," Weston was found guilty and underwent the
just sentence of the law.
The next trial, that of the infamous Mrs. Turner,
was calculated to awaken a more thrilling interest
than any of the rest, since an examination into her
magical experiments was mingled with the only
charge regularly before the court, — her guilt as an
accessory in the murder. Sir Laurence Hyde, the
queen's attorney, after declaiming a while on the
wickedness and heinousness of poisoning, " showed
further, that there was one Dr. Forman dwelling in
Lambeth, who died very suddenly, and a little before
his death he desired that he might be buried very
deep in the ground, ' or else,' saith he, ' I shall fear
you all.' To him in his life-time often resorted the

13
Countess of Essex and Mrs. Turner, calling him
father; their cause of coming to him was, that by
force of magic he should procure the now earl of
Somerset, then viscount Rochester, to love her, and
sir Arthur Manwaring to love Mrs. Turner ;" and
two of the countess's infamous letters on this sub
ject, to Mrs. Turner and to Forman, were read in
court. Some of their magical apparatus, as images,
pictures and " encffltanted papers," were likewise
produced. At this moment " there was heard a
crack from the scaffolds, which caused great fear,
tumult and confusion among the spectators and
throughout the hall, every one fearing hurt, as if
the devil had been present, and grown angry to
have his workmanship showed by such as were not
his scholars." When the panic had a little subsid
ed, more of " the cunning tricks" were exposed.
" There was also a note showed in court, made by
Dr. Forman and written in parchment, signifying
what ladies loved what lords in the court ; but the
lord-chief-justice would not suffer it to be read in
open court." The good-natured world believed
that he found the name of his own wife in the first
page. The active agency of Mrs. Turner in the poison
ing was in the end abundantly proved to the jury,
and Coke pronounced sentence upon her with evi
dent satisfaction ; not forgetting to tell her that she
was guilty of the seven deadly sins, of which he
reckoned witchcraft as one and popery as another.
Many women of fashion, as well as men, went in
their coaches to Tyburn to witness the death of this
woman, who edified the spectators, it is said, with a
very penitent end; thougn she could not deny her
vanity the slight gratification of making this her last
appearance in a ruff stiffened with yellow starch, —

14
a favourite fashion imported by herself from France,
but to which this exhibition of it proved immedi
ately fatal.
On the trial of sir Gervase El ways, which was*
the next proceeded in, the guilty and disgusting let
ters of the earl of Northampton were read, and se
veral fresh indications of the participation of Somer
set in the murder of his friend^were produced. The
name of sir Thomas Monson, the chief falconer, was
also brought in question, as an assistant in the un
warrantable measure of keeping the unfortunate
Overbury in close custody, and as a probable depo
sitory of the whole atrocious plot. Elways defend
ed himself stoutly 4 but the evidence of some of his
own letters appeared conclusive, and a verdict of
Guilty was promptly returned. The voluntary con
fession of one Franklin an apothecary, read on the
trial of Elways, contains a curious list. of the most
approved poisons of that day, which Franklin had
procured for the countess by order of Mrs. Turner.
These were, aqua fortis, white arsenic, corrosive
sublimate, powder of diamonds, lunar caustic, great
spiders and cantharides. Franklin himself was next
put to the bar, and, notwithstanding his confession
and his penitence, shared the fate of his predeces
sors. Sir Thomas Monson was now arraigned, and stren
uously exhorted by the crown lawyers to acknow
ledge his offence, one of them declaring that he
was " as guilty as the guiltiest ;" but he steadily
persisted in the assertion of his innocence, and in
the midst of the proceedings he was suddenly car
ried off from the bar by several yeomen- of the
Tower, and after a short interval "liberated from
that place of confinement without further process
of any kind. Not the least mysterious of the many

15
strange circumstances attendant on this memorable
case !"*
After the unsparing chastisement of so many ac
complices in this deed of darkness, the public must
naturally have anticipated a similar infliction on the
still more guilty principals ; and the emphatic eulo-
giums of the chief-justice, and of Bacon as attorney-
general, on the righteous zeal of the king for the
impartial execution of justice, even upon those who
had been nearest and dearest to him, were cal
culated to confirm the expectation. But long delays
were interposed which served to weary out the in
dignation originally excited by the fact, and gradu
ally to prepare the minds of men for the unjustifiable
act of lenity which was contemplated.
Amid the various and contradictory accounts of
this affair handed down to us by the memoir- writers
of the age, — often ill-informed and always preju
diced, — our best clue to the truth is supplied by the
official letters of sir Francis Bacon to the king and
to Villiers. From these documents, it appears that
the interval between the conviction of the other de
linquents and the trials of the earl and countess of
Somerset, which did not take place till May 1616,
was occupied in frequent examinations of the pri
soners, and strenuous endeavours to bring them to
confession. With the lady, these efforts were at
length successful ; after many denials, she appeared
touched with a late remorse, and owned her guilt.
But the mind of her husband was of a tougher tex
ture, and from him not the slightest concession could
be obtained, either by threats or promises. Mean
time lord Digby returned from his Spanish embassy,
and conveyed to the king an intimation of certain
* The preceding account of the trials of these delinquents has been derived
from the minute and apparently authentic narrative affixed to a tract en
titled " Truth brought to light by time," first printed in 1651.

16
clandestine negotiations which had been carried on
between his late favourite and the court of Spain ;
and Somerset was in consequence subjected to fresh
interrogations relative to this matter, which appear
to have disturbed him more than those which had
his concern in the fate of Overbury for their object.
Sir Robert Cotton, who had been in some manner
privy to these intrigues, was also examined, as was
likewise sir William Monson, the vice-admiral, who
had been deeply involved in them, and of whom it
was popularly reported that he was under an agree
ment to carry over the English fleet to the Spa
niards. No treasonable charge however could be
substantiated against Somerset, and it was therefore
determined to. proceed against him on the former
accusation. But even this was treated like a matter
of state, in which it was inexpedient to permit law
and justice to take their free and natural course.
Bacon, to whom the conduct of the prosecution
was committed, went into the house of lords armed
with particular directions in the king's own hand
applicable to all contingencies ; — the prisoner's
pleading Guilty, pleading Not guilty, or standing
mute, — his being convicted or acquitted by the
peers. James earnestly desired that he might make
a full and free confession, in which case he would
apparently have been spared the disgrace of a trial ;
but in any event the monarch was resolved to save
his life, and even to grant him further favours ; on
which account Bacon judiciously advised that all
reviling should be forborne, and that he should be
made " guilty to the peers but not odious to the
people."* It is certainly in no degree surprising, that a
prince who was on all occasions governed much more
* Letters and memoirs of sir F. Bacon, letters lxvi. lxviii.

17
by his prejudices or his personal attachments than
by a correct sense of justice, should feel an insur
mountable repugnance to the idea of suffering the
blood of a man for whom he had entertained so ex
travagant a fondness to flow on the scaffold; and
these precautions would therefore have in them no
thing suspicious, did not several circumstances indi
cate that fear rather than love was the sentiment
which operated on the mind of th© monarch for the
preservation of his guilty minion. Of this nature
was the sudden conveyance of sir Thomas Monson
from the bar, said by Weldon to have been occa
sioned by a menace conveyed to the king the night
before by his card-holder, in the dark phrase that
sir Thomas would there " play his master's prize."
The assurance of mercy which Bacon was directed
to hold out to Somerset previously to his being put
upon his trial, and the bold and haughty tone which
this criminal maintained towards the king both be
fore and after his conviction, convey a similar im
pression ; which is further strengthened by some
extraordinary letters of James's own writing to sir
Thomas More, lieutenant of the Tower, urging him,
if possible, to bring the prisoner to a more submis
sive frame of mind, before he was trusted to appear
publicly at the bar of the house of lords. The ex
cessive agitation of the king during the trial, re
marked by Weldon, is also a strong circumstance :
in fact, it cannot be doubted that Somerset was in
possession of some important secret of the king's,
which he threatened to betray; that he hoped by
this menace to escape a trial, but wa9 at length, by
skilful management, prevailed upon to be satisfied
with the promise of .a pardon ; all, indeed, that the
king could with any appearance of decency grant.
What this secret might be, it is in vain to inquire ;
that it was a " mystery of iniquity" there can be
vol. ii. • 3

18
little doubt, but its nature was never known. That
it related to the poisoning of prince Henry has been
much believed, but may surely be pronounced un
true. The threats used by Overbury towards Somerset,
and the extreme precaution employed to prevent his
communicating with any one during his imprisonment,
prove that he also was in possession of a secret, and
perhaps of the same ; but one confidant had to deal
with a bold and atrocious nature, the other with a
timorous and gentle one ; Overbury was poisoned ;
his master, pardoned and pensioned.
The countess, being brought to the bar, pleaded
Guilty, and received sentence accordingly; but her
husband defended himself strenuously from eight
in the morning till seven at night; without effect,
however ; for the unanimous verdict of the peers
declared him Guilty. Both criminals were remand
ed to the Tower, where the countess soon after re
ceived the king's pardon: the earl was reprieved
from time to time, but the sentence remained sus
pended over his head till the last year of James's
life, when he obtained its reversal. In the year
1621 the earl and countess were liberated from the
Tower, and sent to live in banishment at a country
seat, the king allowing no less a sum than 4000/. a
year out of Somerset's forfeited estate for their
maintenance. They languished out their miserable
lives hated by one another and contemned by all
mankind. Camden has recorded, that " the king or
dered that the arms of the earl of Somerset, not
withstanding his being condemned of felony, should
not be removed out of the chapel at Windsor: that
felony should not be reckoned amongst the disgraces
for those who were to be excluded from the order
of St. George ; which was without precedent."* A
* Camden's Annate of James I.

19
remarkable instance of the obtuseness of James's
moral sense, and, it may be added, of the passiveness
of the members of that most noble order, who seem
to have endured without complaint this insult upon
the honour of their knighthood !
On the whole, few circumstances display more
strongly the maxims and practices of the reign of
James I., than those connected with the affair of
Overbury. The perseverance with which the de
sign against his life was followed up, in defiance of so
many discouragements and failures; the audacity,
almost the publicity, with which it was conducted ;
and the number of instruments in various ranks and
classes of society whose co-operation was fearlessly
required; furnish a revolting picture of the guilty
boldness of the great and powerful, and of the base
and slavish subserviency of their inferiors. That a
royal favourite was himself placed beyond all res
ponsibility, and that the consequences of his displea
sure were more to be dreaded than those of the
commission of any crime, must have been maxims
deeply fixed in the minds of men, before so daring an
enormity could have been perpetrated, or even at
tempted. It was of vital importance to the country
that English law and justice should at length assert
their rights ; and this was deeply felt by Coke, who
called the prosecution of this offence " the grand
oyer of poisoning;" it was also felt by Bacon, who
in one of his letters calls this single murder "a crime
second to none but the powder-plot," regard being
had to the atrocity of the mode and the pernicious-
ness of the example.
The death of Shakspeare, in April 1616, is an
event which the present age would justly deem it
unpardonable to omit amongst the memorable inci
dents of the year, although it was suffered by his
contemporaries to pass over with a silence and in-

20

difference which may well appear unaccountable.
There cannot exist a doubt that Shakspeare was by
far the most popular dramatic writer of his own
day : in representation, his pieces filled the theatre
to overflowing; such of them as were surreptitiously
printed during his lifetime were read with avidity;
and his style was unquestionably the model upon
which the most successful of his compeers, with the
single exception of Jonson, studiously laboured to
form themselves.
Nor was it only by the middling or lower classes
of society, who chiefly composed the theatrical au
diences of those days, that his immortal works were
admired and applauded. The earl of Southampton
was his patron from the commencement of his dra
matic career; the earls of Pembroke and Montgo
mery are recorded, in 'the dedication of the posthu
mous edition of his piays by Hemminge and Condell,
as distinguished favourers of the author and his
works; and the gracious encouragement extended to
him by queen Elizabeth, and afterwards by her suc
cessor, is well known. From the circumstance of
his being enrolled a member of the celebrated Mer
maid club, founded by, Raleigh and frequented by
the most eminent literary characters of the age, we
may infer that his habits were not sordid, nor his
life obscure ; and that the frankness and gaiety of
his temper rendered him the delight of every so
ciety in which he mingled, is testified by all who
have spoken of him frqm personal knowledge or re
cent tradition. " I loved the man," says Jonson,
" and do honour his memory, on this side idolatry, as
much as any. He was indeed honest, and of an
open and free nature."* Neither was it the melan
choly destiny of the poet to survive either his own

* Discoveries.

21
powers or the associates of his youthful days ; it was
in the 53rd year of his age, and in the second only
of his retreat from the busy scenes of the metropo
lis to the enjoyment of an honourable privacy in his
native Stratford, that we find him stealing out of the
world absolutely unnoticed by any annalist or me
moir-writer of the time, and almost " without the
meed of some melodious tear."
A striking peculiarity in the character, or at least
in the practice, of the poet himself, seems to offer
the most probable solution of these circumstances.
In that age of eulogy, no one dealt so little in the
" splendid traffic" of praise for praise, or in the sor
did one of praise for pay, as Shakspeare. With
the exception of a brief expression of his admira
tion of Spenser, contained in one of his early son
nets, and a few lines, written in conjunction with
that general panegyrist Jonson, on the poems of one
Chester, not a single line in honour of any contem
porary writer is found in all his acknowledged works ;
nor has he ever been detected as an anonymous
contributor to the vast collections of commendatory
verses which the poets of that age were proud of
prefixing to their volumes.* No one therefore stood
pledged to eulogise him, by the claims of an equi
table reciprocity ; and it seems to have been not un
til the striking inferiority of his successors and imi
tators had deeply impressed upon the public mind
the sense of his incomparable excellencies, that his
praises became the favourite theme of the poets.
A more becoming excuse for their silence was in
deed suggested by one of his admirers :
" It is not fit each bumble muse should make
Thy worth his subject 
* This remark is borrowed from Mr. Gifford's Memoirs of Jonson, where
however the lines on Spenser are not noticed^ See Gifford's Jonson, vol
i. p. CXCVII,

22
Let IeVned Jonson sing a dirge for thee,
And fill our orb with mournful 'harmony."
Jonson, in fact, the only dramatist who could be
regarded as in any manner the rival of Shakspeare,
appears to have had the honour of being his earliest
as well as his warmest and his most judicious eulo
gist. His well-known lines " to the memory of his
beloved Shakspeare and what he hath left us,"
worthy at once of the author and of the object, will
stand an enduring monument to the fame of both,
and to the disgrace of those calumniators of Jonson
who have delighted to reproach him with a malig
nant and envious hostility against his great contem
porary. It would be at once superfluous and presumptu
ous to enter in this place on such a theme as the
perfections of our illustrious poet ; but a few re
marks on such passages of his works as tend to il
lustrate his individual character, and the sentiments
entertained by him on the principal topics of con
temporary interest, may be regarded as not inap
propriate. That the silence of Shakspeare respecting the
merits of other writers proceeded neither from enVy
nor from a cynical austerity, may safely be inferred
from the amenity, the air of benevolence mingled
with gaiety, which pervades his pieces and forms
one of their most delightful characteristics. At the
same time, the traits of ridicule which he often
lances against the absurdities of the elder dramatists,
and the parodies with which he amuses himself,
evince a quick sense of the ludicrous, and a taste
which disdained the efforts of laborious mediocrity
and pedantic affectation; and he must undoubtedly
be classed as a satirist, though the most playful and
good-humoured of the tribe. His general freedom
from the vice of adulation, is equally striking- and

23
honourable. Even in the dedication of his early
poems to lord Southampton, be dared to rise above
the servility of the times. The few passages of
compliment to queen Elizabeth interspersed in his
plays are modest, tasteful, and probably the sincere
dictate of his feelings. The eulogy of her succes
sor, which appears as if compulsorily inserted in
Cranmer's prophetic speech, has at least the merit,
or the excuse, of insisting very little on the personal
qualities of the monarch. But there was a native
generosity of soul in Shakspeare which would not
permit him to content himself with negative merits.
There can belittle doubt that in the direction which
sir Toby, in the play of Twelfth Night, gives to sir
Andrew Aguecheek for his challenge ; " Taunt him
with the license of ink ; if thou thou'st him some
thrice, it shall not be amiss;" he designed to express
his esteem for the injured Raleigh, and to stigmatise
the arrogance of Coke,' who had insulted him on his
trial with this identical expression of contempt. The
desire of the same idiotical sir Andrew to beat Mal-
volio for " no exquisite reason," but because he is
told that he is a puritan, and the horror with which
he speaks of a Brownist, are keen strokes of satire
on the intolerance of the time, which, under all the
circumstances, deserve high praise. The puritans
were at once objects of detestation to king James^
the patron of the poet, and implacable enemies w
the stage and all connected with it ; and the treat
ment which they were in the habit of receiving from
the dramatic writers in return, may best be learned
from Jonson's " Bartholomew Fair" and various con
temporary pieces.
On the other hand, Shakspeare has so sedulously
abstained throughout his works from that ridicule
of the catholic mysteries, and those satirical repre
sentations of the manners of their clergy, the favour-

24
ite common places of the protestant poets, that he
has been strongly suspected of inheriting his father's
attachment to the ancient communion. But the
energetic protest against papal domination in the
play of king John, seems incompatible with this opi
nion, and the forbearance must be attributed not to
his faith but his candour. The invective of Shaks
peare was chiefly pointed against pride, cruelty,
treachery and oppression; and his ridicule lashed
the foreign and fantastical affectations in speech and
behaviour, the sententious pedantry, the tiresome
ceremonial, and the rage for complimenting, which
infected the manners of that transition-age between
gothic barbarism and the refinements of modern
Europe. In the number, the variety, the exqusite beauty
of his portraitures of female character, no writer of
his own time and language, — or perhaps of any
other, — can sustain a comparison with Shakspeare,
excepting Spenser, the object of his early admira
tion, from whom it seems no improbable conjecture
that his first vivid impressions of the " good and
fair" might be- in great measure derived. It, has
been remarked, that in all the plays of Ben Jonson
only three respectable female characters are found,
and of these, Celia, in the Fox, is the only one to
which the slightest degree of interest is attached.
Beaumont and Fletcher and Massinger are more
bountiful to the sex of virtues and of graces; they
have sometimes even attempted to pourtray a he
roine : but female delicacy was a quality of which
these writers could never attain to the most remote
conception ; and those who have endured the dis
gust of studying their characters of women, can alone
appreciate the obligations of the sex and of society
to him whose soul was capable of conceiving, and
his hand of delineating, such models of purity and

25
loveliness as Imogen and Cordelia and Desdemona ;
— such an enchantress as Rosalind. In conclusion,
the trespasses against decorum, and in some respects
against morals, which defile and degrade too many
scenes of our great dramatist, must not, cannot, be
disguised or palliated ; but there never was a writer
of whom it might with more truth be said, that his
vices were those of his age, his preponderating vir
tues and inimitable excellencies peculiar and his
own.

vol. n.

CHAPTER XV
1616.
Disgrace of Coke. — Various causes of it assigned. — Enmity of Coke and Ba
con. — Bacon's letter of expostulation to Coke. — His letters to the king re
flecting on Coke.— Case of Peacham,— of Oliver St. John. — Dispute between
the king's bench and chancery. — Affair of commendains. — The judges sum
moned before the privy-council. — Coke's spirited conduct, and dismissal. —
Charles created prince of Wales. — Plan for his marriage to a French
princess. — Lord Hay's embassy,;— his pomp and prodigality. — James con
gratulates Louis XIII. on the murder of marshal d'Ancre. — Cautionary
towns given up to the Dutch.
The disgrace of lord-chief-justice Coke, almost
immediately after the termination of his labours in
the prosecution of Overbury's murderers, was an
event which excited general attention, and the
causes of which have been stated with considerable
diversity by contemporary writers. Some have af
firmed, that in his examinations of the papers of the
earl of Somerset, he made certain discoveries deeply
affecting the character of the king himself. It has
been added, that on the trials, he threw out hints
concerning the supposed manner of prince Henry's
death which James could never forgive. Others
have ascribed his loss of the royal favour to his vi
gorous defence of the common law against what he
regarded as the encroachments of the court of chan
cery ; to the resistance which he opposed to the
claims of prerogative in the affair of commendams ;
and, generally, to his inflexible attachment to the
constitution of his country. His backwardness on
one occasion in complying with the rapacious de
mands of sir George Villiers, the rising favourite, is

27
the sole cause of his fall assigned by sir Roger Coke,
his grandson, in his Detection. It appears deducible
from the whole evidence which has come down to
us, and especially from the letters of sir Francis
Bacon, that James was in fact dissatisfied with his
chief-justice on various political grounds, and Vil
liers on private ones; but the diligence exerted by
Bacon himself in fostering these disgusts, seems to
have had a great share, perhaps indeed the greatest
of all, in deciding his expulsion from office.
The hostility between these two memorable men
was of long standing, and founded on opposition
of characters no less than competition of interests.
Coke was confessedly the most profound lawyer of
his time ; but Bacon was at once the finest scholar
and the most eloquent speaker that England had
produced ; and his rival, condemned to be a constant
witness of the effects produced by his oratory, must
have envied in secret the genius of him whom he
in public affected to hold cheap for his deficiency in
professional learning.
A seniority of about twelve years, with much ex
perience in the courts, added to powerful interest
with the ministers, had enabled Coke, from the
commencement of Bacon's career at the bar, not
only to assume towards him an irritating and insult
ing air of superiority, but to impede considerably
his advancement to office. It must have been
shortly before the promotion of Coke, in 1606, from
the post of attorney-general to that of chief-justice
of the common pleas, that his illustrious rival found
cause to address to him the following remarkable
letter of expostulation, which well explains the rela
tive situation of the parties :
" Mr. Attorney, — I thought it best, once for all,
to let you know in plainness what I find of you, and
what you shall find of me, to take to yourself a liberty

28
to disgrace and djsable my law, my experience, my
discretion: what it pleaseth you I pray think of me;
I am one that knows both my own wants and other
men's, and it may be perchance that mine mend,
others stand at a stay.- And surely I may not en
dure in public place to be wronged, without repell
ing the same to my best advantage to right myself.
You are great, and therefore have the more enviers,
which would be glad to have you paid at another's
cost. Since the time I missed, the solicitor's place
(the rather I think by your means), I cannot expect
that you and I shall ever serve as attorney and soli
citor together; but either to serve with another upon
your remove, or to step into some other course : so
as I am more free than ever I was from any occa
sion of unworthy conforming myself to you, more
than general good' manners, or your particular good
usage, shall provoke ; and if you had not been short
sighted in your own fortune, as I think, you might
have had. more use of me. But that side is passed.
I write not this to show my friends what a brave
letter I have written to Mr. Attorney ; I have none
of those humours, but that I have written is to a
good end; that is, to the more decent carriage of
my master's service, and to our particular better
understanding of one another. This letter, if it
shall be answered by you in deed and not in word,
I suppose it will not be worse for us both; else it is
but a few lines lost ; which for a much smaller mat
ter I would have adventured. So this being to
yourself, I for my part rest," &c.
Considering the natural timidity of Bacon's tem
per, it may be taken for granted that he must have
felt himself strong in royal favour when he ventured
to write such a letter as this to sir Edward Coke,
supposing that it was actually sent when written.
The next year he obtained the solicitor's place,

29
long the object of his ambition; and seven years
afterwards, by a well-combined intrigue, he elevated
himself to the post of attorney-general. It was by
means of an immediate advantage to his rival, — his
promotion to the chief-justiceship of the king's
bench from that of the common pleas, — that Bacon
gained this step of his advancement ; but its remoter
consequences were fatal to the power of Coke. The
age and infirmities of lord Ellesmere rendered a
speedy vacancy inevitable in the office of lord-chan
cellor ;-^Bacon, now attorney-general, admitted to
the privy-council and possessed of the ear of the
king, openly aspired to this high dignity; but he
saw, or thought he saw, in Coke, a formidable com
petitor; and from the moment that this cause of
present jealousy was added to his sense of past in
juries, he seems to have omitted no occasion of
calling the attention of the king to the rigidly con
stitutional conduct of Coke, in contrast with that
entire devotedness to the cause of prerogative, on
which he himself relied as the chief means of his
promotion. It may be worth while to quote some
passages of his letters to this effect, which will serve
the further purpose of illustrating the character of
James, and of refuting the commonly received opi
nion that his theoretical despotism was not carried
into practice.
Early in the year 1615, the study of one Peacham
being searched, there was found a manuscript ser
mon, never preached, containing passages looked
upon as treasonable. The king was resolved, if
possible, to bring the author to punishment; but as
there was good reason to doubt whether the mere
writing of such a paper could be construed into
treason, he ordered that the opinions of the judges
on the case should be taken privately and separately,
before the prisoner was brought to trial. Bacon

30
and some other crown lawyers were employed on
this business, and he thus relates his success in a
letter to the king : — " We did first find an encounter
in the opinion of my lord Coke ; who seemed to af
firm that such particular, and, as he called it, auri
cular taking of opinions, was not according to the
custom of this realm; and seemed to divine that his
brethren would never do it. But when I replied,
that it was our duty to pursue your majesty's direc
tions; and it were not amiss for his lordship to leave
his brethren to their own answers, it was so con
cluded : and his lordship did desire that I might
confer with himself, and Mr. serjeant Montague
was named to speak with justice Crook ; Mr. ser
jeant Crew with justice Houghton, and Mr. solicitor
with justice Dodderidge. This done, I took my
fellows aside, and advised that they should presently
speak with the three judges, before they could speak
with my lord Coke, for doubt of infusion : and that
they should not in any case make any doubt to the
judge's, as if they mistrusted they would not delive.
any opinion apart, but speak resolutely to them, and
only make their coming to be," to know what time
they would appoint to be attended with the papers."
*' This," as he goes on to relate, " sorted not amiss"
with the puisne judges, though Houghton hesi
tated ; but Coke remained intractable. In two or
three conferences on the .subject he repeated his
former objections to the legality of the step; and on
Bacon's urging the compliance of his brethren,
" he said (which I noted well) that his brethren
were wise men, and that they might make a show
as if -they would give an opinion, as was required;
but the end would be that it would come to this :
they would say they doubted of it, and so pray ad
vice with the rest. But to this I answered, that
I was sorry to hear him say so much, lest, if it came

31
to pass, some that loved him not might make a con
struction, that, that which he had foretold, he had
wrought." In the end, after maturely deliberating, and
weighing all the precedents brought him, the lord-
chief-justice returned indeed an answer to the points
on which he was consulted; but one in no respect
likely to satisfy the king, in which consideration his
rival evidently triumphs.
In the matter of Mr. Oliver St. John of Wilt
shire, who had addressed to the mayor of Marlbo
rough a statement of his reasons for refusing to
contribute to a benevolence imposed by the king's
sole authority, and who for this cause was censured
and heavily fined in the star-chamber, Coke proved
but too obsequious to prerogative ; yet his conduct
is thus adverted to by Bacon in writing to James :
" Mr. St. John his day is past, and well past. I
hold it to be Janus Biirons. It hath a good aspect
% that which is past, and to the future, and doth
.jbth satisfy and prepare. All did well.. My lord-
chief-justice delivered the law for the benevolence
strongly ; I would he had done it timely."
The next important business which occurred was
a contest between the king's bench and the court
of chancery respecting jurisdiction, the grounds of
which are explained very distinctly in one of Bacon's
letters to his majesty. Two statutes existed, by
which it was prohibited, on pain of a pratmunire to
all concerned, to question or impeach the judg
ments given in the king's courts, or to seek a rever
sal of such judgments otherwise than by error, or
attaint ; and upon these statutes the judges evinced
an intention of disputing the right of the court of
chancery to undo their decisions : judge Crook ac
cordingly, in addressing the grand jury for Middle
sex, had* specially given in charge this article : " If

32
any man, after a judgment given, had drawn the
same judgment to a new examination in any other
court ?" and the same term, two indictments were
preferred for suing in chancery after judgments at
common law ; to which the grand jury, however,
though " clamoured by the parties and twice sent
back by the court," returned an Ignoramus. The
lord-chancellor was at this time dangerously ill ; and
the king, indignant at such presumption on the part
of the sages of the common law, required Bacon to
inform him fully in the business. It is thus that,
in compliance with his majesty's command, he pro
ceeds, after stating the facts, to offer his advice :
" For my opinion, I cannot but begin with this
preface ; That I am infinitely sorry that your ma
jesty is thus put to salve and cure not only acci
dents of time but errors of servants : for I account
this a kind of sickness of my lord Coke's, that comes
almost in as ill a time as the sickness of my lord-
chancellor. And as I think it was one of the wisest
parts that ever he played, when he went down to
your majesty to Royston, and desired to have my
lord-chancellor joined with him ;* so this was one
of the weakest parts that ever he played, to make
all the world perceive that my lord-chancellor is se
vered from him at this time.
" ^u* ^or tna* wmch may concern your service,
which is my end (leaving other men to their own
ways), first, my opinion is plainly, that my lord
Coke, at this time, is not to be disgraced ; both be
cause he is so well habituate for that which remain-
eth of these capital causes, and also, for that which
I find is in his breast touching your finances and
matter of your estate. And (if I mought speak it)
as I think it were good his hopes were at an end in
* In the examination of Overbury's murder.

33
some kind, so I could wish they were raised in some
other. " Ou the other side, this great and public affront,
not only to the reverend and well deserving person
of your chancellor, (and at a time when he was
thought to lie on dying, which was barbarous,) but
to your high court of chancery, which is the court
of your absolute power, may not in my opinion pass
lightly, nor end only in some formal atonement.
But use is to be made thereof for the settling of
your authority and strengthening of your preroga
tive, according to the true rules of monarchy.
" Now, to reconcile and accommodate these two
advices, which seem almost opposite. First, your
majesty may not see it, though I confess it be sus
picious, that my lord Coke was any way aforehand
privy to that which was done ; or that he did set or
animate it ; but only took the matter as it came be
fore him : and that his error was only, that, at such
a time, he did not divert it in some good manner.
" Secondly, if it be true, as is reported, that any
of the puisne judges did stir this business ; or that
they did openly revile and menace the jury, for doing
their conscience, as they did honestly and truly, I
think that judge is worthy to leese his place. And,
to be plain with your majesty, I do not think there
is any thing a greater Polychreston, or ad multum
utile, to your affairs, than upon a just and fit occa
sion to make some example against the presumption
of a judge in causes that concern your majesty:
whereby the whole body of those magistrates may
be contained the better in awe : and it may be this
will light upon no unfit subject, of a person that is
rude, and that no man cares for.
" Thirdly, if there be no one so much in fault,
(which yet I cannot affirm either way, and there
must be a just ground, God forbid else,) yet I should
vol. ir. 5

34
think that the very presumption of going so far in
so high a cause, deserveth to have that done which
was done in this very case upon the indictment of
Serjeant Heale in queen Elizabeth's time ; that the
judges should answer it, upon their knees, before
your majesty or your council, and receive a sharp
admonition; at which time also, my lord Wray, be
ing then chief-justice, slipped the collar and was
forborne. " Fourthly, for the persons themselves, Glanville
and Allen, which are base fellows and turbulent, 1
think there will be discovered and proved against
them, besides the preferring of the bills, such com
binations and contemptuous speeches and beha
viours, as there will be good ground to call them,
and perhaps some of their petty counsellors at law,
into the star-chamber.
" In all this which 1 have said, your majesty may
be pleased to observe, that I do not engage you
much in the main point of the jurisdiction, for which
I have a great deal of reason, which I now forbear.
But two things I wish to be done. The one, that
your majesty take this occasion to redouble unto all
your judges your ancient and true charge and rule ;
that you will endure no innovating in the point of ju
risdiction ; but will have every court impaled within
their own precedents, and not to assume to them
selves new powers upon conceits and inventions of
law,. The other, that in these high causes that
touch upon state and monarchy, your majesty give
them straight charge, that upon any occasions in-
tervenient hereafter, they do not make the vulgar
party to their contestations by public handling them
sbefore they have consulted with your majesty ; to
whom the regiment of those things only appertain
ed."

35
- Such were the despotic courses suggested by the
base spirit of Bacon to a prince sufficiently inclined
of himself to lord it over the laws and liberties of
England ! such the arts by which he sought to
strip his more conscientious rival of the hard-earned
meed of a life of labour and of important public ser
vices !
On occasion of the lord-chancellor's alarming fit
of illness, during which Bacon reproaches Coke for
attacking his jurisdiction, he himself did not omit
to beg his place. In his petitionary letter lo the
king' on this subject, after stating his own preten
sions to succeed to the office, he proceeds thus : —
" Now, I beseech your majesty, let me put you the
present case truly. If you take my lord Coke, this
will follow : First, your majesty shall put an over
ruling nature into an overruling place, which may
breed an extreme. Next, you shall blunt his indus
tries in matter of finances, which seemeth to aim at
another place. And lastly, popular men are no sure
mounters for your majesty's saddle. If you take
nay lord Hobart, you shall have a judge at the upper
end of your council-board, and another at the lower
end ; whereby your majesty will find your preroga
tive pent  If you take my lord of Canterbury,
I will say no more but the chancellor's place requires
a whole man. And to have both jurisdictions, spi
ritual and temporal, in that height, is fit but for a
king. "For myself, 1 can only present your majesty
with 'gloria in obsequio ;' yet I dare promise that
if I sit in that place, your business shall not make
such short turns upon you as it doth ; but when a
direction is once given, it shall be pursued and per
formed; and your majesty shall only be troubled
with the true care of a king, which is, to think what

36-
you would have don* in chief, and not how for the
passages." That "gloria in obsequfa" of Which Bacon here?
makes his boast, is expressed with peculiar energy
in another letter, in which he is not ashamed to say .
to the king, " I am afraid of nothing, but that the
master of the horse, your excellent servant, and I,
shall fall out who shall hold your stirrop best."
One of the projects for raising money to which
James's necessities and his dread of parliaments
moved him to give his sanction, was that of sir Wil
liam Cockaine, who formed a company which offered
a great sum for the monopoly of the exportation of
dyed cloths, and for a prohibition of the exportation
of undyed ones. This patent was found highly per
nicious to trade and to the public interest, and on
detection of certain malpractices in their mode of
acting upon it some of the patentees were committed
to prison. Bacon takes occasion to lament to the
king, that Coke, by the severity of his speech to the
offenders, had impoliticly alarmed them into "turnj
ing every stone to help themselves," adding, "But
my lord Coke floweth according to his own tides,
and not according to the tides of business. The
thing which my lord Coke said, was good, and too
little ; but at this time it was too much." Meaning,
probably, that it might tend to raise an odium against,
projectors and against the court which encouraged
them. But it was soon after the fate of the chief-justice ,
to fall into greater delinquency by his conduct in
the business of commendams. The case was shortly
this : The king had been informed, that a cause of
the bishop of Lincoln's was about to be tried, relat
ing to a commendam, in which it was to be appre
hended, that the general right of his majesty to grant
ecclesiastical livings to bishops in this form, might

37
be brought into question. Alarmed at the bare sus
picion of an attack upon any branch of his supre
macy, James ordered his 'attorney-general to speak
in support of the prerogative, and also directed the
bishop of Winchester to be present at the trial, and
to report to him the true state of that question, and
how far it extended. The bishop, a noted courtier,
-brought information that Serjeant Chiborne, one of
the counsel, had maintained positions and made as
sertions " very prejudicial to the prerogative royal ;"
he also stated that the case was set apart to be fur
ther argued by the twelve judges on an appointed
day. To prevent any untoward decision on the
part of this venerable body, the king immediately
commanded Bacon to write a letter to the chief-
justice, requiring that the judges should suspend all
proceedings till they should have consulted with him
self and learned his pleasure in the business. Coke
returned for the present no other answer to the at
torney-general, than that it was fit that each of the
judges should receive from him a similar notice ; —
which was sent accordingly. On the day previously
appointed, however, the judges met, to the astonish
ment and horror of the courtiers, and, having argued
their case, agreed upon a joint letter to his majesty,
inclosing that received from the attorney-general,
and respectfully stating that the cause in question
was one between man and man, on which they were
in duty bound to deliver their opinion. They fur
ther begged to make known that their oath obliged
them, in case of their receiving any letters contrary
to law, to go on to do their duty notwithstanding ;
only certifying to his majesty the receipt of such
letter ; which rule they had accordingly observed in
this instance ; being unanimously of opinion, that
the letter of Mr. attorney was of an unlawful na-

38
ture, and such as his majesty, being truly informed,
would not be pleased that they should give way to.
It may readily be believed, that the irascible tem
per of James was prompt to take fire at what he
regarded as so vehement an insult upon his absolute
power; Bacon, who easily traced to the influence
of Coke over his brethren a resistance to lawless
power then so little to be expected from official ser
vants of the crown, was diligent in fostering the re
sentment of the king; and it was resolved that a
severe lesson should be read to the judges on the
consequences of such a contempt as that of which
they had been guilty. They were accordingly
summoned before the privy-council, where they re
ceived a long lecture from the king himself, who
declared to them, that in their answer to his letter
they had grievously erred " both in form and mat
ter," and who further complained, that they had
long been wanting in their duty to the crown, in
not interrupting and sharply reproving such advo
cates as in their pleadings at the bar dared to de
fame or impeach things of so high a nature as his
supremacy ; adding, that he had observed, ever
since his coming to the crown, that " the popular
sort of lawyers had been the men that most affropt-
edly, in all parliaments, had trodden upon his prero
gative." After this his majesty's declaration, all the judges
fell upon their knees, acknowledged their error and
begged forgiveness. The lord-chief-justice never
theless entered into a defence of the letter, and show
ed that, in fact, the case in question did not involve
the prerogative. The king replied warmly to this
defence, and appealed, on the point of law, to the
lord-chancellor, who rose up and moved his majesty
that he would require his learned counsel first to
deliver their opinions in this matter. Bacon being

39
then called on to speak, gave judgment, of course,'
on the side of the king. Coke " took exceptions"
that the king's counsel should be brought to argue
with the judges, whose business it was to plead be
fore them, not to dispute against them. The king
said they had a right to do so in this case, and " he
would maintain them therein." The chief-justice
answered, that he would not dispute with his majesty.
This extraordinary altercation being thus brought
to a conclusion, it seemed good to the king and his
privy-councillors to put to the judges the following
trying question : " W hether, if at any time, in a case
depending before the judges, his majesty conceived
it to concern him either in power or profit, and there
fore required to consult with them, and that they
should stay proceedings in the meantime, they ought
not to stay accordingly ?" Thus urged, they all
" yielded that they would, and acknowledged it to be
their duties to do so," with the exception of Coke,
who returned the following magnanimous answer ;
" That when the case should be, he would do that
which should be fit for a judge to do."*
This reply filled the measure of Coke's offences.
In the month of June 1616,' he was called before
the privy-council to answer three articles of accusa
tion. First, that he had concealed a statute of 12,000£
due to the crown by the late chancellor Hatton.
Secondly, that sitting on the bench, he had uttered
words of very high contempt, saying that the com
mon law would be overthrown ; and therein reflect
ing upon the king. Thirdly, his uncivil and indis
creet carriage in the matter of eommendams. On
the first article his defence was so far satisfactory
as that no more was said of it at that time, and he
afterwards obtained a legal decision in his favour.
* See Letters and memoirs of sir F. Bacon,' passim.

40
The second charge he palliated, without however
disclaiming the words. The third he confessed, and
prayed forgiveness. The immediate result of the
examination was, that his name was struck off the
list of the privy-council, and he was forbidden to go
to the circuit. In October following, he was called
before the chancellor, prohibited from entering
Westminster-hall, and ordered to answer the objec
tion made against certain passages of his published
reports ; and in the next month he was removed
from office. The last stroke overpowered for a
time his fortitude ; he is said to have received the
supersedeas " with dejection and tears."*
Prince Charles, having attained the age of sixteen,
was this year created prince of Wales with great
solemnity. His marriage now became a matter of
more pressing interest with the king his father ; and,
suspending for the present the tedious treaty which
had been opened for the hand of the Spanish infanta,
the monarch began to fix his hopes upon the royal
house of France, and it was determined that the
ambassador extraordinary sent to congratulate Louis
XIII. on his marriage should make proposals in
form for madame Christine, that monarch's eldest
sister. But here too the king of Great Britain found
himself baffled ; ansfrmance with the duke of Savoy
was preferred by the French court, and after many
professions of respect and friendship, the prince of
Wales received a negative. — A striking proof of the
low estimation in which the sovereign of Great Bri
tain was at this time held by the great princes of
Europe.!- This abortive embassy is chiefly memo
rable for the exaggerated magnificence, the tasteless
and absurd profusion, so truly characteristic of the
court of James, which was here exhibited to the
* ©'Israeli's King James, p. 126,

41
wonder, the envy, and perhaps the ridicule, of the
Parisians. James Hay, the ambassador, was a Scotch
man of humble origin, and no commanding talents,
though possessed of some courtly accomplishments,
whom the king had raised to the title of lord Hay, —
as he afterwards did to those of viscount Doncaster
and earl of Carlisle, — had married to an English
heiress of high rank, the daughter of lord Denny,
and had enriched by his thoughtless bounty. In
that age of upstarts, he was distinguished above all
his fellows by the excess of his vanity and self-impor
tance, and the insanity of his extravagance. His
dress, his equipage, his table, were of such extraor
dinary prodigality, that every memoir-writer of the
time has thought it his duty to supply some details
respecting them for the astonishment of posterity.
" And for James Hayes, after earl of Carlisle,"
fiays Osborne, " though of no more noble extraction
than the immediate son of a Scotch merchant, an
appellation some under a stall would scorn to pat
ronise, it is known he did bestow more trimming in
the varnish of a wainscot carcase, than any of his
master's ancestors did in the clothing themselves
and their whole families."* And again : " The earl
of Carlisle was one of the quorum that brought in
the vanity of ante-suppers, not heard of in our fore
fathers' time, and, for aught I have read, or at least
remember, unpractised by the most luxurious ty
rants. The manner of which was, to have the
board covered, at the first entrance of the guests,
with dishes as high as a tall man could well reach,
filled with the choicest and dearest viands sea or
land could afford. And all this once seen, and hav
ing feasted the eyes of the invited, was in a manner
thrown away, and fresh set on to the same height,
* Osborne's Memoirs of king James, u. 30.
VOL. II. 6

42
having only this advantage of the other, that it was
hot. I cannot forget one of the attendants of the
king, that at a feast made by this monster in excess,
eat to his single share a whole pye reckoned to my
lord at ten pounds, being composed of ambergris,
magisterial of pearl, musk, &c  And after such
suppers, huge banquets no less profuse, a waiter
returning his servant home with a cloak-bag filled
with sweetmeats and comfects valued to his lordship
at more than ten shillings the pound."*
Weldon speaks of the earl of Carlisle's giving at
Essex house, to the French ambassador, the most
sumptuous feast that was ever seen before or since,
"in which was such plenty, and fish of that immen
sity, brought out of Muscovia, that dishes were made
to contain them ; no dishes in all England before
could near hold them." The fish was no doubt
sturgeon. The glories of his French embassy are
thus described by Wilson : " He, with a great train
of young noblemen and other courtiers of eminency,
suited themselves with all those ornaments that could
give lustre to so dazzling an appearance as love and
the congratulation of it carried with it .... I remem
ber I saw one of the lord ambassador's suits (and
pardon me that I take notice of such petty things) :
the cloak and hose were made of very fine white
beaver, embroidered richly all over with gold and
silver ; the cloak, almost to the cape, both within
and without, having no lining but embroidery.
The doublet was of cloth of gold, embroidered so
thick that it could not be discerned, and a white
beaver hat suitable, brimful of embroidery both above
and below. This ig presented as an essay, for
one of the meanest he Wore." The day of audi
ence being fixed, some debate arose, whether the
* Osborne's Memoirs of king James, c. 38.

43
ambassador and his train should go in coaches or on
horseback ; but the former mode was rejected, be
cause it would conceal too much the splendour of
their equipments; and it was agreed that they
should ride with rich footcloths. "Six trumpeters
and two marshals in tawny velvet liveries completely
suited, laced all over with gold richly and closely
laid, led the way. The ambassador followed, with.
a great train of pages and footmen in the same rich
livery incircling nis horse, and the rest of his reti
nue according to their qualities and degrees, in as
much bravery as they could devise or procure, fol
lowed in couples, to the wonderment of the behold
ers. And some said, how truly I cannot assert,
the ambassador's horse was shod with silver shoes
lightly tacked on; and when he came to a place
where persons or beauties of eminency were, his
very horse prancing and curveting in humble reve
rence, flung his shoes away, which the greedy
understanders scrambled for, and he was content
to be gazed on, and admired, till a farrier, or rather
the argentier, in one of his rich liveries among the
train of footmen, out of a tawny velvet bag took
others and tacked them on, which lasted till he came
to the next troop of grandees. And thus, with much
ado, he reached the Louvre."*
Hay was afterwards employed in several other
embassies, none of which proved more prosperous
than the first : but these failures were probably less
to be imputed to himself than to his master; — a
prince singularly unfortunate in the results of that
diplomacy of which -he made so great a point and on
which he expended such enormous sums of money.
James was at this time intent on cultivating by
all means the friendship of the young king of France,
* Wilson, p. 92 et seq.

44
and on occasion of the assassination of the mar
shal D'Ancre by order of Louis, he did not scruple
to assure him of his approbation of the act. The
situation of the king of France, who, though major
and married, was still held in bondage by those who
had assumed the direction of affairs during his mi
nority, appears to have recalled to James the cir
cumstances of his own youth in Scotland, and we
find his impressions and those of English politicians
thus memorably recorded in a letter from secretary
Winwood to sir Guy Carleton ambassador to Hol
land:  "As the king was young in years, so was
he in thraldom and captivity under the queen his
mother, and she in subjection to the marshal D'An
cre, both at the devotion of the king of Spain, who
confidently may be said to have had as much power
and authority in the management of affairs in the
court of France, as the duke of Lerma hath in the
court of Spain. And this may be believed, that in
our age the king of Spain never received so heavy
a blow ; and that without noise or bruit, for in hon
our he may not take notice of if, which so apparent
ly doth recall the proceedings, or rather renverse
the very foundations of his ambitious designs."
 "No action hath happened amongst us, which
so lively hath discovered the passionate affections of
our hearts ; for all our parasites and pensioners of
Spain have lost all patience, and, which is worse,
all modesty and moderation ; condemning this action
as most impious and inhuman, bloody and tyranni
cal ; not considering that it was at the choice of the
king, whether he would neglect the safety of his
person and the preservation of his crown, both
which must have fallen if Ancre had stood ; or pro
ceed, as he did, sine forma et figura judicii, by
martial law against the usurper ot his crown and

45
state. But what opinion soever private particular
men, who aim at nothing else but the advancement
of their own fortunes, have of this action, his ma
jesty is pleased to approve of it : which doth appear
not only by the outward demonstration of his exceed
ing joy and contentment, when first he received the
news thereof, but also by letters which with his own
hand he hath written to the French king  Be
sides, Mr. comptroller, who hath charge in all dili
gence to return into France, hath express order to
congratulate with the marshal de Vitry, for so now
he is, that by his hands the king his master was de
livered out of captivity, et mis hors de page."* So
lax was the morality of James and his politicians
even where personal interest was out of the ques->
tion, so large the latitude which they thought allowed
to kings in the vindication of their authority!
During the course of this year, a long-pending
negotiation was concluded between James and the
United Provinces, for the restoration of the cau
tionary towns which had been put into the hands of
queen Elizabeth as security for the money lent by
her to the States. That portion of the people who
considered much of national glory to consist in the
{lower of strongly influencing the politics of Europe,
oudly inveighed against a step by which a lasting
pledge for the good behaviour of a neighbouring
state was yielded up in consideration of a sum of
money, which was also much inferior to the just
demands of the English crown. Others, however,
thought it reasonable to resign a possession valuable
only as a means of interference and annoyance, in
exchange for the offered price, and the good will of
the Hollanders. It is needless in this place to dis
cuss the arguments by which each opinion might
* Letters from and to sir Dudley Carkton knight, p. 129.

46
be supported; no one can doubt that James, for
the sake of supplying what some called his necessi
ties and others his extravagance, without the inter
vention of a parliament, would readily have acceded
to measures still more injurious to national honour;
and it is also clear, that to a prince of his inert and
timorous character the occupation of these towns
was of no manner of value. The bargain made by
the Dutch" appears to have been a highly advanta
geous one for them, and it was also beneficial to
James by relieving him from the expense of main
taining needless garrisons : but this, in truth, was
almost the only emolument which he was suffered to
derive from it ; the money paid by the States, amount
ing to 25Q,000Z., appeared to vanish as soon as it
entered the exchequer ; the king's debts remained
unsatisfied ; and, without having availed himself of
the sum for any public service, he quickly found
himself as necessitous as ever. It is more than pro
bable that most of the courtiers shared, some with
and some without the king's knowledge, in the plun
der of this public money ; but the whole responsi
bility fell on the lord-treasurer, the father-in-law of
the discarded favourite, whom Villiers, now absolute
ruler of the king and court, had predetermined to
ruin. But the fall of this minister was not com
pleted till the year 1619; and in the mean while
other subjects claim attention.

CHAPTER XVf.
1617.
Earl of Worcester resigns the office of lord-privy-seal to Villiers created earl
of Buckingham. — Lord Ellesmere resigns. — Bacon keeper of the seals. —
Circumstances of Ellesmere's resignation. — His death and character. —
James's visit to Scotland. — He attempts to make himself head of the church,
but is opposed by the parliament and clergy ; — establishes a court of high
commission, — imposes five new articles on the church ; — leaves the country
in anger  Court intrigues. — Coke offers his daughter to Buckingham's bro
ther. — Bacon opposes the match. — His letters against it to Buckingham and
" to the king. — They are displeased, arid Bacon offers to promote the match.
— The king's return from Scotland. — Bacon ill received by Buckingham,
but soon restored to favour.- — Coke re-admitted to the council-board. —
The marriage solemnized. — Coke's wife supported against him. — Book of
sports. — Sabbatarian controversy. — Conduct of the lord-friayor of London.-*-
Arrival and reception of a Russian embassyy— of a Turkish chiaux.—
Death and character of sir Ralph Winwood.
J he old servants of queen Elizabeth began to be
regarded as supernumeraries at the court of her
successor, and such of them as yet lingered on the
scene were one after another dismissed to a private
life to make room for impatient reversionaries who
disdained to await the slow course of nature. Ed
ward earl of Worcester, whom James had continued
in the post of master of the horse, in which he
found him, and who in the earlier part of his reign
appears on some occasions, in the sickness or ab
sence of the earl of Salisbury, to have performed
much of the duty of a secretary of state, was pre
vailed upon to accept a pension and the honorary
office of president of the council, resigning his for
mer post to Villiers, now baron Whaddon and vis
count Villiers, and soon after earl of Buckingham.

48
Neither was lord Ellesmere, with all his merits
towards the crown, permitted to die lord-chancellor
of England. In the year 1615 we have seen him
judged to be at the point of death, and Bacon beg
ging his place : afterwards he recovered sufficiently
to fight with great spirit and success the battles of
the court of chancery against sir Edward Coke and
the king's bench, and to take an active part in the
subsequent degradation and censure of that great
lawyer. Two letters of lord Ellesmere to the king,
earnestly imploring to be relieved from the burden
of his great office, in consideration of his age and
infirmities, are extant, but both are without dates;
to the first of these the king returned a negative,
but probably assented to the second, for on March
3rd 1617, he was permitted to resign the seals, which
were immediately committed to the custody of
Bacon. The title of earl of Bridgewater was con
ferred upon lord Ellesmere, and a pension intended;
but he survived no more than a week the loss of
that high dignity which he had enjoyed for twenty
years. Different representations nave been given
of the manner of his quitting office ; the two letters
above mentioned are in a strain of affecting urgency,
which appears so natural and sincere that we can
scarcely believe his resignation a reluctant one ; it
is also said, that the king came in person to visit
him and to receive the seals from his hands ; that
he shed tears on parting with so old and respected
a servant, and that he declared he would have no
other lord-chancellor whilst lord Ellesmere survived
to bear that title. All these demonstrations how
ever might be insincere; it clearly' appears that the
impatience of Bacon to reach the furthest goal of
his ambition had been exhibited to his predecessor
with a frankness both unusual and offensive ; and
the old man may be thought to have divested him-

49
'self with some regret of his tempting spoils, for the
sake of being allowed to live out his days unenvied,
and to die in peace.
Lord Ellesmere might truly be characterized as a
faithful officer of the crown, and there was one par
ticular piece of service for which James never ceas
ed to own himself his debtor.
After the union with Scotland had been finally
rejected by the English parliament, the king still
sought means to extend to his Scotish subjects the
privileges of Englishmen. A general bill of natura
lization would have been the regular mode of accom
plishing this object; but there was no chance of
carrying it, and it was necessary to resort to a differ
ent expedient.
For the sake of trying the question, one Calyin, a
Scotchman born, laid claim to an inheritance in Eng
land, notwithstanding the statute which declares
foreigners incapable of possessing land within the
realm. The court of king's bench, before which
the cause was brought, did not choose to take upon
itself the sole responsibility of so important a deci
sion ; and caused it to be carried into the court of
exchequer, where it was considered by the chan
cellor and the twelve judges, who, after consultation,
determined unanimously, that persons born in Scot
land since his majesty's accession to the English
throne,— ^-postnati, as they were termed, — were to
all intents and purposes English subjects. This
decision was in fact that of the chancellor, and by
it he offended the nation in the same proportion as
he gratified the k^ng. It was affirmed that the de
cision was contrary to all principle and all European
precedents: but as neither house of parliament
thought proper to take up the cause, it remained of
necessity undisturbed, and continued to afford to
the whole Scotch nation the privileges both of in-
VOL. II. 7

50
heritance and of eligibility to all offices of trust and
profit in England, until the union placed the rela
tions of the two countries on a different and a better
footing. This act, and other instances of subserviency to
the royal will during the reign of James, rendered
the character of lord Ellesmere, once generally re
vered, the object of much diversity of judgment %
by one party he was eulogized as a most upright and
exemplary public man, full of justice, moderation,
and attachment to the best interests of his country;
Osborn on the contrary charges him, in his vague
manner, with corruption ; and a very competent esti
mator has stigmatized him as " famous for his super^
ciliousness and hoisting matters of prerogative."* '
Early in the summer, James carried into effect the
design which he had long entertained of revisiting
Scotland. The ostensible motives for this journey
were, of course, his affection for his native kingdom,
and the promise which he had given on leaving it,
that he would often return; but its real object was
the establishment of the ecclesiastical system of
England on the ruins of that haughty presbytery
which continued to hold out an example of such en
couragement to the pretensions of the English pu
ritans. To dazzle his ancient subjects by the full display
of the pomp and riches of a king of Great Britain
was a part of the policy of James ; and he was care
ful to secure the attendance of a numerous and
splendid train of courtiers, at the head of whom
shone the new earl of Buckingham^ the perfect mir
ror of magnificence, and the only cherished object
of his doting eyes. 0.
* Whitelock's Memorials of the English affairs, p. 296.

51
Bacon, who now bore the office of lord-keeper,
was left behind, and invested with a kind of vice
regal ppwer, which he is said to have exercised with
all the arrogance of a new favourite of fortune.
From Berwick the king proceeded by slow and
solemn journeys to Edinburgh, welcomed at every
town or mansion which he visited in his passage by
panegyrical orations or congratulatory poems, all of
which were in Latin, — the Scotch not choosing, pro
bably, to provoke the ridicule of the English cour
tiers by any specimens of the literature of their an
cient and once cultivated language, already degraded
to a provincial dialect by the transfer of the seat of
empire. The universities of Edinburgh and St. An
drews prepared solemn disputations to be held be
fore his majesty, who characteristically testified his
satisfaction in a string of puns on the names of the
exhibitors, which appeared to himself so witty that
he caused them to be turned both into English and
Latin verse. These duties of royalty once perform
ed, the king hastened from Edinburgh to enjoy his
sylvan sports amid the scenes in which he had first
learned to love them.
In the mean time, his ministers were occupied in
the arduous task of preparing to enforce upon a re
luctant people the scheme of ecclesiastical domina
tion which it was the highest ambition of the mo
narch to bring to effect. Episcopacy had been al
ready established in Scotland ; but it remained to
introduce the ceremonies of the Anglican church
and the high-commission court, — that inquisitorial
tribunal by which these innovations were to be set
tled and their perpetual observance guarantied. In
the parliament assembled at Edinburgh on the king's
return, a refractory spirit was first manifested by the
peers, who dreaded, from a sovereign thus zealous
in the cause of the hierarchy, some attempt to re-

52
cover for its use the church-lands, which had stimu
lated and rewarded the zeal of their ancestors in
the good work of the reformation. Great difficulty
was experienced in procuring a nomination of lords
of the articles conformable to the wishes of the
king ; and he was on the point of dissolving the par
liament in anger, when some mode equally effectual
and secret was discovered of overcoming this oppo
sition. An act was now proposed, as the basis of all
further proceedings, declaring, "that in ecclesiastical
affairs, whatever should be determined by the king,
with the advice of the prelates and a competent
number, of the clergy, should receive the operation
and force of law." This was, in other words, de
claring the sovereign head of the church, and giv
ing up for ever the presbyterian worship and disci
pline, — the idol of the people. The clergy, in well-,
rounded alarm, hastened to prepare a protestation,
which was presented to the parliament just as the
act was about to receive the royal assent. It was
judged inexpedient to carry it through : but nothing-
was gained to the religious liberties of the country
by this apparent victory of their champions ; for the
king now claimed, by his inherent prerogative and
absolute power, all that the proposed law could have
given him. He immediately established a court of
high-commission, and one of its first acts was the de
privation of three clergymen who had been active
in the drawing and presenting of this remonstrance ;
by a further exertion of lawless power, two of them
were also committed to prison, and a third banished
his country for life.
Five articles were propounded to the assembled
clergy under the intimidation of these examples of
royal vengeance, which were the following: That
the eucharist should be received kneeling s That it
should be administered jn private to the sick : That

53
baptism should be privately administered in cases of
necessity: That episcopal confirmation should be
given to youth : That the great festivals in comme
moration of the principal events in the history of
Christ should be duly celebrated.
The rites and practices enjoined by these articles
were precisely those which the English puritans
peculiarly objected to in the service of their own
church, as relics of popery ; and what aggravated
the tyranny and folly of forcing them upon the
Scotch was, that even the English bishops held them
to be things in their own nature indifferent ; for
which reason alone, indeed, they maintained that the
church had the right of instituting them, and de
creeing their perpetual observance.
The afflicted clergy, overawed by the perempto-
riness of the king, yielded for the time a qualified
assent to some of the articles, but implored upon
their knees the convocation of a general assembly.
This, after many precautions to insure its subservi
ency to the royal pleasure, was granted; and the
articles were the next year confirmed by its autho
rity, though not without extreme reluctance and-
many dissenting voices : the new ordinances, more
over, were observed by none excepting the crea
tures of the court ; the body of the people, inflexible
in their religious prepossessions, continued to set at
nought both the mandates of the king and the decrees
of an assembly which they regarded as irregularly
convoked. What was worse,, their disobedience
was in general displayed with impunity ; — for James,,
destitute alike of treasure and of troops, possessed
no means of enforcing submission to the dictates of
that prerogative in the omnipotence of which he
gloried. The Scotch nation however gave him full-
credit for his intentions ; it felt itself insulted, as well
as aggrieved, by the imposition of an English ritual,

54
—an English episcopacy; and it viewed the defecT
tion of the king from that presbyterian establish
ment which he had formerly declared the purest
church in Christendom, and which he had repeatedly
protested that he would maintain inviolate, as a base
apostasy in which it would be infamous to concur.
James on his part was incensed at all the resistance
whiph had been opposed to his absolute power, and
rather provoked than conciliated by the few and re
luctant concessions of the cler^; and he turned
away his steps from his native soil in anger, and pro
bably with the resolution to return no more.*
In the mean time his English court had been the
theatre of intrigues, petty and sordid in their nature
and objects, but memorable as well as mortifying
from the eminence of the parties concerned.
Sir Edward Coke, whose appetite for power and
personal distinction was scarcely inferior to his at
tachment to the constitution of his country, began to
be impatient of the exclusion from public life to'
which his late conduct had doomed him ; and ap
pears to have been on the watch for some opportu
nity of reconciling himself with the court, and again,
confronting Bacon, his now triumphant rival. This;
opportunity the lord-keeper himself unwarily afford-,
ed him. It seems that, on some occasion during the
absence of the king, the airs of superiority which
Bacon thought proper to assume had given high of
fence to sir Ralph Winwo^d, the secretary of state;
who, not content with venting his spleen by some
peevish expressions against the lord-keeper in a dis
patch to his majesty, sought out Coke, his old friend,
and earnestly entreated to be made the means of
restoring him to the favour of Buckingham,— the
.only passport to the good-will of his master. This
%t * See Laing's History of Scotland, under the year 1617.

55
preciousfavour Coke had forfeited, some time before,
by the coldness with which he had listened to pro
posals for a marriage between one of his daughters
and sir John Villiers, the brother" of the earl ; and
Winwood now proposed that this negotiation should
be renewed under his auspices, with the offer, on
the part of Coke, of a large marriage portion. Coke
consented to this expedient ; Buckingham, who had
no object so muchj^t heart as the advancement of
all the members W his numerous and necessitous
family, was propitiated by the overture ; and all ap
peared to be going on prosperously, when sir Ed
ward Coke found himself confronted by obstacles
on which he had not calculated. His wife, — the
wealthy widow of lord Hatton and grand-daughter
of lord Burleigh, — Was a woman much more re
markable for a high spirit than for any of the female
virtues; and provoked beyond endurance at this at
tempt on the part of her husband to dispose of their
daughter without her concurrence, and contrary, it
is said, to the wishes of the young lady herself, she
carried her off and lodged her clandestinely at the
house of sir Edmund Withipole near Oatlands.
Coke thought it necessary to write to Buckingham
to procure a warrant from the privy-cOuncil for his
lady and some of her abettors, in order to the reco
very of his daughter, — of so little force was his au
thority in his own household! Before the arrival of
the warrant, however, he learned where his daugh
ter was concealed, and, taking his sons with him, he
went to sir Edmund Withipole's house and brought
her away by force. Upon this, his contumacious
lady made a complaint against him to the privy-
council. Bacon, who dreaded nothing so much as the re
turn of his old antagonist to power, was not ashamed
to interfere in this family quarrel, and to counte-

56
nance Yelverton, the attorney-general, in filing an
information in the star-chamber against Coke, for
the means which he had taken to recover his daugh
ter, — strictly legal as they unquestionably were.
He also wrote two letters, to the king and to his
patron Buckingham, respecting this marriage,-**
pieces which throw too much light both on his own
character and on the view which he took of that of
Cpke, to be here omitted.
Sir Francis Bacon to the earl of Buckingham.,
" I shall Write to your lordship of a business which
your lordship may think to concern myself ; hut I
do think it concerneth your lordship much more.
For as for me, as my judgement is not so weak to
think it can do me any hurt, so my love to you is so
strong as I would prefer the good of you and yours
before mine own particular.
"It seemeth secretary Winwood hath officiously
busied himself to make a match between your bro
ther and sir Edward Coke's daughter ; and, as we
hear, he doth it rather to make a faction than out
of any great affection to your , lordship. It is true
he hath the consent of sir Edward Coke, as we hear,
upon reasonable conditions for your brother, and
yet no better then without question may be found
in some other matches. But the mother's consent is
not had, nor the young gentlewoman's, who expect-
eth a great fortune from her mother, which, without
her consent, is endangered. This match,, out of my
faith and freedom towards your lordship, I hold very
inconvenient both for your brother and yourself.
"First, he shall marry into a disgraced house,
which in reason of state is never held good.
"Next, he shall marry into a troubled house of
man and wife, which in religion and Christian. dis
cretion is disliked.

57
" Thirdly, your lordship will go near to loose all
such your friends as are adverse to sir Edward Coke
(myself only except, who out of a pure love and
thankfulness shall ever be firm to you).
"And lastly, and chiefly, believe it, it will greatly
Weaken and distract the king's service : for though,
in regard of the king's great wisdom and depth, I
am persuaded those things will not follow which
they imagine, yet opinion will do a great deal of
harm, and cast the Ring back, and make him relapse
into those inconveniences which are now well on to
be recovered.
" Therefore my advice is, and your lordship shall
do yourself a great deal of honour if, according to
religion and the law of God, your lordship will sig
nify unto my lady your mother, that your desire is,
that the marriage be not pressed or proceeded in
without the consent of both parents, and so either
break it altogether, or defer any further (delay)* in
it till your lordship's return. And this the rather,
for that besides the inconvenience of the matter
itself, it hath been carried so harshly and inconsi
derately by secretary Winwood, as, for doubt that
the father should take away the maiden by force,
the mother, to get the start, hath conveyed her away
secretly; which is ill of all sides. Thus, hoping
your lordship will not only accept well but believe
my faithful advice, who by my great experience in
the world must needs see further than your lordship
can, I ever rest," &c.
To the king he ventured to express his jealousy
of the influence of Coke still more undisguisedly,
as follows :
* ThUs in Stephens's collection,
VOL. H. 8

58
. Sir Francis Bacon to the king.
3 , ,,. - i
,;..-." I think it agreeable to my duty and the great
obligation wherein I am tied to your majesty, to be
freer than other men in giving your majesty faithful
counsel, while things are in passing, and more bound
than other men in doing your commandments when
your resolution is settled and made known tome.
1 shall therefore most humbly crave pardon from
your majesty, if in plainness and no less humbleness
•I. deliver to your majesty my disinterested opinion
in the business of the match of sir John Villiers>
which I take to be magnum in parva: preserving
always the laws and duties of a firm friendship to
my lord of Buckingham, whom I will never cease to
love/ and to whom I have written already, but have
not heard yet from his lordship.
" But first I have three suits to make to your
majesty^ hoping well that you will grant them all.
?< The first is* that if there be any merit in draw
ing on that match,' your majesty would bestow the
thahks, not upon any zeal of sir Edward Coke to
please your majesty ; nor upon the eloquent persua
sions or . pragmaticals of Mr. secretary Winwood ;
but upon them that carrying your commands and
directions with strength and justice, in the matter
of the governor of Dieppe, and in the matter of sir
Robert Rich, and in the matter of protecting the
lady according to your majesty's commandment,
have so humbled sir Edward Coke, as he seeketh
now that with submission which, as your majesty
knoweth, before he rejected with scorn : for this is
the true orator that hath persuaded this business; as
I doubt not but your majesty in your excellent wis
dom doth easily discern.
" My second suit is, that your majesty would not
think me so pusillanimous, as that I, that when I was

59
but Mr. Bacon had ever, through your majesty's
favour, good reason at sir Edward Coke's hands
when he was at the greatest, should now, that your
majesty of your great goodness hath placed me so
near your chair, (being, as I hope, by God's grace
and your instructions, made a servant according to
your heart and hand,) fear him or take umbrage of
him in respect of mine own particular. '
u My third suit is, that if your majesty be resolved
the match shall go on, after you have heard my rea
sons to the contrary, I may receive therein your
particular will and commandments from yourself,
that I may conform myself thereunto, imagining to
myself, though I will not wager on women's minds,
that I can prevail more with the mother than any
other man. For if I should be requested in it from
my lord of Buckingham, the answer of a true friend
ought to be ; that I had rather go against his mind
than against his good; but your majesty I must obey.
And besides, I shall conceive that your majesty, out
of your great wisdom and depth, doth see those
things which I see not. Now therefore, not to hold
your majesty with many words, which do but drown
matter, let me most humbly desire your majesty to
take into your royal consideration, that the state is
at this time not only in good quiet and obedience,
but in good affection and disposition; your majesty's
prerogative and authority having risen some just
degrees above the horizon more than heretofore,
which hath dispersed vapors. Your judges are in
good temper, your justices of peace (which is the
body of the gentlemen of England) grow to be lov
ing and obsequious, and to be weary of the humor
of ruffling; all mutinous spirits grow to be a little
poor, and to draw in their horns ; and not the less
for your majesty's disauctorising. the man I speak
of, Now then I reasonably doubt, that if. there be

60
but an opinion of his coming in with the strength
of, such an alliance, it will give a turn and relapse
in men's minds into the former state of things
hardly to be holpen, to the great weakening of your
majesty's service.
" Again, your majesty may have perceived, that
as far as it was fit for me in modesty to advise, I was
ever for a parliament, which seemeth to me to be
cardo rerum, or summa summarum for the present
occasions. But this my advice was ever conditional ;
that your majesty should go to a parliament with- a
council united, and not distracted; and that ytmr
majesty will give me leave never to expect if that
man come in. Not for any difference of mine own
(for I am omnibus omnia for your majesty's service);
but because he is by nature unsociable and by habit
popular, and to© old to take a new ply, And men
>egin already to collect, yea and to conclude, that
ie that raiseth such a smoke to get in, will set all
on fire when he is in,
V It may please your majesty, now I have said, I
have done.. And as I think I have done a duty not
unworthy the first year of your last high favour, I
most humbly pray your majesty to pardon me if in
any thing I have erred : for my errors shall always
be supplied by obedience."
The arguments here employed by Bacon appeal?
to have been skilfully adapted to the ruling preju-.
dices of his master ; and it is probable that they
might have had the intended effect, but for an in-!
terposition on which he had not calculated, Lady
Compton, the mother of Buckingham, who ruledher
son with absolute sway, resolved in favour of this mar
riage, and took pains to conciliate lady Hattoo;
Buckingham in consequence became vehement fop
its accomplishment; and the king followed the leaA

61
of his favourite. Orders were sent from Scotland for
the suspension of the star-chamber proceedings
against sir Edward Coke; a temporary reconcilia
tion was made up between him and his wife ; their
daughter, who had been placed under the protection
of the attorney-general, was resigned to their joint
care; and James, with his usual weak propensity to
convert the private concerns of his minions into
matters of state, threatened to mark his displeasure
against such of the privy-councillors as had taken
upon them to raise an opposition to the match, by
a reprimand pronounced at the first council after
his return, in which he said he should " name some
of the particular errors, though without accusing
particular persons." To Bacon he wrote a severe
letter of reproof; and Buckingham himself, though
he assured the lord-keeper that he had from the first
" played the intercessor" with the king, on account-
of the vehemence of his anger, let him see that he
was considerably displeased on his own account.
This unexpected result of steps by which he had
hoped to injure none but his old enemy, alarmed the
lordVkeeper indeed, but was far from sinking him
into despondency : he judged that he had ample
means of reparation in his power, in the services of
every kind which he daily performed to the king
and to Buckingham ; he availed himself of his re
sources with all the promptitude, the address, and
the unhesitating obsequiousness, which distinguish
ed him. Having propitiated the king and the favour
ite by a respectful submission, he set himself to
promote the marriage which he had deprecated by
all the methods he could devise. " Since my last
to your lordship," he writes to Buckingham, " I did
first send for Mr. attorney-general, and made him
know, that since I had heard from court, I was re
solved to furAer.the mateh, and- the conditions

62
thereof for your lordship's brother's advancement,
the best I could. I did send also to my lady Hatton
and some other special friends, to let them know
Jhat I would in any thing declare myself for the
"match ; which I did to the end that if they had any
apprehension of my assistance, they mought be dis
couraged in it. I sent also to sir John Butler, and af
ter by letter to my lady your mother, to tender my
performance of any good office towards the match,
or the advancement from the mother. This was all I
could think of for the present." " I did ever foresee,"
he adds, " that this alliance would go near to leese
me your lordship, that I hold so dear ; and that was
the only respect particular to myself that moved me
to be as I was, till I heard from you. But I will
rely upon your constancy and nature, and my own
deserving, and the firm tie we have in respect of
the king's service."
This letter was written in the latter end of Au
gust: in the middle of the ensuing month the king
returned ;to Windsor, and Weldon relates the foh
lowing strange and disgraceful circumstances of
Bacon's reception, of which he seems to say that he
was an eye-witness. ,
"He attended two days at Buckingham's chamber,
being not admitted to any better place than the
room where trencher-scrapers and laqueys attended,
there sitting upon an old wooden chest, amongst
such as for his baseness were only fit companions,
although the honour of his place did merit far more
respect; with his purse and seal lying by him on
that chest. Myself told a servant of my lord of
Buckingham's, it was a shame to see the purse and
seal of so little value or esteem in his chamber,
though the carrier without it merited nothing but
scorn, being worst among the basest. He told me
they had command it must be so. After two days

63
he had admittance ; at first entrance he fell down
flat on his face at the duke's foot, kissing it, vowing
never to rise till he had his pardon; then was he
again reconciled ; and since that time so very a slave
to the duke and all that family that he durst not deny
the command of the meanest of the kindred, nor
oppose any thing."* It is to be hoped that Weldon
has somewhat overcharged this picture, after his
custom ; but the disgrace of Bacon must have been
strongly marked, since his restoration to favour called
forth the following energetic expressions of grati
tude, in a letter written to Buckingham about a week
after the king's return :
" My ever best lord, now better than yourself;
" Your lordship's pen, or rather pencil, hath pour-
trayed towards me such magnanimity and noble
ness and true kindness, as methinketh I see the im
age of some ancient virtue, and not any thing of
these times. It is the line of my life, and not the
lines of my letter, that- must express my thankful
ness : wherein if I fail, then God fail me, and make
me as miserable as I think myself at this time happy
by this reviver, through his majesty's singular cle
mency, and your incomparable love and favour."
On the day after the king's return, Coke was re
admitted to the privy-council, but he never reco
vered the office of lord-chief-justice, or received any
appointment in lieu of it. The examination of his
Institutes by a committee of lawyers, which Bacon
had zealously promoted, was now dropped; and
during the few succeeding years in which the two
antagonists retained their stations at the council-
* Weldon's King James, p. 132.

64
hoard, they appear to have abstained from all direct
acts of hostility ; Coke however was still embroiled
with his turbulent wife, who was openly countenan
ced in the war which she had declared against him
by the party of his political opponents. This vio
lent woman had been committed for a libel against
her husband, and was in custody when the long-
contested marriage of her daughter took place; but
her liberality in the settlement of her independent
property on the young couple, procured her speedy
release, and enabled her to renew her matrimonial
complaints to the king and council.
A letter from sir Thomas Wentworth, afterwards
earl of Strafford, to sir Henry Wotton, written in
November 1617, has the following paragraph rela
tive to this affair : " The expectancy of sir Edward
Coke's rising is much abated, by reason of his lady's
liberty, who was brought in great honour to Exetef
house by my lord of Buckingham from sir William
Craven's, whither she had been remanded, present*
ed by his lordship to the king, received gracious
usage, reconciled to her daughter by his majesty,
and her house in Holborn enlightened by his pre
sence at dinner, where there was a royal feast, and
to make it more absolutely her own, express com
mandment given by her ladyship, as is reported,:
that neither sir Edward Coke, nor any of his ser-,
vants should be admitted."*
Such then were the wars, such the negotiations*
which, under the auspices of king James and his
favourite, engrossed the attention of the court, and
occupied the minds of sir Edward Coke and Francis-
Bacon !
During the king's journey back from Scotland,
which he converted into a minting progress of seve-
* Strafford papers, vol. i. p. 5.

65
ral weeks, the observations which he had occasion
to make on the temper of the people in the north
of England, and particularly in Lancashire, seconded
by a petition from the inhabitants of that county,
suggested to him a measure pregnant with future
mischiefs to the house of Stuart. This was the pub
lication of a " declaration to encourage recreations
and sports on the Lord's day ;" commonly called the
Book of sports. The indulgence was a large one,
comprehending dancing, archery, leaping, vaulting,
May-games, Whitsunales, morrice dances and setting
up of Maypoles; bull and bear baiting, interludes
and bowls being alone prohibited of the diversions
permitted on other days. It was however provided,
that these recreations should be held at such hours
as not to interfere with divine service, and that they
should be allowed to such persons only as had per
formed the religious duties of the day at their own
parish churches.
The people of Lancashire, mostly catholics, em
braced with joy the permission to return to their
ancient recreations, some of which were closely con
nected with the observances of the old religion ; and
the declaration seems to have been read without
scruple in the parish churches of that county. On
the other hand, it was regarded with horror by the
puritanical clergy, and indeed by all but a high*
church party, throughout the rest of the kingdom :
and Wilson states, that the king's design of causing
it to be published in all the parish churches of the
kingdom was quashed by the primate's positive re
fusal to read it in his own church of Croydon.
A few particulars of the Sabbatarian controversy
which had preceded these transactions will reflect
light on the conduct and motives of James in this
affair. Fuller, in his Church History, affords the fol
lowing notices under the year 1595 : " About this
VOL. II. 9

66
time throughout England began the more solemn
and strict observation of the Lord's day (hereafter
both in writing and preaching commonly called the
Sabbath) occasioned by a book this year set forth
by one P. Bound doctor in divinity, and enlarged
with additions in 1606."* The following precepts
were contained in this work : That the sanctifying
of every seventh day, as in the decalogue, is moral
and perpetual : That it ought to be observed as "a
most careful, exact and precise rest, after another
manner than men are accustomed r" That scholars
should not study the liberal arts on that day, nor
lawyers consult, nor Serjeants and apparitors be al
lowed to execute their offices, nor magistrates to
examine causes : That the ringing of more bells
than one on that day could not be justified : That
feasts and wedding dinners should not be made,
(unless by lords, knights and gentlemen,) and that
all recreations lawful on other days, and all speech
of pleasure, should be forborne. It is almost incre
dible," adds our author, " how taking this doctrine
was, partly because of its own purity, and partly for
the eminent piety of such persons as maintained it ;
so that the Lord's day, especially in corporations,
began to be precisely kept, people becoming a law
to themselves, forbearing such sports as yet by sta
tute permitted ; yea many rejoicing at their own
restraint herein  Yet learned men were much
divided in their judgments about these Sabbatarian
doctrines : some embraced them as ancient truths
consonant to scripture long disused and neglected,
and now seasonably revived for the increase of piety.
Others conceived them grounded on a wrong bot
tom, but because they tended to the manifest ad
vance of religion it was pity to oppose them .... But
* Fuller's Ch. hist. b. ix. p. 227.

67
a third sort flatly fell out with these positions as
galling men's necks with a Jewish yoke, against the
liberty of Christians : That Christ, as lord of the
Sabbath, had removed the rigour thereof and allowed
men lawful recreations : That this doctrine put an
unequal lustre on the Sunday on set purpose to
eclipse all other holidays, to the derogation of the
authority of the church : That this strict observance
was set up out of faction to be a character of diffe
rence, to brand all for libertines who did not enter
tain it." It was some years however before any one
chose openly to oppose the doctrine of Bound and
his followers, which in the mean time grew and pros
pered. At length Thomas Rogers in his preface
to the Book of articles boldly attacked " the Sabba
tarian errors and impieties;" taking great credit to
himself that through his representations their books
had been both called in by archbishop Whitgift and
" forbidden any more to be printed" by chief-justice
Popham. These prohibitions however did but in
crease the reputation and the sale of the forbidden
books; the doctrine grew with the growth of puri-
tanism, and even extended beyond its pale ; and at
the time when the declaration was issued, it had al
ready become unwise, to say no more, to attempt its
subversion by authority. But James was impelled
on this occasion by his humour no less than his poli
tical bias, and it is difficult to say whether he more
disliked the strictness of Sabbath observance as a
badge of puritanism, or as a check on the natural
carelessness and festivity of his temper. Theologian
as he was, his behaviour even at church was grossly
irreverent ; and the common decencies of the day
were fearlessly violated by his household and attend
ants. On this head it is related, that the court be
ing once about to remove on a Monday from White
hall to Theobalds, the carts were sent through the

68
city the day before in service time, with much noise
and clatter. The lord-mayor caused them to be
stopped, equally to the indignation and astonishment
of the officers who attended them, by whom an an
gry representation was carried to the king of the in
dignity which had been put upon them. James was
much enraged, and swore he thought there had been
no more kings in England than himself: however,
after a pause, he condescended to order a regular
warrant to be sent to the lord-mayor for the release
of the carts : the magistrate immediately complied,
with this remark : " While it was in my power I did
my duty ; but that being taken away by a higher
power, it is my duty to obey." The king was struck
With the answer, and, on second thoughts, thanked
the lord-mayor for his conduct.*
One of the few remaining incidents of the year
1617 was the arrival of a Russian embassy, which
afforded matter both of admiration and amusement
to the king and the inhabitants of London. Sir
John Finett is the narrator of the particulars of its
reception. On the day of audience, the ambassador with his
two assistants proceeded to court from their quar
ters in the city, all their servants of less esteem
marching on foot before them, "the rest in coaches
provided by the merchants, each of those on foot
carrying before them with ostentation to open view
some parcel of the various present sent to his ma
jesty from the emperor, This consisted of sable
furs, black foxes, ermines, hawks, with their hoods
and mantles covering their backs and wings, all em
broidered with gold and pearl ; two lining sables,
a Persian dagger and knife set with stones and
pearls, two rich cloth of gold Persian horse-cloths,
* Wilson, p. 106.

69
a Persian kettle-drum to lure hawks with, &c. Be
sides many sables and black fox furs sent the king
from three of the principal nobles of the emperor's
court, and besides some presented to his majesty
from the ambassador and the chancellor. The queen
and prince had likewise their several presents of furs
from all these mentioned, altogether esteemed worth
4,000/. sterling." On their arrival, they Were re
ceived and ushered into the king's presence in the
banque ting-house with all due ceremonies ; but, " be
ing entered the room, the exceeding press of people
so hindered their profound superstitious reverences,
or rather adorations, (as stooping and knocking their
foreheads against the ground,) intended to have been
thrice, but by that hindrance only once, and that
close to his majesty, performed by thetii, as it turned
much to their discountenance and discontent." To
repair this misfortune, the bearers of the present,
about fifty in number, were afterwards marched One
by one along the privy gallery, " where his majesty
might at his leisure, in his return, take better view
of what the press had before hindered."
These ambassadors were again conducted to court
some time afterwards, to receive audience of the
king, to transact business with the council, and after
wards to dine with his majesty; When several per
plexing accidents occurred which are faithfully re
corded by the master of the ceremonies. The king's
coach not being sent for their conveyance in due
time, lord Delaware was not in waiting at the court
gate to receive them on their arrival; "so as the
ambassadors, punctilious in their reception, made a
stand against the court gate; but at last, against
their ceremonious stomachs, went on as far as the
midst of that first court, where they were met by the
said lord." But the king was now gone to chapel,
the ambassadors were obliged to wait an hour for

70
his return, and there was then no time to do busi
ness with the council before dinner. Being asked
whether they would do business after dinner, they
excused themselves, saying, they hoped his majesty
would allow them to take their wine, which could
not be if they must meet the council afterwards.
Yet it was a rule in their country, that they must
. always " see the prince's eyes" on the day on which
they met his council. To humour them in this point,
James was obliged to admit them to his presence
the next day, on their way to the council.* Thus
oriental were at this period the manners of the semi-
barbarous Muscovy!
A few months afterwards, fresh astonishment was
excited by the arrival and behaviour of a Turkish
chiaux, whose expenses were defrayed by the Turkey
company, now a considerable and opulent body.
" He had within few days after," says Finett, " his
Eublic audience of his majesty in the banqueting-
ouse, purposely hung for him with rich hangings,
where his majesty touched one of his followers, said
to be his son, for cure of the king's evil, using at it
the accustomed ceremony of signing with the cross,
but no prayers before or after."f
In the autumn of this year, the country was de
prived by death of sir Ralph Winwood, principal
secretary of state, a man of severe temper and un
gracious manners, but an able, and apparently an
upright minister, and a strenuous opponent of the
Spanish faction. Sir Ralph was the grandson of
Lewis Winwood secretary to Charles Brandon duke
of Suffolk. He received his education at St. John's
college Oxford, was elected probationer-fellow of
Magdalen college in 1582, and continuing appa
rently to reside at the university, was junior proctor
* Finetti Philoxenis, p. 38. et seq.
t Finetti Philox. p. 58.

71
in 1592, and two years afterwards supplicated to be
admitted a doctor of civil law. He then proceeded
to accomplish himself by travel, and in 1599 he
attended that able and honourable statesman sir
Henry Nevil as secretary in his embassy to France.
He afterwards remained some time in that country
as resident, and was subsequently appointed ambas
sador to the United States, in which post he con
tinued during several eventful years. The extra
ordinary zeal with which he fulfilled the instructions
of his master in his absurd and disgraceful applica
tions for the dismissal and persecution of Vorstius,
appears to have sprung in part from his personal
attachment to the doctrines of Calvinism; an attach
ment which seems to have procured for him the
friendship of archbishop Abbot. At the negotiations
for a truce between Spain and the United Stages, he
assisted as joint-commissioner for theking of Great
Britain; and on the completion of this important
business he obtained his recall. By the interest of
the earl of Somerset, which he probably purchased,
Winwood was appointed secretary of state in 1614;
sir Thomas Lake being nominated his coadjutor
some lime afterwards. In this situation, the embar
rassments of the government and the grievances of
the country forced themselves upon his daily notice
and filled his mind with melancholy bodings. To
his friend sir Thomas Edmonds, then ambassador in
France, he appears to have opened his heart with
out reserve on these subjects : " I am ashamed,"
says he on one occasion, " to write what is the ex
tremity of our penury ; for which my grief is the
greater, because, I profess, I see no remedy or re
lief."* The remarks of Edmonds were equally de
sponding. Such were the observations confidentially
* Birch's Negotiations, p, 375.

72
communicated to each other by the public servants
of king James, who witnessed with indignation, pro
fusion in fhe prince and rapacity in his minions which
no efforts of theirs could regulate or control ; and
who beheld with alarm the daily aggravation of po
pular grievances under a system which excluded the
only constitutional mode of redress, the assembling
of a parliament ! Winwood's friendship for sir Ed
ward Coke and his hostility to Bacon have been al
ready noticed ;- both may be regarded as tokens of
an attachment to the ancient liberties of his country
which was likely to draw upon him the displeasure
of his sovereign, and which ought to secure to his
memory the respect of posterity.
The valuable and able dispatches of sir Ralph
Winwood during his employment in Holland, may be
read in the "Memorials" which bear his name; and
numerous extracts from his correspondence, as secre
tary of state, with sir Thomas Edmonds, have been
given to the world in the " Negotiations" of Dr.
Birch.

CHAPTER XVII.
1618.
Liberation of Raleigh. — Occurrences during his imprisonment.— His expedi
tion to Guiana. — Return, — imprisonment, — death. — King's antipathy to
young Raleigh. — Declaration by authority of the motives for putting
Raleigh to death. — Proof that he was sacrificed to Spain. — Reform of
the royal expenditure. — Condemnation of the lord treasurer for corrup
tion.
After a tedious imprisonment of more than twelve
years, the ill-treated Raleigh had obtained in an
evil hour the liberty which he had so long solicited
in vain ; and it now becomes necessary to resume
the thread of his disastrous story.
Nothing in the whole life of this illustrious person
reflects so much true glory on his memory as the
manner in which he had occupied his time and his
thoughts during the long period of his involuntary
seclusion from the world.
" Then active still and unrestrained, his mind
Explored the long extent of ages past,
And with his prison-hours enriched the world."
That admirable work, the period and circum
stances of the writer considered, the "History of
the world," and several occasional pieces, were the
valuable products of this season of adversity: he
also found spirits for the pursuits of chemistry and
medicine, sciences which had long shared his atten
tion, and the former of which he had the advantage
of cultivating in common with his fellow prisoner the
earl of Northumberland and the little group of na
tural philosophers whom this nobleman was permit-
VOL. II. 10

74
ted to assemble around him within the precincts of
the Tower, The fortitude which in such a situa
tion rendered Raleigh complete master of the ex
cellent abilities with which nature had endowed
him, appears the more admirable from the peculiar
cruelty of a fortune which seemed never weary of
pursuing him with fresh injuries and disappoint
ments. It has been mentioned, that at the time of Raleigh's
conviction, the property of Sherborne castle, his
principal estate, had been preserved to his heirs by
a conveyance of it to his eldest son, which had been-
executed under the former reign. * After his attain
der, also, the king had been pleased to grant him his
life-interest in it '. pecuniary distress therefore, and
the ruin of his family, were not at first added to the
weight of his afflictions. But two or three years
afterwards, the rapacious scrutiny of some of the
courtiers had discovered a flaw in this conveyance,
and chief-justice Popham, the same judge who pre
sided at Raleigh's trial and sanctioned all its atro
cious iniquity, gave it as his judgment that the instru
ment was bad in law, though the error was nothing
more than the accidental omission of a word by the
transcriber. Carr, then in the plenitude of his fa
vour and insolence, petitioned the king to grant him
this estate, the only remaining support of a wretch
ed prisoner, and the bread of his unhappy children ;
and Raleigh as a last resource was induced to ad
dress to the unfeeling minion the following letter of
eloquent expostulation :
" Sir, — After some great losses and many years'
sorrows, (of both which I have cause to fear I Was
mistaken in the end,) it is come to my knowledge
that yourself, whom I know not but by an honoura
ble fame, hath been persuaded to give me and mine
our last fatal blow, by obtaining from his majesty

75
the inheritance of my children and nephews, lost in
the law for want of a word. This done, there re-
maineth nothing with me but the name of life, de
spoiled of all else but the title and sorrow thereof.
His majesty, whom I never offended, (for I hold it
unnatural and unmanlike to hate goodness,) stayed
me at the grave's brink; not, as I hope, that he
thought me worthy of many deaths, and to behold
all mine cast out of the world with myself, but as a
king who, judging the poor in truth, hath received a
promise from God that his throne shall be establish
ed for ever.
" And for yourself, sir, seeing your fair day is but
now in the dawn, and mine drawn to the evening,
your own virtues and the king's grace assuring you
of many favours and much honour, I beseech you
not to begin your first building upon the ruins of the
innocent; and that their sorrows, with mine, may
not attend your first plantation. I'have been ever
bound to your nation, as well for many other graces,
as for the true report of my trial to the king's ma
jesty : against whom had I been found malignant,
the hearing of my cause would not have changed
enemies into friends, malice into compassion, and the
minds of the greater number then present into the
commiseration of mine estate. It is not ihe nature
of foul treason to beget such fair passions. Neither
could it agree with the duty and love of faithful sub
jects, especially of your nation, to bewail his over
throw who had conspired against their most natural
and liberal lord. I therefore trust, sir, that you will
not be the first that shall kill us#utright, cut down"
the tree with the fruit, and undergo the curse of them
that enter the fields of the fatherless. Which, if it
please you to know the truth, is far kns in value
than in fame. But that so worthy a gentleman as
yourself will rather bjnd us to you, (being, sir, gen-

76
tlemen not base in birth and alliance that have in
terest therein,) and myself, with my uttermost thank
fulness will ever remain ready to obey your com
mands. " Walter Raleigh."
It will readily be conceived, that to him who could*
need such a remonstrance it would be addressed in
vain : Carr persevered in his suit, and obtained it at
the hands of a prince regardless alike of justice and
of mercy when compliance with his favourites was
in question. Lady Raleigh, who kneeled with her
children at the king's feet to deprecate the medi
tated injury, received no other answer from this
vicegerent of the deity, as he was pleased to style
himself, than the following words, " / mun htf the,
land, I mun ha' it for Carr ;" and the spoliation was
completed; the king granting to lady Raleigh, and
her son a miserable sum of 8,000/. under the name
of compensation-VPrince Henry, the warmest, ad*
mirer and best frijend of Raleigh in his adversity,
seems to have witnessed with violent indignation
this new act of iniquity, perpetrated by a man whom
he hated; and some time after he begged, or ra
ther demanded, that Sherborne should be bestowed,
on himself, The king, who disliked, and perhapst
, dreaded, tg oppose him in wishes thus expressed,,
at length consented; and bought back his grant to,
Carr for 25,000Z. It is not doubted that it was the
purpose of Henry to restore his acquisition to the,
rightful owner ; but his lamented death almost im
mediately afterwards, precluded the performance
of this act of justice, and Sherborne was again be
stowed by the monarch on his rapacious favourite.
The loss of his princely patron almost overwhelm
ed the lonij tried fortitude of Raleigh. To culti
vate the esteem and conciliate the affections of,
Henry had been for some years the principal object

77
of his solicitude, as it was to the coming reign alone
that he could look forward with the hope of re
storation to liberty, to favour, and to active life.
Among the writings of Raleigh there are several
which prove this, particularly two discourses writ
ten in 1611, partly by command of the prince, in
which he discusses and opposes the marriages with
, Savoy then proposed for Henry and for his sister;
and a letter on ship-building addressed to him.
The " History of the world" was also, as he states,
" directed" to the prince ; whose death he mentions
as one of several discouragements which had induced
him to lay aside the second and third volumes of the
work which he had projected and " hewn out." In
the same history the following affecting passage also
occurs :
" Of the art of war by sea I had written a trea
tise for the lord Henry prince of Wales ; a subject,
to my knowledge, never handled by any man ancient
or modern. But God hath spared me the labor of
finishing it by his loss; by the loss of that brave
prince, of which, like an eclipse of the sun, we shall
find the effects hereafter. Impossible it is to equal
words and sorrows; I will therefore leave him in the
hands of God that hath him — ewrce leves loquuntur,.
ingentes stupent."*
A famous confection, compounded by Raleigh of
a vast multitude of ingredients, according to the
pharmaceutics of that age, and called his cordial,
was administered to the prince in his last illness.
When applied to for this medicine, Raleigh had sent
it with the message, that " It would certainly cure
hjm or any other of a fever except in case of poi-
son."t The queen dwelt much on this expression
* History of the World, lib. v. c. i. sec. 6.
t Welwood's notes on Wilson, in Complete history of England, ii. 714.

78
when the remedy proved unavailing, and it is said
to have been the principal ground of her conviction
that her son met his death by foul means. This
princess entertained a particular esteem for Raleigh,
and exerted herself with great zeal for his relief;
but no one was more entirely void of interest at the
court of her husband ; and her efforts only served
to prove her wishes. Two events however,— the
death of Salisbury shortly before that of the prince,
and the disgrace of Somerset some time after, —
partly compensated to Raleigh his loss by that event,
and revived his hopes of deliverance. Somerset
could never be brought to consent to the release of
a man whom he had so deeply injured; but his suc
cessor in the king's affections had no such motive
to be inexorable; and a bribe of 1500/. to two
courtiers, one of whom was the uncle of Bucking
ham, served to procure the mediation of this favo
rite, and the consequent liberation of Raleigh in
March 1616.
Sir Walter Raleigh, in the year 1595, had under
taken, with the approbation of queen Elizabeth, a
voyage for the purpose of exploring those vast re
gions of the interior of South America known by
the general name of the empire of Guiana. He had
sailed far up the great river Oronoko, and having
entered into correspondence with some of the native
chiefs, and promised in the queen's name to protect
them against the cruelties of the Spaniards, who had
made some abortive attempts at conquest and settle
ment in that quarter, had taken formal possession of
the country in behalf of his sovereign ; — a species
of title which may at least be accounted a valid
plea against the Spanish claim to the whole wes
tern hemisphere by papal donation. No relin
quishment of the English right, such as it was, had
been exacted by the king of Spain in the subsequent

79
•treaty between the countries ; English navigators
had afterwards made several voyages to the coast
without calling forth any remonstrances on the part ¦
of Philip III. ; and Raleigh himself, notwithstand
ing his captivity, had several times contrived to send
vessels thither for the purpose of keeping up his own
interest there, and that of his country. He had once
offered to go thither in person, if he could obtain"
his liberty and the king's permission ; and this pro-
Eosition, which had been negatiAd by Salisbury,
e now renewed, as he fondly imagined, under hap
pier auspices. Sir Ralph Winwood was disposed
by the general complexion of his politics to encou
rage a design unpleasing to the court of Spain ; the
earl of Pembroke patronised it, perhaps for a similar
reason; and the earl of Arundel, either from personal
friendship to Raleigh or from the enlightened cu
riosity by which he was distinguished.
The king listened coldly to the petitions addressed
to him on the subject, partly from the dislike and
suspicion with which he regarded the original pro
jector, and partly because he was anxious that no
thing should interrupt his harmony with that court
whence he again indulged the hope of receiving a
bride for his son. But Raleigh's confident asser
tion of the existence of a rich gold mine in Guiana,
which he proposed to explore, seems to have proved
too tempting a bait to be declined by the necessitous
monarch ; and Winwood had the satisfaction of pro
curing his signature to a commission for Raleigh to
proceed. on this expedition, dated in August 1616.
This commission was represented by the highest
legal authority as a virtual pardon of all past trea
sons; for Bacon, then lord-keeper, being informed
by Raleigh that the same persons of whom he had
purchased his liberation had offered to procure him
a pardon for a further sum, is said to have dissuaded

80
him from the purchase in the following words :—
"Sir, the knee-timbfr-- of your voyage is money.
Spare your purse in thTs particular; for, upon my
life, you have a sufficient pardon for what is past al
ready; the king having, under his broad seal, made
you admiral of your fleet and given you power of
martial law over your officers and soldiers."* Ra<-
leigh rested on this decision, imprudently as well as
fatally ; for he ought to have taken into his account
both "the generaiftaseness and the particular foibles
of the monarch on whom his life depended. Ever
since the Spanish court had learned rightly to ap-
Ereciate the character of James, it had laid aside all
ostile attempts against his life and government, and
contented itself with gaining most of its ends by
means of a system of open bribery with respect to
his ministers, and gross cajolery with respect to
himself. This system, at the period of Raleigh's
liberation, was conducted with peculiar skill and
efficacy by the Spanish ambassador don Diego Sar-
miento de Acuna, afterwards count de Gondomar,
one of the most prominent characters in the history
of diplomacy in England. Endowed with a strong
and clear understanding, with a rich vein of festive
wit, with the talent of adroit flattery, and with that
species of courtly courage which passes for frank
ness, and affords the most dignified disguise to ar
tifice and perfidy, he possessed every species of ad
vantage over a prince who loved to be amused and
was accustomed to be intimidated; and his ascend
ency over him was daily becoming more absolute.
Contrary both to policy and etiquette, James made
this licensed spy of an essentially hostile court, the
companion of his hours of privacy and relaxation ;
listened with delight to his sallies, swallowed all his
* Howell's Letters.

81
adulation without perceiving it, and listened with
fond credulity to his assurances of the perfect will
ingness of his bigoted court to bestow the hand of
the infanta, with an enormous portion, on the prince
of Wales, a heretic. It is a characteristic trait of
Gondomar, that he was accustomed, in his private
audiences and familiar interviews, to converse with
the king in extremely bad Latin ; " for which," says
Osborn, "he had such dexterous evasions as his
majesty could by no means make so good use of
what was more congruous; it remaining always in
his power to alter the times and cases of his words."
When reproached by James for his offences against
grammar, he would gratify the royal pedant by an
swering, with an apparent boldness, " that he himself
spake like a prince, free and unconfined; his majesty
like a grammarian, as if afraid of the fertrta."*
The vigilance of Gondomar was alarmed by the
first report of Raleigh's projected voyage to Guiana ;
for the West India possessions of his master were
the most vulnerable part of his empire, and the for
mer enterprises of Raleigh in that quarter of the
world had inured him to hostility with the Spaniards.
The ambassador therefore lost not a moment in de
nouncing the intended expedition as a scheme of
piracy and plunder under the disguise of a mining
adventure. James in vain assured him that Raleigh
durst not for his life commit any act of enmity against
his beloved ally the king of Spain : Gondomar was
not to be satisfied till the king compelled sir Walter
to commit to writing the whole plan of his voyage,
specifying the force to be employed, describing mi
nutely the part of the coast on which he designed
to land, and marking the exact situation of the
boasted mine ; which Keymis, the second in com-
* Osborn's Advice to a son, t. 33.
VOL. II. 11

82
mand, professed to have formerly discovered. Ra
leigh made these disclosures with extreme reluc
tance, and, according to his own confession, wil
fully concealed the circumstance that the Spaniards
had built a small town Called St. Thomas, and were
Working mines, at the very point to which he and his
adventurers were bound. The king instantly sent
his statement, such as it was, to the ambassador, by
whom it was conveyed with the same speed to his
court ; and orders were immediately dispatched in
Consequence to the governors of the neighbouring
Spanish settlements, to be in readiness to resist the
approach of the English. Many adventurous spirits
were found, eager to share the hazards and the glory
of so renowned a commander; others contributed
with alacrity to the expenses of the equipment, lured
by the golden hopes of a mine of unexampled riches ;
and in July 1617 sir Walter sailed from Plymouth
on board the Destiny of 36 guns, built at his. own
charge, and at the head of a squadron amounting
in all to fourteen vessels, most of which Were armed,
though of small size. It is superfluous here to re
late the disasters which awaited this ill-omened fleet
on its tedious and dangerous passage : suffice it to
say, that on arriving at the mouth of the Oronoco,
Raleigh, who was himself incapacitated by sickness
from quitting his ship, sent up the river five small
vessels, carrying a company of fifty men each, under
the command of Key mis and of Walter Raleigh,
his eldest son. Their orders were, to make the
best of their way to the mine, and not to molest the
Spaniards unless first attacked by them. The Spa
niards, regardless of the title advanced by the Eng
lish to the sovereignty of the country, fired upon
Raleigh's men as they passed up the river ; . they
landed, made a fierce charge upon the Spaniards,
whom they drove into St. Thomas, and proceeded

83
to attack the town ; young Raleigh leading on his
company to the assault, and, as his father's enemies
afterwards affirmed, exclaiming, " that this was the
true mine, and that none but fools looked for any
other." However this might be, the young leader
was slain in the first onset ; but his companions per
severed and carried the town, which they plundered
of the slender booty it contained, and then set on
fire. Keymis afterwards attempted to penetrate to
the mine ; but having lost a part of his small force
by an ambuscade, he quitted the enterprise in des
pair, and returned to the ships to announce to Ra
leigh the death of his son, and the total failure of the
whole design. The unhappy commander, in the
bitterness of his despair and anguish reproached
Keymis so severely, that this officer retired to his
cabin, and put a period to his own life. After this
disappointment all subordination was at an end, and
Raleigh, finding the ruin of his hopes irretrievable,
set sail, inglorious and disconsolate, for Europe.
The news of the burning of St. Thomas reached
England before him, in the shape of bitter com
plaints and lofty remonstrances on the part of Gon
domar ; and James, trembling for his darling Spanish
match, had not awaited the return of Raleigh to
publish a vehement proclamation declaratory of his
detestation of his proceedings. It is mentioned in a
contemporary letter that lord Carew, a statesman of
distinguished ability and the fast friend of Kaleigh,
" was upon his knees before the king a good while
in his behalf." "And they say," adds the writer,
" his majesty's answer was, that as good hang him
as deliver him to the king of Spain, who assuredly
would ; and one of these two he must, at least if the
case were so as the Spanish ambassador had repre«
sented it. And when my lord yet pressed him,
' Why, the most thou canst expect,' said the king,

84
'is, that I would give him the hearing;' and so dis
missed him. And, indeed, a legal hearing is all sir
Walter's well-wishers desire, for then they make no
doubt but he will make his cause good against all
accusations in this kind whatsoever."*
Raleigh in fact had transmitted apologetical ac
counts of his conduct both to lord Carew and to sir
Ralph Winwood, of whose death he was not then
apprized. He landed at Plymouth in July 1618,
and immediately set out for London to offer his de
fence to the king and privy-council. Before he had
reached Ashburton he was met by his kinsman sir
Lewis Stukely with a warrant to take him into cus
tody and to convey him to London, and under his
charge he returned to Plymouth. This arrest, add
ed to the proclamation already published against
him, filled the mind of Raleigh with the most for
midable apprehensions, and he at first meditated an
escape into France, and engaged a vessel to be in
readiness for this purpose ; but his courage return
ing, he laid aside this intention and submitted to re-?
commence his journey. Still, his heart misgave him,
and with an artifice unworthy of a great character,
he feigned a sickness, by the aid of a French em
piric who attended him, which procured him a delay
of a few days at Salisbury, during which he cooir
posed a masterly defence of himself. On approach?
mg London he laid a fresh scheme for his escape to
the French coast, in which Le Clerc, the agent for
that court, offered him his assistance. A boat was
provided, and Raleigh had actually proceeded in it
below Woolwich, and was doubtless already con
gratulating himself on his safety, when the perfidi
ous Stukely, who had received a bribe from him for
his co-operation, and even affected an active zeal iq
* Cayley's £ijfe of Raleigh, ii. 137.

85
his service, caused him to be again apprehended ;
and he was once more committed to his old lodgings
in the Tower on August 10, 1618. He was now sub
jected to frequent examinations by the chancellor
and other commissioners appointed for the purpose ;
and many consultations were held by the ministers
to determine, not the best manner of trying his in
nocence or guilt, but the least ineligible mode of sa
crificing him to the politics of the court and the ven
geance of Spain.
It was now believed by king James that the alli
ance between his son and the infanta was on the
point of completion; for Gondomar had just de
parted for Spain bearing the marriage articles, to
which the prince of Wales had set his hand: but
this minister had commissioned Toby Matthew, —
that noted convert of father Parsons who had been
recalled from exile purposely to assist in this nego
tiation, — distinctly to intimate that any slackness in
the prosecution of Raleigh would " serve for mate
rials of future and final discontentments."* This
menace was duly forwarded by Matthew in a letter
to the chancellor, his ancient intimate, and on the
mind of James it was well calculated to produce its
effect. Still, the affair was not without its difficul
ties : to punish Raleigh for burning a Spanish town
in Guiana, he having been first attacked by its in
habitants, was to confess that the Spaniards had an
exclusive right to establish themselves in this coun
try, notwithstanding the formal possession which
had been taken of it by the English ; — a concession
of no small moment ; since at the last peace with
Spain, all questions relative to the right of trading
and settling in the western hemisphere had been
passed over in silence, by mutual consent, as incapa-
* Cay ley's Life of Raleigh, ii. 146.

86
ble of amicable adjustment ; and English adventur
ers had been left to pursue their enterprises in this
quarter with no other check than the certainty of
being put to death by the Spaniards as pirates and
interlopers whenever they proved the weakest.
The king indeed had some cause to complain of Ra
leigh for an abuse of his commission, by which he
was only empowered to dig mines in such parts of
the country as were uninhabited, or occupied by In
dians alone ; but it might be doubtful now far he
was legally punishable for this trespass, and an abor
tive attempt to bring him to punishment was above
all things to be avoided.
Two months were occupied by the commission in
their examinations and discussions, at the end of
which Bacon, with his usual baseness, silently relin
quishing the opinion which he had given, that the
former sentence against Raleigh had been virtually
annulled, concurred in the following report : That
the prisoner, having been attainted of treason, the
highest offence known to the law, could not be called
in question for any inferior crime, and that one of
these two courses would be advisable : — either that
his majesty, together with, the warrant for the exe
cution of his former sentence, should simply publish
a declaration of the offences since committed by
him ; — or that, with a nearer approach to the form
of a legal proceeding, Raleigh should first be called
before the council, to which some noblemen and
others should be added, who, after hearing his of
fences set forth by the king's counsel, and listening
to such defence as he could make, should give their
opinion whether, in consideration of the acts charge
ed, his majesty might not, in justice and honour, give
warrant for his death on the former sentence ; and
that a solemn act of council should be made, with a
memorial of the persons present. The last course,

87
though recommended by the commissioners as the
preferable one, appeared to the king less eligible
than the more summary mode of proceeding ; and
an order under the privy-seal was speedily directed
to the judges for immediate execution of the pri
soner. The judges, on consulting, decided that the
prisoner must be brought by habeas corpus into the
king's bench to receive his doom : this was done ;
and it was then demanded of him by the chief-jus
tice what he had to say why execution should not
be granted ? Raleigh pleaded the pardon implied in
his late commission, and added a few words on the
hardship of the original sentence. The chief-justice,
without entering into any argument, authoritatively
overruled the objection, and, after a few words of
exhortation to the prisoner to meet death in a be
coming frame of mind, declared that execution was
granted. Such was the haste used in the business,
that the Warrant for decapitation with the king's
signature affixed, was immediately produced, though
James was then absent from London ; and the next
morning, October 29th, the prisoner was brought to
the scaffold in Palace-yard.
The character of Raleigh was not without dark
shades ; nor had his conduct in the prosperous and
active part of his career been free from the blemishes
of pride towards his inferiors, immoderate adulation
towards the princess whose smile had called him
forth from obscurity, a rapacious desire of wealth
and power, and an unhesitating employment of the
courtly arts of intrigue and corruption. But his
genius, equally comprehensive and lofty, had redeem
ed itself from these unworthinesses. During the
twelve long years which he had been doomed to
wear away within the walls of a prison, his active
spirit had freely exercised itself on those most inte
resting of all topics of human speculation, the na-

88
tut'e and destiny of man, and the relation in which
he stands to his maker ; and the result had been,
What it must ever be in a sound and well-constituted
mind, to strengthen his reliance on eternal wisdom
and goodness. His piety, which had been rashly
Called in question by persons incapable of making
allowance for any deviation from popular opinions,
shone forth in the last solemn scene in admirable
union with manly courage and philosophical compo
sure. " The world itself," he observed to some of
his sorrowing friends, "is but a larger prison, out of
which some are daily chosen for execution." On
feeling the edge of the axe, " It is a sharp medicine,"
he said, " but a sure one for all ills." His last speech
Was a temperate but forcible vindication of his be
haviour in the conduct of that unfortunate enter
prise for which he was to suffer: as to the plot of
which he had been originally convicted, — one in fa
vour of the king of Spain,-*-it was so completely out
of the recollection of his hearers, and probably of
his own, that he omitted all mention of it ; but he
laboured much to clear himself from the popular
imputation under which he suffered, of having wit
nessed the death of the earl of Essex with a bar
barous insensibility. He welcomed the presence of
his noble friends the earls of Arundel, Pembroke
and Northampton, who came to witness his death,
thanking God that he should die in the light and not
in the darkness; and he concluded , by desiring the
prayers of all the spectators for a man who had led
a sinful life in all sinful callings, — those of a soldier,
a captain, a sea-captain and a courtier. He was cut
off in the sixty-sixth year of his age. One son sur
vived him, Carew Raleigh, then a child, who became
an accomplished gentleman, and a few years after
wards was presented at court ; but the king took a
dislike to him, saying that he looked like his father's

89
ghost, and he was advised to travel till the death
of James.
This anecdote is striking and characteristic; it
proves how loudly the conscience of the king up
braided him with the sacrifice of Raleigh, and it in
dicates the baseness of a nature incapable of making
compensation to those whom it has -injured, or even
of ceasing to follow them with resentment.
A " Declaration" by authority, of the motives of
the king for putting to death sir Walter Raleigh,
was immediately published, in which he was di
rectly charged with deluding both the king and his
fellow-adventurers with the promise of a mine which
he knew to have no existence in nature; meaning
from the first to employ his forces in piratical assaults
npon the Spaniards. A minute narrative was also
given of his artifice in feigning sickness in order
to gain time ; and of his attempts to escape. Re
specting this piece it is necessary to remark, that
though it professes to be founded upon the exami
nations of the followers of Raleigh, yet, as these
examinations themselves are not given, and as the
whole narrative was drawn up by the persons whose
particular interest it was topalliate a most unpopular
and odious measure, — as Raleigh himself was put
to death before it appeared, and it was well known
that no surviving friend would dare to undertake
his defence against the sovereign himself, — the
"Declaration" can only be regarded in the light of
a party statement; one of those documents on which
no lover of historic truth and equal justice will dare
to place the least reliance. The reader will judge
for himself from the whole of the case, and from the
known character of the man, what had probably
been the original motives and intentions of Raleigh ;
those of the king are sufficiently evident; and the
use actually made of this deed of unparalleled base-
VOL. if. 12

90
ness in the pending negotiation for the hand of the
infanta, may be learned from the following letter,
addressed by a minister of state to Cottington,. then
the English agent in Spain:
"Good Mr. Cottington; *
"I doubt not but before these come to your hands
you will have heard of the receipt of all your former
letters. These are in answer of your last of Octo
ber 8th, wherein you advertise of the arrival of the
Conde Gondomar at Lerma, and of his entertain
ment by that duke. It seemeth unto us here in
England that he hath gone but very slowly in his
journey, and divers, seeing how. long time he hath
spent in the way, do make conjecture that it pro-
ceedeth from the small affection that he judgeth to
be there toward the effecting of the main business;
saying, if the ambassador were assured that his
master did so really desire the speedy effecting
thereof as is pretended, he would have made more
haste homeward ; and that it hath not been sincerely
intended, but merely used by that state as an amuse
ment to entertain and busy his majesty withal, and
for the gaining of time for their own ends. And this
is muttered here by very many ; but I hope we shall
ere long receive such an account from thence of their
proceedings as will give sufficient satisfaction.
" For my own part, I must confess I am yet well
persuaded of their intentions. For, if there be either
honour, religion, or moral honesty in them, the pro
testation and professions that I have so often heard
them make, and you likewise daily advertise hither,
are sufficient to persuade a man that will not judge
them worse than infidels, to expect sincere dealing in
the business. And whensoever I shall perceive that
they go about to do otherwise, I must confess my-

91
self to have been deceived, as I ever shall be, on the
like terms, while I deal with inmost care. But
withal, I shall judge them the most unworthy and
perfidious people of the world ; and the more for
that his majesty hath given them so many testimo
nies of his sincere intention toward them, which
he daily continueth, as now of late, by the causing
sir Walter Raleigh to be put to death, chiefly for the
giving them satisfaction. Whereof his majesty
commanded me to advertise you, and concerning
whom you shall by the next receive a declaration,
showing .the motives which induced his majesty to
recal his mercy, through which he had lived this
many years a condemned man.
" In the meantime I think it fit, that to the duke
of Lerma, the confessor and the secretary of state,
you do represent his majesty's real manner of pro
ceeding with that king and state ; and how, for the
advancing of the great business, he hath endea
voured to satisfy them in all things. Letting them
see how, in many actions of late of that nature, his
majesty hath strained upon the affections of his peor
pie ; and especially in this last concerning sir Wah
ter Raleigh, who died with a great deal of courage
and constancy, and, at his death, moved the common
sort of people to much remorse, who all attributed
his death to the desire his majesty had to satisfy
Spain. Further, you may let them know how able
a man sir Walter was to have done his majesty serr
vice, if he should have been pleased to have employed
him. Yet, to give them content, he hath not spared
him, when, by preserving him, he might have given
great satisfaction to his subjects, and had at his com
mand, upon all occasions, as useful a man as served
any prince in Christendom. And, on the contrary,
the king of Spain is not pleased to do any thing which
may be so inconvenient unto him as to lessen the

92

affections of his people, or to procure so much as
murmuring or distractions among them; and there
fore it is to be expected that, on his part, they an
swer his majesty at least with sincere and real pro
ceedings, since that is all they are put to, the diffi
culties and hazards being indeed on his majesty's

e.

»»#

sid The habitual profusion of James, and the cease
less demands made upon his purse by Buckingham
for gratuities either to himself, or to the numerous
members of his family who had been elevated to a
rank which they had no original means of support
ing, had reduced the royal treasury to such a state
of embarrassment, that some measures of economy
and reform had now become indispensable.
Bacon was the man whose activity, acuteness,
and fertility of resource were on all occasions con
fided in ; he was certainly at this period the most
efficient officer of government; and as he refused
no services which could recommend him either to
the king or the favourite, his letters exhibit the keeper
of the great seal equally occupied in carrying through
the monopolies, grants of crown land, and other
jobs of Buckingham and his kindred on one hand,
and in pointing out retrenchments to be made and
abuses to be rectified in the household and public
offices, on the other. Commissioners were appointed
to assist in the latter objects of inquiry ; and one fruit
of their examinations was the accusation before
hinted at against the lord-treasurer, who was charged
with the embezzlement of a considerable portion of
the money paid by the Dutch for the redemption of
their cautionary towns, and with various pther mal
versations in his high office.
* Riishworth, vol. i. p. 9.

93
The treasurer was by no means a person gene
rally odious in the country; on the contrary, he
had been advantageously distinguished, as lord Tho
mas Howard, in all the principal naval actions of the
preceding reign, from the defeat of the Armada down
wards, and bore with all classes the character of a
brave man and a plain, honest sailor. His capacity
however was narrow, and there was a weakness in his
temper which seems to have brought him under the
absolute dominion of a haughty and unprincipled
wife, whose rapacity conducted him to shame and
ruin. Every thing connected with the business of
the treasury is said to have been venal under the
management of lady Suffolk and of sir John Bingley,
the treasurer's remembrancer, who acted as her
agent in driving the trade of corruption. The earl
himself was generally believed to have been in great
measure, if not entirely, innocent and ignorant of
these nefarious transactions ; and it was judged ne^
cessary to join the names both of the countess and
of the remembrancer in the accusation preferred
against him. No particulars, either of the charge
or the evidence, have come down to posterity, be
cause all the proceedings were carried on in the
court of star-chamber, no records of which appear
to have been regularly kept ;-^-probably because this
tribunal was completely arbitrary, being bound nei
ther by rules of law, nor even by its own precedents.
It has however been related, that the accusation was
brought in very acrimonious terms by sir Edward
Coke; who was not sorry to recover favour with the
king by an extraordinary display of zeal on this oc
casion; and who produced from the abundant stores
of his professional erudition all the instances on re
cord of chastisements inflicted on the great officers
of the crown for malversation. The lord keeper
also made a speech against the delinquents, in which

94
he compared the countess to an exchange^women
who kept her shop, while sir John Bingley cried,
" What d'ye lack ?" It is said notwithstanding, that
Bacon was secretly a friend of the lord-treasurer's,
who escaped the better by his means.* In the star-
chamber, the rules of which seem to have been in
studied opposition to those of the courts of common
law, it was always expected that the party accused
should acknowledge his offence, and, humbling him
self before his judges and the king, implore a remis
sion of his sentence : but Suffolk, whether innocent
or guilty, had a spirit above this abjectness ; he stood
on his defence, and his exculpation being declared
unsatisfactory by a tribunal which never acquitted,
he and his lady were sentenced to pay a fine of
30,000/. and committed to the Tower; Bingley was
to pay 2,000/. and remain a prisoner in the Fleet.
Suffolk, who had previously conveyed away his
estates to his brother and his son-in-law, declared
himself unable to pay this penalty ; and the king,
though much offended with him for steps which
seemed to imply a distrust of his royal clemency,
was soon prevailed upon to mitigate his fine to
7,000/. — which was immediately begged by his
majesty's Scotch favourite, viscount Haddington.
After discharging this sum, the earl was set at
liberty; Bingley likewise obtained his release, by
the surrender of his place to one of the followers
of Buckingham.
The lord-treasurer had been suspended from his
office some time before sentence was pronounced
against him, and during that interval it was put in
commission ; but soon after his condemnation Buck
ingham's mother was permitted to sell it for 20,000/.
to sir Henry Montague, chief-justice of the king's
* Coke's Detection, p. 81.

95
bench ; who had little reason to rejoice in the pur
chase, for in less than a twelvemonth the staff was
taken from him, by the same all-powerful interest,
to be conferred on sir Lionel Cranfield, master of
the wards.
The chastisement of a great officer of state for
public delinquencies, is usually one of the most ap
plauded acts of a monarchical government ; but in
this instance, as in some succeeding ones, this pre
tended triumph of impartial justice, over the great
and powerful, was beheld by the subjects of king
James either with indifference or disgust. The
reason was plain : nothing could be more notorious
than the system of favoritism, intrigue and corrup
tion by which the court was ruled ; and it was obvi
ous to every person of common sense, that greater
offences than any of which the lord-treasurer was
believed guilty would have provoked no animadver
sion in a Villiers, and that innocence the most un
spotted could scarcely have secured from ruin the
father-in-law of the fallen Somerset.

CHAPTER XVIII.
1618.
¦*'»¦¦,! Alarm at the appearance of a comet. — Death and character of the queen. —
James makes a speech in the star-chamber. — He judges in person the cause
of lady Lake. — Publication of his works. — Synod of Dort. — Divines sent
thilher by James. — -Carleton — Hall — Davenaht — Ward — Balcanqual —
Goad— Hales. — Account of Selden. — His history of tythes.— 'Conduct of
Jame-s to him, — to sir H. Finch. — Rise of lord-keeper Williams. — Progress
of Villiers. — Extravagant grants to him and his family. — Causes of discon
tent. — Marriage treaty with Spain. — Suspensidh of laws against catholics.
—Convents founded in Flanders. — Female Jesuits.. — The Palatine elected
king of Bohemia. — Letter of Abbot respecting him. — Pacific politics of
James.
In the seventeenth century, the appearance of a
comet was still regarded less as an astronomical phe
nomenon than a portent announcing the anger of
heaven and predictive of calamity public and private.
During the year 1618 one of these bodies exhibited
itself to the view of most countries of the civilized
world, and carried dismay and horror in its course.
Not only mighty monarchs, but the humblest private
individuals, seem to have considered the sign as sent
to them, and to have set a double guard on all their
actions. Thus sir Symonds D'Ewes, the learned
antiquary, having been in danger of an untimely
end by entangling himself among some bell-ropes,
makes a memorandum* in his private diary, never
more to exercise himself in befl&ringing when there
is a comet in the sky. It was however the general
expectation that some national judgment must also
ensue. Wilson tells us, that the common people
thought this great light was sent as a flambeau to
the funeral of the queen, which quickly followed;

97
but he himself deems it to have been portentous of
the wars in Germany connected with the assump
tion of the crown of Bohemia by. the elector pala
tine, in which many thousands perished. It does
not appear to which of these two opinions the king
himself most inclined; — in fact, it would be difficult*.
to pronounce which of the two events was least
calculated to call forth the sensibilities of his royal
mind. The character of the queen, as it was sketched
by those who possessed the means of studying it at
the court of Scotland, and by Sully on his congra
tulatory embassy at the commencement of James's
English reign, appeared to threaten her husband
with a constant succession of domestic quarrels, and
of intrigues perplexing at least, if not dangerous.
But, much as her temper might incline her to be
busy, it required abilities far superior to Anne's to
overcome the obstacles which opposed her attain
ment of political influence in England. A stranger
alike to the language and manners of the country, and
to the characters of the. leading persons in the state;
openly neglected by her husband; little regarded
by her eldest son, and not warmly, espoused, as far
as appears, by the younger, who succeeded to the
place of Henry without inheriting his consequence
and activity ; she sunk into such total insignificance
at St. James's, that, notwithstanding her acknow
ledged catholic and Spanish predilections, the Je
suits themselves do not appear, to have found her a
tool worth employing* Under this want of domes
tic attachment and political importance, her majesty
consoled and occupied herself with pomps and pa
geantries, with masks, triumphs and banquets, and,
if report may be credited, with the intrigues of gal
lantry. The advances which she hazarded to the
chivalrous lord Herbert have been already men-
vol. n. 13

98
tioned on his own authority; Wilson speaks of her
character thus : " She was in her great condition a
good woman, not tempted from that height she
stood on to embroil her spirit much with things
below her (as some busy bodies do,) only giving her
self content in her own house with such recreations
as might not make time tedious to her. And though
great persons' actions are often pried into and made
envy's mark, yet nothing could be fixed upon her,
that left any great impression, but that she may have
engraven upon her monument a character of virtue."
Long after Anne was in her grave? however, that
most ruthless of all principles, party-spirit, seized
upon these rumours of her frailty, — which, even if
founded in fact, could not then be satisfactorily veri
fied, — as the pretext for robbing her children of their
royal birth-right. Among the papers of Charles I.
captured at Naseby, was found a copy of instruc
tions to colbriel Cockrane for his embassy to the king
of Denmark, containing the following remarkable
article : " That in pursuance of their (the parlia
ment's) great design of extirpating the royal blood
and monarchy of England, they have endeavoured
likewise to lay a great blemish upon the royal family,
endeavouring to illegitimate all derived from his sis
ter, at once to cut off the interest and pretensions
of the whole race ; which their most detestable and
scandalous design they have pursued, examining
witnesses and conferring circumstances and times
to colour their pretensions in so great a fault : and
which, as his sacred majesty of England, in the true
sense of honour of his mother, doth abhor and will
punish, so he expects his concurrence in vindicating
a sister of so happy memory."*
* The king's cabinet opened.

99
No period of the life of king James is equally
rich in materials for his personal history with that
at which we are now arrived. It had been one
effect of the systematic adulation paid to the pre
tended wisdom of this monarch by his divines and
courtiers, to aggravate exceedingly his propensity
to a foolish and conceited kind of intermeddling;
and every incident in any way remarkable, whether
connected with public affairs or private, which came
to his ears, now sufficed to call him into action^and
served to exhibit to the world in new lights bne of
the most singular of human characters.
Several of these circumstances will here be thrown
together, as calculated to elucidate each othen^In
the month of June 1616 his majesty came in person
to his favourite tribunal, the court of star-chamber,
and preached a long sermon (for his discourse was
preceded by a text) on the duties of all magistrates
and public officers, beginning with himself as king,
and ending with justices of the peace. He observes,
that it might be asked, both why he had come to
that place at all, and why he had not come sooner.
To the latter question he replies that, on coming
into England a stranger, he had resolved with Py
thagoras to keep silence seven years and acquaint
himself with the laws of the kingdom, and that he
had delayed another seven years waiting for a fit
occasion on which to come forth and deliver his
opinions. After serving " this double apprentice
ship," he considers himself as a fit judge of the state
of the country and of the duties and business of all
public functionaries, and proceeds to utter, after his
custom, a variety of impertinences in the shape of
paternal instructions, mingled with eulogiums of the
star-chamber, complaints of the presumption of the
common-law lawyers, bold assertions of his own pre
rogative as next in place to the deity, and reproaches

100
against the puritans. It is said that James in the
frequent conferences which he held with sir Edward
Coke, and with other eminent judges, respecting the
English law, had showed himself very desirous of
presiding in the king's bench, but was resisted in
this strange fancy by Coke. In the court of star-
chamber however he had no such opposition to en
counter, and soon after he had introduced himself
there in the manner above mentioned, he actually
took his seat as president in the cause of lady Exe
ter and sir Thomas Lake. The result admirably
exemplified the natural consequences of an union of
the offices of judge and sovereign in the same indi
vidual. Sir Thomas Lake, a valuable public officer edu
cated under Walsingham, whom James had found
clerk of the signet, and after trying in other employ
ments had appointed joint secretary of state after
the death of Salisbury, had married his young daugh
ter, for her misfortune and his own, to William
Cecil lord Roos. This nobleman, who bore the
title of Roos in right of his mother, was grandson
to the earl of Exeter, eldest son of lord-treasurer
Burleigh. He was sent on his travels in 1607, and
persisting in visiting Rome, in spite of the remon
strances of his tutor Mr. Mole, he was there secretly
reconciled to the church of Rome, as his father is
said to have been before him at the same place.
Mr. Mole was here seized upon by the Inquisition
on a charge of circulating heretical books, on the
information, as was believed, of his perfidious pupil;
all efforts for his release proved fruitless, and at the
end of thirty years he died a prisoner. Lord Roos
in the mean time returned to England, and notwith
standing, or perhaps on account of, the good under
standing which he kept up with the catholic fugitives
on some subsequent journeys to Flanders and Italy,
was sent by James on two successive embassies, to

101
the Emperor and to the king of Spain. He return
ed from Spain in March 1617, and, after embroiling
himself with his wife's family and challenging her
brother, quitted England again in a few months for
Italy, leaving his affairs in great disorder, openly
professing himself a catholic, and disregarding an or
der of council for his return. After his departure,
his lady and her mother accounted for this abrupt
and suspicious desertion of his country and connex
ions, by accusing him of having made an attempt to
poison them, in consequence of their detecting him
m an intrigue with the countess of Exeter, the youth
ful spouse of his infirm and aged grandfather. No
sooner did this, tale of family scandal come to the
ears of the king, than he summoned the three ladies
privately to his presence ; when lady Lake and lady
Roos produced to him a written confession, signed
by the countess, in which she acknowledged her
guilt in joining in an attempt to poison them, and im-
Elored their forgiveness. The countess, on the other
and, denied the genuineness of this paper and af
firmed her innocence ; and she had the good fortune
to gain over the monarch to her side. It is said, that
on pretence of a hunting party he visited the cham
ber in lord Exeter's house at Wimbledon, in which
the confession of the countess was stated to have
been signed ; and convinced himself that a servant
who was produced as having been a witness to the
transaction, could not have stood concealed behind
the hangings, as she pretended; and, if she could,
would have been at too great a distance to overhear
what passed. Armed with this discovery, and with
some testimonials from lord Roos, James determined
to support the countess in proceeding against lady
Lake and her daughter for defamation ; and sending
for sir Thomas, he earnestly advised him to forbear
embarking himself in this quarrel, of which he had

J02
determined to make a star-chamber matter. Lake
thanked the king, but nobly said, that he could not
cease to be a husband and a father; and he persist
ed in putting his name in a cross bill with those of
his wife and daughter.
The hearing of the cause took up five days ; and
the judges appear to have held the matter extremely
dubious, till the king, who had hitherto preserved a
mysterious silence, announced his important disco
veries on the scene of action. After this, the deci
sion could not be doubtful; sir Thomas Lake and
his lady were fined 10,000/. to the king himself, who
concurred in the decree, and 5,000/. to the coun
tess ; lady Roos, in consideration of some confession
made by her in the midst of the trial, was pardon
ed ; but sir Thomas, in addition to his penalty, lost
all his places of honour and profit, and was never
reinstated in the favour of the royal judge whose
will and pleasure he had dared on this occasion to
resist. The king characteristically ended by com
paring their crimes " to the first plot of the first sin
in paradise, the lady to the serpent, her daughter
to Eve, and sir Thomas to poor Adam, whose love
to his wife, the old sin of our father, had beguiled
him."* From the whole account of this affair it appears,
that, even supposing the imputed guilt of lady Lake
and her daughter to be incontestable, the inno
cence of sir Thomas Lake was equally so ; but the
vanity of James was interested in supporting the
credit of his own discovery, and to this sentiment
he sacrificed without scruple a faithful and unoffendr
ing servant.
Immediately after these star-chamber matters, the
"great schoolmaster" of the land proceeded to edify
* Saunderson's Bfiign of fames I., pp, 447—449.

103
not his own subjects alone, but the whole of lettered
Europe, by the publication of a complete collection
of his prose works, hoth in the original and in a
Latin translation. Versions of several of his ma
jesty's pieces had been previously made by different
hands, especially one of the "Apology for the oath
of allegiance," by sir Henry Wotton, and it is pro
bable that these were employed on this occasion;
but the version was completed and the work edited
by James Montague, brother to the lord-treasurer,
bishop of Winchester and dean of the chapel-royal;
one of the greatest favourites and flatterers of king
James among an order peculiarly devoted to his
pleasure and observant of his foibles. .
The bishop's preface, designed to prove that it is
by no means derogatory to the dignity of a monarch
to be a writer of books, is an admirable specimen of
the pedantic and laborious trifling which was the
fashion of the age and the delight of the sovereign.
The prelate is not ashamed to set at the head of his
catalogue of royal authors the deity himself, as the
dictator of the Mosaic tables ; and to assign the se
cond place to the Messiah, on account of the sen
tence which he is related to have written in the dust ;
he then runs through a long list of celebrated
monarchs, from the earliest records down to queen
Elizabeth, some of whom are enumerated because
they were, and others because they were not, writers
of books. It is almost superfluous to mention, lhat
the whole is crowned with a magnificent and solemn
eulogium of the writings of king James, to which
astonishing effects are ascribed in the conversion of
papists, and literary immortality is confidently pro
mised. This publication is in one volume folio ; it con
tains, besides the king's tractates on various sub
jects, most of which have been already referred to,

104
five of his speeches ; — two in parliament, two at
Whitehall, and one in the star-chamber. The
work is dedicated by the editor to Charles prince
of Wales.
The religious dissentions in the United Provinces
between the Arminians and Gomarists, otherwise
called remonstrants and counter-remonstrants, had
been dexterously improved by prince Maurice to the
establishment of his own ascendency ; and as the
means of obtaining further advantages over his po
litical antagonist Barnevelt, he had listened . to the
representations of the Gomarist divines, whose party
he favoured, on the expediency of calling a synod in
which the errors of Arminius might undergo a final
condemnation. On this occasion, he paid his friend
the king of Great Britian the welcome compliment
of requesting that he would delegate to this assembly
some able divines who should represent the churches
of England and Scotland ; similar invitations were
also extended to the protestants of Germany and the
reformed of Switzerland and of France, which were
willingly accepted by all, though the subsequent in
terference of Louis XIII. prevented any subjects of
his from fulfilling their engagement.
Thus summoned and thus constituted, this cele
brated protestant synod was opened at the city of
Dordrecht, or Dort, in November 1618, the British
deputies taking place next to those of the United
Provinces. The choice of these deputies was a matter of con
siderable delicacy, and had doubtless cost their sove
reign much anxious deliberation. Carefully edu
cated in the presbyterian church of Scotland, James
had received as his original system of faith the doc
trine of Calvin in all its rigour ; and a genuine horror
of the Arminian theory on the subjects of grace and
election, had been doubtless the principal if not sole

105
motive of his furious declarations in the matter of
Vorstius. But several considerations of great mo
ment to him as a monarch and a politician, had since
intervened to moderate his polemical zeal.
The system of Arminius, which the king was pledg
ed to reprobate in Holland, had in England already
become that of many of the most able champions of
the prelatical or high-church party, with which he had
contracted so close and affectionate an alliance : on
the other hald, the system of the Gomarists, whose
cause he had hotly and hastily espoused, coincided
exactly, both in faith and discipline, with the scheme
of the Scotch presbyterians and English puritans, so
much the object of his dread and detestation; and
it suddenly occurred to him that the parity of mi
nisters in the church, which in his own kingdoms
he had constantly affirmed to be essentially incom
patible with monarchical principles, must be equally
irreconcileable with the authority which his ally
prince Maurice was endeavouring to assume in Hol
land. Struck with the dilemma, he hastened to con
vey to this leader an earnest caution against bestow
ing his confidence exclusively on the Gomarists.
The politics of Maurice did not apparently permit
him to attend to this advice ; but the spirit of it was
scrupulously preserved by James himself in his se
lection of divines to attend the synod, which was
evidently made on the principle of a balance, and
with the purpose of promoting mutual conciliation.
His nominees were the following : — George Carlton
bishop of Llandaff, characterised by the author of
the Church History as " a grave and godly bishop,
bred and brought up under Mr. Bernard Gilpin, that
apostolical man, whose life he wrote in gratitude
to his memory, and retained his youthful and poetical
vol. ii. 14

166
studies fresh in his old age."* He was also the
author of several miscellaneous tracts, and was ap
parently opposed to the high church party :-— the ex
cellent Hall, then dean of Worcester, who after his
return from Dort published a piece recommending
a middle course in the disputed points, and treating
all differences among protestants as unimportant in
comparison with the grand object, — union against
the church of Rome : — Davenant, afterwards bishop
of Salisbury, a person equally remarkable, it is said,
for deep learning, moral worth, and Christian hu
mility, and an advocate of the Arminian doctrine
of free grace : and his friend Dr. Samuel Ward,
master of Sidney college Cambridge, celebrated for
his interesting style of preaching, and for the power
which he exerted over the affections of his hearers.
With these was improperly joined, as the repre
sentative of Scotland, Walter Balcanqual of Pem
broke-hall, who is described as no friend to his na
tional church, being doubtless of the episcopalian
party so sedulously fostered by James in his native
country. On Dr. Hall's being obliged by illness to
quit Dort, his place was supplied by Goad, a pre
bendary of Canterbury, one of the chaplains of
archbishop Abbot ;— *¦ an appointment from which his
inclination to the doctrine of Calvin may probably
be inferred; — and who is represented as an over
bearing disputant.
John Hales, deservedly characterised as "ever
memorable," likewise. attended the public meetings
of the synod in the capacity of chaplain to sir Guy
Carleton the English ambassador, to whom he trans
mitted minutes of the proceedings, and he has himself
recorded, that on hearing certain texts ably pressed
by Episcopius in these conferences, he "bid John
Calvin good night."
* Fuller's Church History, b. xi. par. 67.

107
The spirit of the instructions which these divines
bore from the king is singularly contrasted with that
of his former proceedings respecting Vorstius. It
was required that they should come to a previous
agreement among themselves respecting all points
to be debated at the synod. Their counsel to those
churches was to be, — that their ministers refrain from
teaching in their pulpits " those things for ordinary-
doctrines which are the highest points of schools,
and not fit for vulgar capacity, but disputable on
both sides :'" — that they use no innovation in doc
trine *rr^that they conform themselves to the public
confessions of the neighbour reformed Churches.
It was to be the endeavour of the divines, that cer
tain positions be moderately laid down, which might
tend to the mitigation of heat on both sides.*
The English theologians appear to have con
formed themselves entirely to these calm and pacific
directions, nor does any blame rest upon them as
accessaries to the violences committed by prince
Maurice and the Gomarists against the unfortunate
Arminians and that martyred patriot the illustrious
Barnevelt. From the perplexities of Dutch polemics it must
be confessed that the king of Great Britain had ex
tricated himself with considerable address and pro
priety, and, what is extraordinary, without exciting
to clamor any of the vigilant and exasperated sects*
which divided among them the religious public of
his three kingdoms. But he was far from acquitting
himself with equal credit in the next ecclesiastical
matter in which he thought proper to interfere;
where, instead of assuming the respectable charac
ter of a peace-maker, we find him engaged as the
antagonist and oppressor of John Selden, that great
name in erudition, in law and in politics.
* Fuller's Church, hist. b. x. p. 77,

108
At this period Selden was still young, and though
he had belonged for some years to one of the inns
of court, he was scarcely known as a pleader ; but
several works of profound learning and great inge
nuity and acuteness, on novel and recondite subjects,
had established his reputation throughout lettered
Europe as one of the greatest antiquaries of his age*
and one of its deepest, though not its most elegant
or tasteful scholars. These his earlier perform*
ances had been studied and praised without jealousy
by the learned of all parties, for they espoused the
cause of no subsisting sect or faction, and involved
the interests of no class of men ; but he had now,
in 1618, offered to the world a work which, even
before its appearance, had excited lively alarms in
the bosoms of the English clergy, and which imme
diately drew upon its author the fierce hostility of
that reverend body;- — this work was his celebrated
" History of tythes." On the merits of this subject
it will here be necessary to enter into some expla
nations. The overthrow of the papal authority in Eng
land, as. in all other countries which embraced the
reformation, had left both the poWer and the pro
perty enjoyed by the church as a prize to-be con
tended for among the sovereign, the nobles, the
protestant clergy and the people at large. In this
country, owing to the strength of the prerogative,
Henry VIII. and the following protestant sove
reigns had succeeded in securing to themselves all
the authority whieh had previously been possessed
by the pope as head of the church ; they had like
wise retained for their own use, or distributed at
pleasure among their nobles and courtiers, not only
all the lands and revenues belonging to the religi
ous foundations,— with the exception of a small por
tion granted for the support of schools and hospi-

109
tals,— but much of the land attached to the bishop
rics, and no inconsiderable share of the tythes ;
which had been made over to individuals, either by
gift or sale, under the title of lay impropriations.
To this species of spoliation king James had put a
final stop by an act passed in the first parliament of
his reign ; judging, and perhaps properly* that any
further abridgment of the emoluments of the clergy
was incompatible with the due maintenance of an
episcopal establishment : but it had been a rather
unfair consequence of this enactment, and of the
increased influence of the clerical order at court
which it indicated, to cast a kind of stigma on the
possession, however legal and innocent, of lands or
revenues once consecrated to the service of the
church, which it became the mode to call sacrilege ;
and the divines had recently judged it safe to re
assert the doctrine of a divine right to tythes, which
in the former reign had been exploded as one of the
grossest impositions of the church of Rome.
The lawyers, as a body, were hostile to this as
sumption of the clergy, as an unwarranted limitation
of the empire of human right and human law ; and
no one of their number was more fitted, or better
inclined, to expose this pretension than Selden ;
certainly the most philosophical as well as learned
inquirer into antiquity who had yet appeared in the
country. He proceeded however, in a matter which
he perceived to be somewhat hazardous, with per
fect decorum, and with all the prudence which the
nature of the case permitted. In the preface to his
History of Tythes he protested, that his work would
be found strictly to correspond to its title ; that it
was neither written against their divine right, nor in
favour of impropriations, nor in any manner against
the maintenance of the clergy ; and he further pro
tected himself in the act of printing the book by a

110
licence from the archbishop's chaplain. But all his
precautions were insufficient to shield him from the
resentment excited by his choice of such a subject
of discussion. The weight of the authorities cited,
though unaided by any comments of the writer's
own, was decidedly against the divine right ; and
as soon as this became evident to his clerical read
ers, they thought themselves justified in carrying
their complaints to the king. Fired at the idea of
any attack upon so sacred a prejudice, James sent in
haste for the author, who was conducted to his
presence by Ben Jonson and another friend. In two
conferences the monarch made, as usual, a great dis
play of his erudition ; and Selden on the other hand
employed all his endeavours to propitiate his royal
critic by a humble and deferential deportment, and
by the promise of writing explanations of some pas
sages which had unfortunately afforded his majesty
ground of offence. He probably flattered himself
that the atonement was accepted, till, in the follow
ing month, he was summoned before certain mem
bers of the high-commission, with" archbishop Abbot
at their head, and persuaded, or rather affrighted,
into the humiliating act of making a declaration ex
pressive of a sense of his error in having, by any
part of his work, " offered any occasion of argument"
against any claim of maintenance by divine right on
the part of ministers of the gospel ; and also, his
unfeigned grief that he had thus incurred the dis
pleasure of his majesty and their lordships. Not
satisfied with extorting this submission from the re
luctant spirit of the author, the high-commission
proceeded to prohibit the book ; and while they au
thorised any one to attack either it or its author
with whatever degree of virulence, they strictly for
bade him to publish any thing in his own defence,

Ill
Besides other polemics of less note, Richard
Mountagu, finally bishop of Chichester, a man of
learning, but of a violent and overbearing nature,
Was encouraged to publish an answer to the History
of Tythes, dedicated to the king ; and Selden him
self has related, that while his work was in prepa
ration, the monarch, at an audience which he granted
him, was pleased to employ the following menace :
M If you or any of your friends shall write against
this confutation, I will throw you into prison." Sel
den was not endowed with the spirit of a martyr, at
least with respect to these controversies ; and there
fore, besides abstaining, as he had been commanded,
from printing any defence of his work, he conde
scended to offer an atonement for his offences by
composing three tractates, which he dedicated to
the king in an address disgraceful, though not in an
equal degree, both to the tyrant and his victim.
The first of these pieces relates to the calculations
and applications of the celebrated number 666, of
which he had ventured to write in his History of
Tythes with an undisguised contempt which he now
found it expedient to moderate ; adding a special ex
ception for " a most acute deduction" of his majes
ty's own. In the second, he explains away the ap-
Srobation which he had expressed of Calvin's " ju-
icious and modest" confession respecting the Reve
lations of St. John, — that " he knew not at all what
so obscure a writer meant ;" remarking, that such an
acknowledgment would not equally become all per
sons, and speaking of the interpretation of this pro-
Ehecy published by king James, almost in his boy-
ood, as, " the clearest sun among the lesser lights."
In the third, he finds it necessary, according to "his
majesty's most learned directions," to affirm, against
his own better knowledge, the certainty of the day
assigned to the feast of Christmas ; — his contrary

112
statement having ministered some encouragement to
the notions of the puritans.
Such were the sacrifices of truth, of liberality and
of common sense, by which one of the greatest of
English scholars was compelled to flatter the puerile
prejudices, to feed the vanity and to soothe the
alarms of " the most learned king in Christendom,"
the " Solomon of his age !"*
With reference to James's treatment of the learn
ed, there may here be mentioned what Fuller in his
*' Worthies" has related concerning sir Henry Finch.
" He was serjeant at law to king James, and wrote a
book of the law in great esteem with men of his
own profession ; yet were not his studies confined
thereunto, witness his book of "The calling of the
Jews ;" and all ingenious persons which dissent from
his judgment will allow him learnedly to have main
tained an error, though he was brought into some
trouble by king James, Conceiving that on his princi
ples he advanced and extended the Jewish common
wealth, to the depressing and contracting of Chris
tian free monarchies."
The dangerous example of employing churchmen
in the affairs of state was first set by James in the
admission of Dr. Williams, afterwards lord-keeper,
to a seat at the council-board,, which took place in
1619. This remarkable person, whose conduct in
the high offices which he was called to fill forms a
striking comment on the policy and the inclinations
of his master, of which none of his courtiers was
more observing, is well worthy of being traced back
through all the steps of his previous advancement.
John Williams was born at Conway in 1582. His
family was genteel ; and after acquiring the rudi
ments of learning at an endowed school at Ruthin,
* See Dr. Aikin's Lives of John Selden, esq. and archbishop Usher, p. 11
& seq.

113
he was sent by his relation Dr. Vaughan, afterwards
bishop of London, with particular recommendations,
to St. John's college Cambridge, where he was re
ceived by several of his own countrymen with ex
traordinary favour and applause, due, probably, not
less to his connexions than his talents. His dili
gence in study was indefatigable, for his ambition
had already prompted him with an inextinguishable
desire of excellence. The large allowance made
him by his friends enabled him even at that early
period to indulge the propensity to magnificence, and
to a somewhat ostentatious liberality, which ever
distinguished him, and procured him much notice
and many favourers.
Bishop Vaughan's death before his young kins
man was capable of receiving orders, interfered with
the regular progress of clerical preferment to which
he seemed destined ; but his annual visits at Lon
don-house had already formed him to the manners
of the world and prepared him for civil life ; they
had also recommended him to the notice of an
honourable and munificent patron in the person of
lord Lumley, one of the greatest antiquaries, virtu
osos and book-collectors among the nobility of his
age. The bent of Williams's genius was quickly
discovered, and the master of St. John's several
times appointed him his agent in soliciting causes
affecting the secular interests of his college. On
these affairs he had two or three interviews with
lord Salisbury, and more frequent ones subsequently
with archbishop Bancroft and with lord-chancellor
Ellesmere, who both testified their sense of his merit;
the prelate by a presentation to an archdeaconry,
the chancellor by taking him some time afterwards
under his own roof in the character of his domestic
chaplain; — a situation described, in the quaint but
vol. n. 15

114
expressive phrase of his biographer, as " a nest for
an eagle."
Meantime, he had employed the opportunity of
preaching before the king with high acceptance,
and of serving the office of proctor of the univer
sity; in which capacity he gained just credit by his
attention to the discipline of the place, and purchas
ed vulgar applause by the ostentatious splendour of
his Commencement-feast. He also deserved well of
the university by a successful effort to appease the
indignation conceived by the king against that learn
ed body, on account of the puritanical reluctance, as
he esteemed it, manifested by some of its members
to elect the earl of Northampton, a known catholic,
their chancellor.
The arts and qualifications by which Williams be
came in a short space " the only jewel which the
lord-chancellor hung in his ear," are thus pointedly
enumerated :—" He pleased him with his sermons:
he took him mainly with his sharp and solid answers
to such questions as were cast forth at table to prove
his learning: his fashion and garb to the ladles of
the family, who were of great blood and many, was
more courtly a great deal than was expected from a
scholar: he received strangers with courtesy and
laboured for their satisfaction : he interposed gravely,
as became a divine, against the disorders of the low
est servants : and unto all these plausible practices,
the backbone was continual diligence."* To all this
there was to be added the advantage of the court
connexions which he had already formed, and which
enabled him to gratify his lord by many important
pieces of secret intelligence. At the end of about
five years, death deprived Williams of the aged pa
tron whom he ruled ; but not till he had " compass-
* See Hacket's Life of Williams, p. 27.

115
ed a plentiful fortune to himself from that bounty
which denied him nothing, and commonly prevented
him before he asked." He had indeed succeeded
in accumulating upon himself a mass of church pre
ferment probably seldom equalled in the history of
pluralities. "It was the liberality of a large and
loving-hearted master," says his eulogist, " that would
let him do no less : and it is as true that the chaplain
desired no less."*
On the death of lord Ellesmere, the new lord-
keeper, Bacon, wished to engage Williams in the
same capacity, but he respectfully declined the offer ;
and was even preparing to remove to his living in
Northamptonshire, when he. was detained by his
friend James Montague bishop of Winchester, who
carried him to the king, by whom he was appointed
one of his chaplains in ordinary and ordered to at
tend him on his northern progress : his majesty was
further pleased to command him to stand for his
doctor's degree, that his prowess in disputation
might be exhibited before the archbishop of Spala-
tro, an eminent convert from the church of Rome*
who had been welcomed with extraordinary respect
in England, and invited to visit Cambridge and to
participate in its academic honours.
From this time Williams constantly grew in favour
with his majesty: — "ThSt king's table," says his
biographer, " was a trial of wits. The reading of
some books before him was very frequent, while he
was at his repast. Otherwise he collected know
ledge by variety of questions, which he carried out
to the capacity of his understanding writers. Me-
thought his hunting humour was not off so long as
his courtiers, I mean the learned, stood about him
at his board. He was ever in chase after some dis*
* Ibid. p. 30,

116
putable doubts, which he would wind and turn about
with the most stabbing objections that ever I heard ;
and was as pleasant and fellow-like in all those dis-f
courses as with his huntsmen in the field. They
that in many such genial and convivial conferences
were ripe and weighty in their answers, were indu^
biously designed to some place of credit and profit.
 But among them all with whom king James
communed was found none like Daniel. His majesty
gave ear more graciously to this chaplain, and di
rected his speech to him, when he was at hand, of
tener than to any that crowded near to barken to
the wisdom of that Solomon."* The deanery of
Salisbury, conferred upon him by the king himself
without solicitation, was the first reward which
awaited the courtly and colloquial talents of Wil
liams. Elated with such striking proofs of royal
favour, the haughty churchman imagined that he Was
strong enough to stand upon his own ground at
court, and he affected to neglect the patronage of
Buckingham almost as studiously as it was sought
after by others. But James placed some part of his
own vanity in the homage paid to his favourite ; and
a hint conveyed by himself to the dean obliged him
to offer his services to this all-powerful protector.
Shortly after, James admitted him, as we have seen,
to the privy-council ; and the service which he was
enabled tb render Buckingham, in prevailing on the
eari of Rutland to bestow his daughter and heiress
upon him in marriage, procured for him the deanery
of Westminster ; a piece of preferment peculiarly
adapted to the furtherance of his schemes of ambi
tion, and which also gave him an opportunity of dis
playing the munificence of his spirit by the large
sums which he bestowed for the reparation of the
* Hacket's Life of WilUams, p. 38.

117
Abbey, for the establishment of a library, and for
the extension and improvement of Westminster
school. The next and most extraordinary promo
tion of Williams was to the office of keeper of the
seals, which he attained under circumstances to be
recorded in their proper place; meantime it will be
proper to track the course of a still more famous
child of fortune.
The dotage of James on the gay and graceful
Villiers was now at its height ; and the favourite
blazed forth in all the extravagance of decoration
and splendour which delighted the puerile fancy of
the monarch. " It was common with him," says a
writer, " at an ordinary dancing to have his clothes
trimmed with great diamond buttons, and to have
diamond hatbands, cockades and earrings; to be
yoked with great and manifold ropes and knots of
pearl ; in short, to be manacled, fettered and im
prisoned in jewels : insomuch that at his going to
Paris in 1625 he had twenty-seven suits of clothes
made, the richest that embroidery, lace, silk, velvet,
gold and gems could contribute ; one of which was
a white uncut velvet, set all over, both suit and cloak,
with diamonds, valued at fourscore thousand pounds,
besides, a great feather stuck all over with diamonds,
as were also his sword, girdle, hatband and spurs."*
Nor was even pomp like this beyond the means of
him whose master seemed to have thrown into his
lap his three kingdoms and all that they contained.
It may safely be said, that there was no office civil
or ecclesiastical within these limits which was not
in the disposal of Buckingham, no honour in the
power of their sovereign to bestow which he could
not with a single word obtain either for himself or
any one of his relations or connexions. In less than
* Life of Raleigh by OWys, p. 145, note c.

118
three years from the date of his knighthood, he had
obtained for himself the order of the garter, the titles
of baron, viscount, earl, and finally that of marquis
of Buckingham, Shortly after, his mother had been
created countess of Buckingham in her own right;
of his brothers, one was made a baronet and the
other was knighted and appointed president of Mun-
ster; a third, after marrying the daughter of sir
Edward Coke, as has been mentioned, was created
baron Villiers and viscount Purbeck ; and a fourth
received the titles of earl of Anglesey and baron of
Daventry. One of his sisters was married to lord
Butler, another to the earl of Denbigh. To enu
merate all the offices of trust and profit held by the
favourite and his friends, with the grants, donations
and privileges of various kinds which they received,
would be endless ; suffice it to state, that Buckingham
himself was first gentleman of the bed-chamber, and
afterwards privy-councillor and master of the horse ;
that on his expressing a desire for the post of lord-
high-admiral, the old earl of Nottingham, — the van
quisher of the Spanish armada,— was dismissed with
a pension to make room for him ; and that he after
wards added to these high offices, those ,of chief-jus
tice in eyre of all the parks and forests south of
Trent, master of the king's-bench office, high-steward
of Westminster, and constable of Windsor-castle.
Vast revenues were required for the due support of
the honours thus accumulated on the heads of per
sons destitute alike of original fortune arid of the
intrinsic dignity attendant on commanding abilities
or great public services ; — revenues which the over
burdened exchequer of James was by no means in
a condition to supply. In vain did he push to the
utmost, for the gratification of his favourite, the grant
ing of pensions and the alienation of crown-lands :
in vain did he apply to the same object the great

119
estate of Whaddon forfeited to the crown by the
attainder of the unfortunate lord Grey of Wilton*
the star-chamber fines, and similar casual sources
of profit ; — the hungry kindred of Villiers still cried
for more, and their appetite must still be pampered.
One expedient alone remained ; the erecting of
monopolies ; — an ancient but most oppressive branch
of prerogative, which had been classed among the
leading grievances of Elizabeth's reign, without hav
ing been pushed, even by her, nearly so far as it
now was by her successor. Patent after patent was
begged of the easy king by the favourite and his fa
mily ; the chancellor, without whose agency in affix
ing the great seal they could not be carried into
effect, sometimes demurred, from a sense of the
odium, and even the danger, which must result from
the extension of an abuse ruinous to commerce and
incompatible certainly with the spirit, and often even
with the letter, of the English law ;- — -but in the end
his habitual servility was usually victorious over the
dictates both of patriotism and prudence.
The spirit of popular discontent which so gross a
system of partiality and injustice was certain to
awaken, was further exasperated by various circum
stances in which the prejudices or the policy of the
monarch exhibited themselves in strong contrast to
the wishes and sentiments of his people. The treaty
for the^ marriage 'of the prince of Wales with the
infanta^— -a project which no arguments could re
concile* either to the judgment or the feelings of
English protestants, — was now carried on with in
creased earnestness and with great apparent proba
bility of final success. The artful Gondomar, who
had made a journey to Madrid to take the further
instructions of his prince in this matter, was re-ap
pointed to the court of London as ambassador ex
traordinary) professedly for the purpose of complet-

120
ing the treaty. The great length of time which he
thought proper to consume on the road, infused,
however, strong doubts into the minds of politicians
respecting the sincerity of the king of Spain in thjs
negotiation ; but the people firmly believed that all
which they feared and deprecated in that marriage
and its consequences would speedily come to pass,
and nothing could shake the reliance of James him
self on the good faith of his royal ally. Meantime,
the execution of the penal laws against catholics, on
which the English protestants were persuaded, and
perhaps not altogether without reason, that the very
existence of church and state depended, was almost
entirely dispensed with by the king, in compliment
to the religion of his future daughter-in-law. The
protection of Gondomar was sufficient to shield
from animadversion the busiest priest or the most in
triguing Jesuit, and the activity and boldness of these
missionaries of superstition and rebellion daily in
creased by impunity. Several of the catholic fugi
tives were permitted to return, nay even invited, if
it was supposed that any good offices of theirs might
"be of service in hastening the conclusion of the nup
tials. The mother of Buckingham was a catholic,
and of course zealous in extending encouragement
and protection to those of her own communion;
her son was believed to be at least indifferent to the
protestant religion, and his lady had only been con
verted from popery by the persuasions of Dr. Wil
liams, at the king'6 particular desire, and as a preli
minary to her marriage. Many church papists as
they were called, or occasional conformists, through
out the country, had been admitted into the commis
sion of the peace, and into various offices of trust
and profit; even the important duties of the secre
taryship were now divided between sir Robert Naun-
ton, and Calvert, a known catholic. The zeal of

121
the English catholics beyond the seas, and especial
ly of the Jesuits, was redoubled by the fresh hopes
which they conceived from the lenity, the remissness,
and the politics of the king. Several convents for
British subjects, both male and female, were esta
blished in Flanders and in other parts of the domi
nions of the king of Spain, and a startling attempt
had been made to convert the ladies of England by
means of a seminary of female Jesuits. The author
of this remarkable institution was Mrs. Mary Ward,
a lady who had been admitted a novice in a convent
at Graveline, but disliking that recluse life, project
ed, under the guidance of Roger Lee, a Jesuit, a
female society on the plan of his order. Having
persuaded several ladies to adopt her ideas, she
assembled them in 1608 in a house at St. Omers.
The plan was, to be bound by certain vows, but
without the usual obligation to inclosure, and to
devote all the time not occupied by religious duties
to the education of young persons of their own sex.
This establishment, warmly patronised by the Jesu
its, was opposed both by the English nuns in Flan
ders and by many of the graver priests in England,
and, as might be expected, instances were adduced
of improper conduct in some of the sisterhood when
permitted to ramble abroad as the missionaries of
their order. The foundress, perhaps on account of
these objections, was never able to obtain a confir
mation of her rule from the pope, though some of
her nuns went in person to sue for it ; the society
encountered, many other difficulties, was compelled
to remove from place to place, and appeared on the
point of extinction, when it at length found at Mu
nich the means of a comfortable and permanent es
tablishment. In the mean time Mrs. Ward made
frequent journies to England, and, being a person
vol. n. 16

122
of good address, prevailed upon several young ladies
to quit their friends, and adopt her rule."*
From all these circumstances it plainly appears,
that the ancient religion was rising again in formi
dable strength under the connivance of James, and
the powerful patronage of the great potentates of
Europe ; and nothing perhaps but the rival zeal of
the puritanical, or earnestly protestant party, would
have sufficed to check, while it was yet time, its
terrible and baneful progress. Certain events which
were at this period agitating a great part of Ger
many, and in which the fortunes of James's daughter
and her family were staked upon the chances of
war, afforded a fresh topic to the declaimers against
the tyrannical and encroaching spirit of this religion;
and gave occasion to political conduct on the part
of the king of Great Britain which sunk him still
lower in the estimation of his own subjects and of
all Europe.
The kingdom of Bohemia, in which the, protest
ants, or Hussites, composed a majority of the peo
ple, had long been involved in disputes, and some
times in actual warfare, with the emperors of the
house of Austria, who were its kings, on account of
the violations of the laws made for the protection
of the protestants of which these princes were sys
tematically guilty. At length, roused by intolerable
wrongs, the people had risen in arms, and, re*
nouncing all allegiance to the new emperor Ferdi*
nand,-^-who had caused himself to be proclaimed
their king in virtue of a kind of mock-election car
ried under the influence of his predecessor, — they
prepared to strengthen themselves by the choice of
a new sovereign and protector. Their nomination
fell upon the Elector-palatine ; one of the most con-
* Dodd's Church History, vol. ii. p. 341.

123
siderable princes of protestant Germany by the ex
tent, riches and population of his own dominions,
and the strongest of them all by his foreign alli
ances ; being nephew to Maurice prince of Orange
and to the duke of Bouillon, as well as son-in-law to
the king of Great Britain. Frederic, unable to
resist the dazzling offer of a crown, notified an
acceptance, by which he incurred the enmity of the
whole house of Austria, ., without waiting for the
advice either of James or of Maurice, which he had
affected to ask, but which he well knew would
prove contrary to his wishes ; and he was crowned
at Prague in November 1619. Whether or not
the king should recognise his royal title, now be
came a weighty question ; and one which, it is
possible, might have perplexed and divided the
ablest politicians of Europe : but it was decided by
James, after his usual manner, rather according to
the maxims of his boasted king-craft, — that is, the
dictates of what he regarded as his personal inter
est, — than any sound or enlightened views of gene
ral policy ; nor, to say the truth, was it viewed by
those who espoused the opposite opinion through a
medium much less clouded by passion and prejudice.
Archbishop Abbot had been from the first a stre
nuous partisan of the palatine ; and being prevented
by illness from assisting at the council called on this
occasion, he addressed a letter to secretary Naunton,
in which he advises that there should be " no going
hack, but a countenancing of" the cause of the new
king " against all' the world ; yea, so far as with
ringing of bells and making of bonfires in London."
" I am satisfied in my conscience," he proceeds,
"that the cause is just, wherefore they have rejected
that proud and bloody man ; . . . . And when God hath
set up the prince that is chosen to be a mark of
honour through all Christendom, to propagate his

124
gospel, and to. protect the oppressed, I dare not,
for my part, give advice but to follow where God
leads."/ The worthy prelate goes on to give reasons
for his counsel, drawn from his own notions of the
approaching fulfilment of certain texts in the book
of Revelations denouncing the overthrow of the
beast ; then, descending to the human means of
bringing about this great catastrophe, he expresses
his hope that for the supplies necessary to carry on
the war, God will provide : " The parliament," he
adds, " is the old and honourable way, but how assur
ed at this time I know not; yet I will hope the best:
certainly, if countenance be given to the action, many
brave spirits will voluntarily go. Our great master,
in sufficient want of money, gave some aid to the
duke of Savoy, and furnished out a pretty army in
the cause of Cleve. We must try once again what
can be done in this business of a higher nature,
and all the money that may be spared is to be
turned that way. And perhaps God provided the
jewels that were laid up in the Tower to be gather
ed by the mother for the preservation of her daugh
ter, who, like a noble princess, hath professed to her
husband not to leave herself one jewel, rather than
not maintain so religious and righteous a cause."*
Though himself a commentator on the Revela
tions, and a champion of the opinion that popery
was the Babylonish abomination, and the pope An
tichrist, king James ~Was by no means prepared to
adopt on this occasion the primate's confident inter
pretation of the divine decrees : He was little dis
posed to devote to the cause of his son-in-law " all
the money that might be spared" from the gratifica
tion of his insatiable favourite and his family ; still less
was he inclined, by rushing into the hazards and ex-
*Biographia Brit., art. Abbot.

125
penses of a distant war, to involve himself in cares
and embarrassments which might well be shunned ;
and to hasten the arrival of that evil day, which he
already saw impending, when his necessities would
again compel him to assemble an intractable and ex
asperated house of commons. These objections
were enforced by others not less characteristic of
the monarch: It was incompatible with all his no
tions of the divine inalienable right of kings, to sup
port the Bohemians in deposing, upon any plea or
pretext, the sovereign who had once occupied their
throne, and electing another at their own pleasure :
There was an implicit tie, he observed, among
princes, which ought to withhold them from ever
countenancing such practices against each other.
The success too of his favourite project of a Spanish
match, depended, as he believed, on his abstaining
from all interference with the interests of the em
peror; — the head of that great Austrian family
which by its union aimed at the subjugation of Eu
rope. Finally, his vanity persuaded him that the
long-established fame of his wisdom and equity had
entitled bim to become the arbiter of the strife ; and
that, without raising a regiment, he could cause his
award to be received as an irreversible sentence by
all the contending parties. Nothing, he conceived,
was necessary but to visit all by his ambassadors,
and explain to them at large the dictates of his pro
found and dispassionate judgment. With this view
he had already, before the election of the palatine,
dispatched Hay, now viscount Doncaster, to negoti
ate between the Bohemians and the emperor. It is
true that this potentate, not choosing yet to declare
himself upon the subject, had constantly avoided the
sight of the representative of his Britannic majesty;
and, by empty promises of admitting him to an au
dience at some future time, had drawn him to follow,

126
and, as it were, to hunt him, in the various progresses
through his dominions which he made in the course
of his warlike preparations ;— much to the inconve
nience of the ambassador, and, in the judgment of
the rest of Europe, to the scorn and mockery of his
master. But James, with that obstinate credulity
inseparable from the vanity of a weak or a sanguine
character, clung fast to the opinion of his own im
portance, and the reverence entertained for him by
the courts of Vienna and Madrid; and declining
either to recognise the title, or even give audience
to the envoy, of the new king of Bohemia, he turn
ed with renewed activity to the prosecution of his
beloved diplomacy.
Buckingham and the courtiers applauded the de
cision of the king, which seemed most agreeable to
their interests ; but, in the nation at large, his indif
ference to the protestant interest and to the cause
of his own children rendered him the object of cen
sure and suspicion.
The further progress of the German contest led
to important results, and especially to the summon
ing of a parliament for ever memorable in the political
history of England: but before we proceed in the
narrative, it will be desirable to add some further
traits illustrative of the political views of the king
and the internal state of the country.

CHAPTER XIX.
1617 to 1620.
James's speech against flocking to London. — His conduct to the antiqua
rian society. — His hostility to the common law. — Abuses in the adminis
tration of justice. — Chancery. — Star-chamber. — High-commission. — Tor
ture. — Trials for witchcraft.
Whatever might be the defects of James's intel
lectual constitution, he was certainly by no means
deficient in acuteness, where his observation was
sharpened by any apprehended danger either to his
person or his cherished prerogative. History and
reflection appear to have instructed him, that it is
principally by the free and rapid communication of
mind with mind, in the large and varied assemblages
of great cities, that the knowledge of civil rights,
the sense of public grievances, and the zeal for po
litical liberty are produced and nurtured. Accord
ingly, he had anxiously endeavoured to restrain, by
proclamations and other means, that propensity of
the nobility and gentry to flock to London, which
had increased with the increasing gaiety and luxury
of the capital. In his star-chamber speech he had
vehemently declared against the growth of new
buildings in the suburbs, and had assigned a variety
of plausible reasons^— suppressing however the po
litical ones, whicfTlie probably felt as the most co-
gent,-(-for the constant residence of the landed pro
prietors in those mansions where their ancestors had
exercised hospitality from generation to generation.
" One of the greatest causes," says his majesty, " of
all gentlemen's desire that have no calling or errand
to dwell in London, is apparently the pride of the

128
women : for if they be wives, then their husbands,
and if they be maids, then their fathers, must bring
them up to London ; because the new fashion is to
be had no where but in London : and here, if they
be unmarried, they mar their marriages, and if they
be married, they lose their reputations and rob their
husbands' purses. It is the fashion of Italy 
that all the gentry dwell in the principal towns, and
so the whole country is empty : even so now in Eng
land, all the country is gotten into London, so as with
time England will be only London, and the whole
country be left waste : for as we now do imitate the
French in fashion of clothes, and laquies to follow
every man, so have' we got up the Italian fashion, in
living miserably in our houses and dwelling all in the
city : /but let us, in God's name, leave these idle
foreign toys, and keep the old fashiojnjpf_£ng]andj
 Therefore," he concludes, e^jas every fish
lives in his own place, some in the fresh, some in the
salt, some in the mud, so let every one live in his own
place, some at court, some in the city, some in the
country ; -specially at festival times, as Christmas
and Easter and the rest."
With sentiments like these, the establishment of
arty society in the metropolis capable of furnishing
noblemen and gentlemen with an additional motive
for frequenting it, must have been unwelcome to
the king, and his conduct towards the Antiquarian
society affords an additional illustration of the spirit
of his policy in these affairs.
This learned^association, founded by archbishop
Parker, had flourished, first under his auspices and
afterwards under those of his successor Grindal,
during thirty years of the reign of Elizabeth/^sjt
had numbered among its members sir Robert Cot
ton, at whose house the meetings were long held,
bishop Andrews, Camden, Carew the Cornish anti-

129
quary, Francis Thynne herald and chronicler, Stow,
Spelman, Joseph Holland keeper of the records in
the Tower, sir Philip Sidney, sir Thomas Lake,
William lord Compton, chief-justice Ley after
wards earl of Marlborough, judges Dodderidge,
Tate and Whitelock, serjeant Fleetwood, Hake-
will solicitor to the queen, sir John Davies and
Selden ; with many other private gentlemen and
scholars, respected in their lime, but less known
to posterity.
From such an assemblage, it is manifest that nei
ther popery nor puritanism was likely to derive
support, and as little was any plot against the state
to be apprehended from it : yet on the application
of the society, in 1604, for a charter of incorpo
ration, it had been authoritatively suppressed by
king James, " alarmed for the arcana of his gov
ernment, and, as some think, for the established
church."* The society continued however to meet
as a private club; and in 1617, when it was judged
that fourteen years of tranquil rule might have
calmed the panic of the royal breast, a fresh me
morial was drawn up, and addressed, like all other
petitions, to Buckingham. Of this application we
only know that it was unsuccessful, but it is not dif
ficult to suggest a cogent reason for its failure. It
will be observed, that' a very large proportion of
the more active and eminent of these students of
national antiquities were either judges or pleaders
in the courts of common law, a body of men view
ed by James with peculiar jealousy' and dislike, as
depositaries of those chartered rights which he
habitually infringed, and champions of that national
system of jurisprudence which he desired to abro
gate ; and nothing would appear to him more un-
* Introduction to Archaolqgia.
VOL. II. 17

130
safe or inexpedient than to countenance the search
for ancient documents, and the discussion of an
cient laws and customs, by persons thus qualified
and thus predisposed.
. The king's harangue on taking his seat in the
star-chamber, in which he was pleased to say that
he would make good the old proverb " comb sel
dom, comb sore," might almost be regarded as a
manifesto against the law of England and those by
whom it was faithfully and courageously admin
istered. Addressing himself to the judges, he
strictly charged them to remember to keep their
own limits, " towards the king, towards other
courts, and towards other laws." Under the first
head, in contempt of the law and of their solemn
oaths of office, he enjoins them to deal with no
question which concerned his " prerogative or
mystery of state," till they had consulted with the
king or his council ; " for these," says he, " are
transcendent matters, and must not be slibberly
carried with over-rash wilfulness ; for so may you
wound the king through the sides of a private
person: and this I commend unto your special
care, as some of you of late have done very well,
to blunt the sharp edge and vain popular humour
of some lawyers at the bar, that think they are
not eloquent and bold-spirited enough, except they
meddle with the king's prerogative : but do not
you suffer this ; for certainly, if this liberty be suf
fered, the king's prerogative, the crown, and I,
shall be as much wounded by their pleading as if
you resolved what they disputed. That which
concerns the mystery of the king's power is not
lawful to be disputed; for that is to wade into the
weakness of princes, and to take away the mysti
cal reverence that belongs unto them that sit in
the throne of God."

131
With respect to other courts, he inculcates
much reverence for the royal court of chancery,
and expresses his high indignation at the " foolish,
inept, and presumptuous attempt" on the part of
the common law to bring the officers of that court
under a praemunire. He also finds great fault with
the frequent granting of prohibitions by the king's
bench against the spiritual courts, and declares
that men come now to courts less to hear decrees
given, than questions of jurisdiction decided, and
see which court will prevail. As for the star-
chamber, he says, " It hath a name from heaven, a
star placed in it ; and a star is a glorious creature,
and seated in a glorious place, next unto the angels,"
and adds, that it " hath that belonging to it which
belongs to no other court : for in this court at
tempts are punishable, where other courts punish
only facts; and also where the law punisheth facts
easily, as in cases of riots or combats, there the
star-chamber punisheth in a higher degree ; and
also all combinations of practices and conspiracies.
And if the king be dishonoured or contemned in
his prerogative, it belongeth most properly to the
peers and judges of this court to punish it." He
finally commands them not to nourish men in con
tempt for other courts, but to teach reverence for
them in their public speeches, and to remember,
that they are to declare and not to make law.*
While the monarch was thus jealous of what
he treated as the arrogancies of the jury-courts,
and their encroachments upon those which were
constituted and administered more according to
the rules of the civil law, better jurists and better
Englishmen perceived that all the usurpation was
on the other side ; and they earnestly deprecated,
* King James's Works, fol. pp. 549 et seq.

132
and laboured to avert, the public mischiefs which
threatened to result from the daily increasing
abuses in the administration of justice ; — abuses,
than which none are more adapted to debase the
spirit of a patient people or to exasperate that of
a free and generous one.
On this subject, too much neglected by the
historians of the reign of James, it may be instruc
tive to enter into some details. In the " Table-
talk" of the wise and learned Selden, — that valua
ble repository of his free judgments and acute
remarks, — -is the following observation concerning
the chancery: — "Equity is a roguish thing; for
law we have a measure, — rknow what to trust to;
equity is according to the conscience of him that
is chancellor, and as that is larger or narrower, so
is equity. It is all one as they should make the
standard for the measure we call a foot, a chan
cellor's foot; what an uncertain measure would
this be ! One chancellor has a long foot, another
a short foot, a third an indifferent foot ; it is the
same thing in the chancellor's conscience."
When this high court of judicature, from which,
acccording to James's own statement in the speeqh
above cited, there then lay no appeal, was thus
arbitrary in its judgments, — and not, as now, cir
cumscribed by recorded decisions and rules of law,
— it may well be believed to have acted in many
cases partially and oppressively ; and the attempt
of Coke to restrain its jurisdicti&n might deserve
to be regarded as a patriotic effort, however un
successful. The star-chamber, independently of all the par
ticular instances of its cruel and corrupt judg
ments which stain the annals of the Tudors and
the Stuarts, stands sufficiently condemned in the
king's own enumeration of its tremendous powers

133
of punishing intentions ; of enhancing the penalties
awarded by the common law of the land ; and of
chastising contempts against the royal prerogative
of which no law took cognisance.
It is needless here to expose the iniquities and
barbarities of that genuine Inquisition the high-
commission court, through which the king exercised
his jurisdiction as head of the church; — but the
following observation of Selden's applies equally
to the penalties inflicted by this court and by that
r of the star-chamber : — " The old law was, that
when a man was fined, he was to be fined " salvo
contenemento," so as his countenance might be safe ;
taking countenance in the same sense as your
countryman does, when he says, "If you will come
to my house, I will show you the best countenance
I can," that is, not the best face, but the best en
tertainment. The meaning of the law was, that
so much should be taken from a man, such a gob
bet sliced off, that yet, notwithstanding, he might
live in the same rank and condition as before ;
but now they fine men ten times more than they
are worth." Osborn, in his strong though homely
manner, describes the star-chamber as a place
where the great men alternately " held one another
up to be whipped:" and certainly they did not
spare the lash on a fallen rival or discarded fa
vourite. But of all the deteriorations which the mild and
venerable system of English jurisprudence had
suffered from the adoption of foreign modes of
tyranny and coercion, none was so flagitious, none
so opprobrious to an age which called itself en
lightened and civilised, as the introduction of judi
cial torture.
That this atrocity was practised in a manner as
absurd and barbarous as the thing itself, Selden

134
thus testifies : — " The rack is used nowhere as in
England : in other countries it is used in judicature
when there is a semiplena probatio, a half proof
against a man ; then to see if they can make it full,
they rack him if he will not confess : but here in
England they take a man and rack him, I do not
know why, but when somebody bids."
It will be important to trace with some minute
ness the progress of this abuse. " There is noth
ing upon which Englishmen have greater reason
to pride themselves, than those peculiar notions of.
government and law which have at all times dis
tinguished them from the other nations of Europe,
in the absence of judicial torture and of all cruel
modes of executing convicted criminals. While
these prevailed in all the neighbouring states, es
pecially in France and Scotland, they were scarce
ly known in this country; and with the exception
of the punishment for high treason, and of the bar
barous punishment of the peine forte et dure, were
never recognised by our law. Upon occasion, in
deed, of crimes which were considered as of great
enormity, there has appeared in some of our pub
lic men a disposition to have recourse to torture
for the discovery of accomplices, or to extort con
fession ; but its illegality, and absolute incompatibili
ty with the whole system of our government and
jurisprudence, have generally prevented it from
being actually practised. A memorable instance
of this kind occurred during the proceedings
against the knights templars in the reign of Ed
ward II. The archbishop of York, in the exam
inations which he took against the supposed offen
ders, was desirous of applying the rack,; but sug
gested to several monasteries and divines the
doubts he entertained whether he could have
recourse to it, seeing that in this realm of England

135
It had never been seen or heard of. He further
desired their opinion whether, if torture should be
applied, it should be done by priests or laymen;
and whether, if no person could be found in Eng
land to do the office, he might send for expert tor
turers from foreign parts." (See Walter Hem-
ingford, p. 256*)
" The trial by rack," says Blackstone, " is utterly
unknown to the law of England, though once, when
the dukes of Exeter and Suffolk, and other minis
ters of Henry VI., had laid a design to introduce
the civil law into this kingdom as the rule of gov
ernment, for a beginning thereof they erected a
rack for torture ; which was called in derision the
duke of Exeter's daughter, and still remains in the
Tower of London."f This plan was happily not
proceeded in ; but a very iniquitous case is record
ed in the reign of Edward IV., in which sir Thom
as Cooke, who had been lord-mayor of London,
was arraigned of treason for lending money to
queen Margaret, when one witness alone, who
had been examined on the rack, was produced
against him.f From imitation of the practice of
the civil law, however, this abuse seems to have
become, in one particular class of cases, habitual
and allowed. Barrington, in his remarks on the
statute of the 27th of Henry VIII. respecting
piracy, notices this parenthesis in the preamble
concerning offenders' confessing (" which they will
never do without torture or pains,") and adds,
" the practice of torturing criminals is not spoken
of with any great abhorrence by the legislature ;
nay, seems to be recited as allowed to have been
* I quote from some MS. collections of a late eminent ornament of the
chancery-bar kindly communicated to me for the use of this work.
t Blackstone's Commentaries, vol. iv. p. 326.
$ Fuller's Worthies, p. 31 7.

136
practised in this country in all offences tried be
fore the admiral."* Religious bigotry was the de
testable motive for extending this mode of inqui
sition to spiritual causes. Anne Ascough, who
was burned for heresy in the reign of Henry VIII.,
was racked repeatedly after her condemnation for
the purpose of" extracting evidence against some
court ladies of the same opinions ; the successive
chancellors Rich and Wriothesly were the imme
diate directors, if not the actual perpetrators, of
these barbarities, and similar charges have been
brought against sir Thomas More, but solemnly
denied by him.
After the death of Henry, little is heard of the
rack till the prosecutions of catholics for treasona
ble conspiracies against the life of queen Eliza
beth, after her excommunication by the pope, and
during the detention of the queen of Scots in the
country. These unhappy persons were subjected
not only to the rack, but to various other species
of torment ; and not alone by the authority of
commissioners specifically appointed to examine
into treasons, but often at the mere pleasure of
members of the high-commission, and sometimes
even, it should seem, at the will of professed in
formers and recusant-hunters. The administra--
tion claimed in a peculiar manner these horrors for
its own by a pamphlet written under the eye of
Burleigh, and entitled "A declaration of the fa
vorable dealings of her majesty's commissioners,"
&c. the drift of which is, to exculpate these per
sons from having applied torture " for matter of
religion," which was only done on suspicion of
treason ; and to assert that in other countries it was
more sharply inflicted on lighter occasions.
* Remarks on Ancient Statutes.

137
The ministers however found themselves una
ble to stifle the cry which had arisen against these
Eractices; and the queen publicly ordered them to
e discontinued ; but there is good reason to be
lieve that they were still resorted to in private by
the high-commission, — a court which was bound
by none of the rules of common law. " On the trial
of the persons concerned in the Babington conspi
racy, sir Christopher Hatton, one of the commis
sioners, asks Savage; one of the prisoners who had
made a confession, whether it had been extorted
from him by the rack. ' I must ask thee one
question, Was not all this willingly confessed by
thyself without menacing, without torture, and
without offer of any torture ?' " (Howell's State
trials, vol. i. p. 1131.)
" Lord Coke too, upon the trial of the earls of
Essex and Southampton, says, ' Though I cannot
speak without reverent commendations of her ma
jesty's most honorable justice, yet I think her over
much clemency to some turneth to overmuch cru
elty for herself; for, though the rebellious at
tempts were so exceedingly heinous, yet, out of
her princely mercy, no man was racked, tOrturedj
or pressed to speak any thing further than of their
own accord and willing minds for discharge of their
consciences.'" (Howell's State trials, vol. i. pp.
1338; 1348.)
" Lord Coke, in another place, enumerates
among the privileges of peers, that they are not
to be tortured. ' For the honor and reverence
Which the law gives to nobility, their bodies are
not subject to torture in causa criminis l&sm maje&ta*
$s.' (Lady Shrewsbury's case, Twelve reports^
In the third Institute, however, fol. 35, the same
learned writer declares, that all torture of accused
persons is contrary to law. In the second Institute
vol. n. 18

138
fol. 48, he says, that Magna Charta prohibits
torture by the words, ' JVullus liber homo aliquo
modo destruatur.'' "*
It was little likely that James should entertain
scruples on this subject which had been felt nei
ther by his predecessor nor by the best informed
of her law-officers ; the custom of his own country
had rendered him familiar with the practice, and
we have seen on many occasions how small was
his deference or esteem for the law of England.
In the proceedings upon the powder-plot torture
was employed, as has been shown, against several
of the inferior agents, and Coke dared to cite it
as an example of the king's lenity that more ille
gal barbarities were not perpetrated by his com
mand. There is no intimation of the actual employ
ment of the rack in the investigation of jOtferbury's
murder ; but it is highly propable that threaten-
ings of it at least must have been employed by
Coke, who was extremely zealous in the cause,
to extort those extraordinary confessions against
themselves which were obtained from Elways and
the rest.
Raleigh publicly affirmed on his trial that Key
mis had been threatened with the torture ; and it
appears that both on this occasion and in the
endeavours afterwards used to procure evidence
of the misconduct of this great man in his Guiana
expedition," very severe and oppressive modes of
extracting evidence, if not actual torture, were
recurred to. At this period not only indifferent
witnesses, but accomplices and parties actually
under accusation, in all cases of treason, — and
apparently in any others which were considered
* MS. collections as before.

139
as of great magnitude or enormity, — were sub
jected to repeated interrogatories of the closest
kind, administered sometimes by magistrates, some
times by special commissioners, by judges or privy-
councillors, and on several occasions, by king James
in person. Torture itself could not be more con
trary to that sacred maxim of the English law,
that no man is bound to accuse himself. From
this abuse sprung another of perhaps even greater
magnitude : the written depositions so obtained
were produced in court, according to the practice
of countries which follow the civil law, and the
reading of them was held sufficient evidence with
out the production of the living witnesses even for
the purpose of verifying their own depositions,
which were not always even signed by themselves.
It was on the iniquitous trial of Raleigh,— the
first for high treason which took place under the
reign of James, — that this glaring violation of the
rules of English justice first obtrudes itself on our
notice. " You try me by the Spanish inquisition,"
exclaimed the indignant prisoner, " if you try me
by examinations and not by witnesses !" But Coke
and the other sages of the law ruled it, that this
mode was as legal as the other. It was the more
unjust to deny the prisoner the benefit of cross-
examining the witnesses against him, because our
law did not at this time permit a person put upon
his trial by indictment at the king's suit, to call
witnesses in his defence ; or, which amounted prac
tically to the same thing, it did not authorise , the
court to administer an oath to persons so called :
the admissions and explanations, therefore, which
he was able to elicit from the witnesses against
him, or the self-contradictions in which he contri
ved to involve them,, formed, with his own justi-

140
ficatory statements, the prisoner's only mode of
defence. It will perhaps surprise the general reader to
learn, that it was not till so late a period as the
reign of Anne, that an act empowering courts to
administer an oath to witnesses for the prisoner
silently supplied this capital defect in our juris
prudence ; it may surprise him still more to learn
on what plea James, at an early period of his
reign, had rejected the petition of the house of
commons, that he would cause a law to be made
to the same effect. Referring to the offer of an
addition to his revenue which they had made con
ditional upon his complying with their wishes in
this point, and in the abolition of wardship and
other feudal grievances, he said, that no sum of
money could induce him to yield in this matter,
which, with him, was one of conscience ; for if
men were daily found to perjure themselves for a
horse or an ox, how much more readily would
they do so, to save the life of a friend ! It is not
perhaps very improbable in itself that a mind like
James's might take this perverse and partial view
of such a question ; but, when considered in con
nexion with his attachment to the forms of the
civil law, and his evident efforts to take the fate
of prisoners as much a"S possible out of the hands
of juries and place it in those of magistrates and
judges ; — the real motive of his refusal becomes,
to say the least, suspicious.
In the year 1614, one Peacham, a clergyman^
was apprehended on a charge of high treason on
no other ground than the sentiments contained in
a sermon found in his writing-desk. As the ser
mon had neither been preached nor printed, and
no corroborating evidence against the author ap
peared, it was determined that he should be

141
racked to make him accuse himself ; an order in
council is extant to this effect, signed, among
others, by Coke and by Bacon ; and the examina
tion of this unhappy victim before the torture, un
der the torture, between the torture and after the
torture, was found and has been published among
the papers of Bacon :-^an indelible stain upon his
memory !
There was another class of criminals, regarded
by James himself with no less horror than sus
pected traitors, against whom, not indeed the
rack, but a variety of torments equally barbarous,
were employed without remorse, and apparently
without the slightest consideration of the legality
or illegality of such inflictions. These were per
sons suspected of witchcraft and magic. A few
particulars respecting some of the most noted
trials for these offences will reflect still stronger
light on the practices sanctioned by a prince am
bitious of the character of the English Justinian.
Sorcery and witchcraft had been crimes recog
nised by the English law from the earliest times,
and they had been punishable by burning till they
were declared felony without benefit of clergy by
astatute of 33rd of Henry VIII. ; yet it does not ap
pear that witch-finding had been a very favourite
exercise of superstition or malignity in this country
till the accession of James I. The dialogue on
Demonology had early exhibited the strength of
this prince's faith on these mysterious topics; and
we have seen that one of the first of his English
statutes was an extension of the penalties of for
mer acts against these offences ; which in his na
tive country he had caused or permitted to be
prosecuted by modes at which humanity shudders.
" In Scotland a greater refinement of cruelty in
inflicting torture was adopted than I have ever

142
read of in any other country. The innocent rela
tions of a suspected criminal were tortured in his
presence to wring from him, by the sight of their
sufferings, what no corporal pain inflicted upon
himself could extort from him. Thus in 1596, a
woman being accused of witchcraft, her husband,
her son and her daughter, a child of seven years
old, were all tortured in her presence to make her
confess. (See Arnot's Crim. trials, p. 368.) —
Whether this was done in any other instance than
that of witchcraft, the terror of which seems to
have wholly extinguished men's natural feelings, to
gether with their reason, I do not know."*
During the two-and-twenty years of James's
English reign, it is computed that not less than a
hundred persons fell victims to the prevalence of
a superstition fostered by the royal example ; but
the most celebrated proceedings of the kind took
place at Lancaster in the year 1612, where nine
teen unfortunate persons were indicted for witch
craft, ten of whom were convicted and executed.
Of the punishment of persons for magical prac
tices, Selden in his " Table talk" offers the follow
ing vindication : " The* law against witches does
not prove there be any ; but it punishes the ma
lice of those people that use such means to take
away men's lives :. if one should profess that by
turning his hat thrice and crying buz he could take
away a man's life, though in truth he could do no
such thing, yet this were a just law made by the
state ; that whosoever should turn his hat thrice
and cry buz, with an intention to take away a man's
life, shall be put to death." This appears an
opinion unworthy of its author; it surely does not
belong to human laws to take cognisance of acts
:" MS. collections.

143
incapable of causing any real mischief, however
malicious the intention with which they may be
performed. In this case, too, experience has
shown, that the disbelief of the legislature, mark
ed by the abolition of all laws against the pretend
ed crime, was the true remedy for such practices.
The sentiment is quoted here only to introduce
the remark, that several of these miserable crea
tures, oppressed by age, indigence, and the ill
opinion of their neighbours, seem in fact to have
cherished a rancorous envy and hatred against
mankind; and to have practised their mystical
ceremonies either with the intention and expecta
tion of causing death or other injury to the objects
of their resentment, or for the purpose of extort
ing gifts from the credulous as the price of their
forbearance. It appeared from the statement of
a witness on the Lancaster trials, that he had cove
nanted with one of the suspected witches for a
yearly allowance of meal, on condition that she
should not hurt him.
In a great majority of cases, however, these
charges seem to nave arisen solely from the ma
lice, the superstitious terrors, or the mercenary
views, of the informers ; as, on the other hand,
the confessions of the poor creatures themselves
were the result of terror, of torture, of ignorance
and dotage, or, in some instances, of heroic affec
tion. One old woman tried at Lancaster appears
to have accused herself from a vain hope of sav
ing the life of her daughter, who was charged
with participation in the crime. The judges,
partly, it may be suspected, with a view of flat
tering the prejudices of the king, exhibited the
most disgraceful eagerness for the conviction of the
prisoners ; and one of them was guilty of the re
mark, " that such apparent proof was not to be

144
expected against them as others ; theirs were
deeds of darkness." In fact, the evidence here
allowed to decide in cases of life and death, was
such as ought not to have been listened to on the
most trifling charge ever obtruded upon the notice
of a court of justice. That the witches had held
a sabbath at a lbne house in Pendle forest, where
they had decided on the burning of Lancaster cas
tle for the rescue of some of their associates, on
the destruction of one of their enemies, and on
various other horrible acts, and from which the
whole party retired in the shape of colts riding on
horseback,^-was believed on the unsupported tes
timony of a boy, who thus took away the lives of
his grandmother and others of his near relations.
The principal witnesses against one of the witches
were three of her own children, one of them a
girl of nine years old, and another a youth who
was brought into court in a state of extreme weak
ness from the consequences of a long and most se
vere imprisonment, and probably of further cruel
ties. This youth was himself convicted after
wards on the testimony of his little sister, and suf
fered death. *
To prove one of the. prisoners a witch, evidence
was admitted of its having been the opinion of a
man* not in court that she had turned his beer-
sour; — and, against another, that her brother-in-
law, an old gentleman then dead, used often to
ride a mile or two about to avoid passingher door.
To prove the charge of murder by witchcraft, it
was thought sufficient to attest, that the deceased1
on his death-bed had declared his belief that he
owed his death to the prisoner ; without specify
ing any means of injury employed by her, except
perhaps some threat or malediction. Great stress,
tod, Was in some cases laid on the bleeding of the

145
corpse at the approach of the sorceress, — a fact
which persons were readily found to attest on
oath.* Bacon, after his disgrace, addressed to king
James a proposal for occupying himself in prepar
ing a digest of the laws, with suggestions of vari
ous alterations and amendments. This great man
was doubtless capable of taking a philosopher's
view of the subject of legislation ; but, consider
ing both the narrow prejudices and arbitrary prin
ciples of the king, and the habitual subserviency
of the chancellor, it cannot be matter of regret
that this project, owing perhaps to the death of
James soon after, was never carried into effect.

* See the trials of the Lancashire witches in the Somers Tracts, vol.
2nd edition.

VOL. II. 19

CHAPTER XX.
1620, 1621.
Affairs of Bohemia. — Negotiations of James. — Embassies of sir H. Wotton.
 His verses on the queen of Bohemia.— Levies for the war in Ger
many. — Earl of Oxford. — James attempts to impose a benevolence. —
Negotiations of lord Herbert of Chirbury. — Behaviour of a French
embassy. — Preparations for a parliament.— Letter of Bacon. — Procla
mation. — Prohibition of talking of state affairs. — King's speech. — Pros
perous state of Bacon. — His private life, — studies, — powers of conver
sation. — The commons accuse him to the lords. — Easter recess. —
Alarm of Villiers and the monopolists. — Dissolution of parliament ad
vised. — Williams dissuades it. — Bacon's submission to the lords. — He
is deprived of the seals. — Sentence upon him. — Remarks on his case. —
Treachery of the king and Villiers towards him. — His after-life and
death.
The affairs of the king of Bohemia now became
an object of interest which absorbed all others.
The people loudly cried out for war in support of
the protestant cause and of a family so nearly al
lied to the blood royal of England ; — James re
mained firmly decided on the preservation of peace ;
and his council was divided. Gondomar, by his ca
jolery and his bribes, maintained the king, the fa
vourite and the greater number of the courtiers and
officers of state, especially those catholicly inclined,
in the interests of the house of Austria ; the arch
bishop, that spirited nobleman William earl of®
Pembroke, the duke of Lenox and the marquis of
Hamilton inclined to the opposite party.
In the course of the summer, the emperor pro
claimed the ban of the empire against the pala
tine, and the duke of Bavaria and the other ca
tholic princes of Germany prepared to execute the
sentence, while the princes of the protestant

147
league took arms to resist it. Prince Maurice put
himself in motion on the same part ; while Spinola
raised a formidable force in Flanders, the object
of which was not declared. These measures rous
ed king James to extraordinary activity, — in ne
gotiation. His majesty had already two ambassa
dors in Bohemia ; sir Richard Weston a secret
catholic, afterwards lord-treasurer and earl of
Portland, and sir Edward Conway secretary of
state, a mere soldier, thrust into civil offices purely
by the favour of Buckingham: in addition to these
negotiators he now dispatched sir Thomas Ed
monds for Brussels, to obtain an explanation from
the archduke Albert of the object of Spinola's
levies. The archduke referred the ambassador
to Spinola himself, who acted, he said, by direc
tions from the king of Spain with which he was
unacquainted. Spinola, on his part, affirmed that
his orders were still sealed; but added, that if
Edmonds would accompany him in his march to
Coblentz, he should there be able to give him
satisfaction; a proposal which the ambassador
found himself obliged to accept, probably not
without a full perception of the mockery put upon
himself and his master. His negotiations with
several of the secondary powers of Germany were
intrusted by James to sir Henry Wot ton.
The advancement of this accomplished diplo
matist had by no means corresponded with the
hopes which the professions of favour and affection
made him by James on his first arrival in England
were fitted to inspire. On the contrary, he had
passed some years unemployed in a state of dis
grace from which he recovered with difficulty,
and the reported cause of which is sufficiently re
markable to deserve to be recounted. When sir
Henry first went in a diplomatic capacity to Italy,

148
in passing through the city of Augsburgh, he fell
into company with some men of letters known to
him on his former travels, by one of whom he was
requested, after the German manner, to write a
sentence in his album. Wotton, somewhat incau
tiously, transcribed into the book the following
pleasant definition of an ambassador : " An ambas
sador is an honest man sent abroad to lie for the
good of his country." Eight years afterwards,
this unfortunate sentence was by some chance dis
covered by that malignant and scurrilous man of
letters Jasper Scioppius; who was a vehement
partisan of the church of Rome, and at that time
engaged in writing a book against king James. He
eagerly seized upon it and inserted it in his work
as a proof of a laxity of morals among the protes
tants in general, and in the king of Great Britain
in particular, equal to that with which the Jesuits
were reproached under the name of equivocation.
The circumstance bitterly mortified the king, who
attached extreme importance to every thing print
ed either by himself or his antagonists; and not
withstanding a well-written apology by Wotton,
which, as his majesty was pleased to observe,
" might have covered a greater fault," it was five
years before he thought proper again to employ
him in his affairs. At length however this tres
pass was forgotten ; he was delegated to the Unit
ed Provinces in 1615, and then to the republic of
Venice, whence he returned in 1618, hoping to
succeed Winwood as secretary; but it rather
pleased his majesty to reappoint him to Venice,
and on his way he was commissioned to express to
several princes and states the sentiments of his
royal master on the affairs of the palatine, and to
sound their dispositions in return. Wotton's own
account of his mission addressed to the king,

149
affords, with other interesting matter, several .curi
ous intimations of the degree of esteem in which
the conciliatory efforts of this sovereign were held
by his German friends and allies; and a few ex
tracts will not here be misplaced.
In a dispatch dated from Augsburgh in August
1620, Wotton states that he has already " been
with five several princes and communities, the
duke of Lorain, the archduke Leopoldus, the town
of Strasburgh, the duke of Wirtemberg and (he
town of Ulme : — among whom he spent in all
twelve days, and the rest of the time in incessant
journeys. To the duke of Lorain he had no cre
dentials, yet he thought it proper to visit him on
his way, and " to draw civilly from him" as much
information as he could; " being a prince cumber
ed ... . with the German troubles on the one side
and the French on the other, and therefore bound
to study the passages of both." " I possessed
him," he adds, " with two main heads of mine in
structions ; First, with your majesty's innocency in
the Bohemian business at the beginning : next, with
your impartiality therein even to this hour ; both
which did render you in this cause the fittest me
diator of the world. And so I shut up all with
this ; That God had given your majesty two emi
nent blessings ; the one peace at home, the other,
which was surely the greater and the rarer, a
soul desirous of the like abroad ; which you found
yourself tied in the conscience of a christian king
to promote by all possible means ; and therefore,
though you had before, in the beginning of the
Bohemian motions, sent your good meaning by a
solemn ambassage to the emperor, in the person
of a dear and zealous servant of great quality,
even before any other king had entered into it,
which, through the crudity of the matter, as then

150
took. not the wished effect ; yet now, hoping that
time itself and the experience of vexation had
mollified the affections and better digested the
difficulties, you had not refused, by several ambas-
sages to both sides and to all the intervenient
princes and states, to attempt again this high and
christian work  The duke's answer was more
tender than free ; lamenting much the present
condition of things ; commending much your ma
jesty's good mind; proclaiming his own; remitting
the whole to those great and wise kings that had
it in hand ; and concluding, — with a voice me-
thought lower than before, as if he had doubted
to be overheard, though in his private chamber,
— that the princes of the Union would tell me
what his affections were in the cause : for which I
gave him thanks, commending in all events to his
continual memory, that your majesty's daughter,
my gracious lady, and her descendants, were of the
blood of Lorain. Yea, said he, and the elector
likewise. This was all that passed from him of
any moment."
The Jesuits had made themselves peculiarly
busy in these contests ; their influence over all the
princes of the house of Austria was firmly estab
lished : it was by founding a college of their order
in Prague, contrary to the privileges of that city,
that the emperor Matthias, the predecessor of
Ferdinand, had most alarmed and exasperated his
Bohemian subjects; and when they rebelled, it,
had been one of the first acts of the citizens of
Prague to level that hated edifice with the ground.
In other countries the intolerant zeal of this order
against the protestants had been equally conspicu
ous. " Before I leave Lorain, writes Wotton, " Ican-
not but advertise youi majesty that at Faltsbourg,
a town in the confines of that province towards

151
Elsatia, inhabited and built by many good men of
the religion, the ministers came unto me bewailing
the case of the inhabitants, who for some thirty
years had possessed that place quietly, till of late,
by instigation of the Jesuits at Nanci, the duke had
given them warning to be gone within the term of
two years, whereof some good part was expired.
Their request unto me was, that by your majesty's
gracious mediation, they might be received into
a place within the Palatine jurisdiction, near their
present seat, which they offered to enlarge and
fortify at their own charge, upon the grant of rea
sonable immunities ; which I have assumed to treat
by letter with your majesty's son-in-law, needing
no other commission from your majesty in things
of this nature than your own good goodness.
" The archduke Leopold I was forced to seek
three days journey from his ordinary seat ; where,
being at his private sports of the field, and no fit
things about him, he desired me to turn back half
a day's journey to Mulzham the notorious nest of
Jesuits, commanding the governors of his towns in
the mean time to use me with all due respects;
among whom he made choice of an Italian, by
name Ascanio Albertini, — a man of singular confi
dence with him, and surely of very fair conditions,
— to sound me, though in a merry fashion and half-
laughing, as there was good cause, how I would
taste it if he should receive me in the Jesuits' col
lege ; for at Mulzham those were his hosts, being
destitute of other habitation. I answered him, as
merrily as it was propounded, that I knew the
Jesuits had every where the best rooms, — more
splendent than true, fitter to lodge princes than
monks; and that their habitations were always
better than themselves. Moreover, that for mine
own part, though I was not much afraid of their

152
infection, and that St. Paul did not refuse to be
carried in a ship which was consecrated to false
gods ; yet because on our side they were general
ly, and no doubt justly, reputed the^ causes of all
the troubles of the christian world, I doubted it
would be a scandalous reception ; and that be
sides, those artificers would go near to make appear
on my part a kind of silent approbation of their
order and course. This was my answer, which be
ing faithfully transported by the Italian, the arch
duke made choice of another mean house in the
town, where he received me truly in a noble sweet
fashion  To him, besides that which I had said
to the duke of Lorain, I added two things : The
first, that not only your majesty was clear of all
foreknowledge or counsel in the business of Bohe
mia, but likewise your son-in-law himself of any
precedent practice therein till it was laid upon
him, as you knew by his own high affirmations,
and most infallible testimonies : The second, that
though your majesty to this hour did continue as
equal between both parties as the equinoctial be
tween the poles, yet about the time of my' depar
ture you were much moved, and the whole land
likewise, with a voice I know not how spread
abroad, that there were great preparations to in
vade the Nether Palatinate ; which if it did fall
out, your majesty should have just reason to think
your moderation unthankfuUy requited ; the said
Palatinate being the patrimonial lands of your de
scendants, and no way connected with the Bohe
mian business. Whereupon I persuaded him fair
ly, in your majesty's name, being a personage of
such authority in the present actions, to keep them
from any such precipitate and impertinent rupture
as might preclude all mediation of accord ....

153
"His answer to all the points, which he had
very orderly laid up, was this : Of your majesty's
own clearness he professed much assurance ; of
your son-in-law^s as much doubt ; charging him
both with close practice with the Bohemians at the
time of the emperor's election at Frankfort, and
more foully with a new practice, either by himself or
others, to introduce the Turk into Hungary. Of
any design upon the Lower Palatinate he utterly
disavowed ajl knowledge on his part; yet would
not deny but the marquis Spinola might perchance
have some such aim ; and if things went on as they
do, men would no doubt assail their enemies
wheresoever they should find them. In such am
biguous clouds as these he wrapped up this point.
Of the emperor's inclination to an agreement he
bad me be very assured, but never without resti
tution of the usurped kingdom, which was not a
loss of easy concoction, especially being taken from
him by the count palatine his subject, as he often
called him; and once added, that he thought he
Would not deny it himself 
" I had almost omitted a point touched by him,
that he had knowledge of some English levies
coming toward the Palatinate : about which I
cleared him with confessing that your majesty's
people, and some of your principal nobility, had
taken alarm upon a voice of an invasion there, and
meant voluntarily to sacrifice themselves in that
action; but without any concurrence of your ma
jesty thereunto, either by money or command.
To which he replieth, that in truth he had so heard,
and made no question of your royal integrity. In
the afternoon of this day, he took me abroad with
him in his coach, to show me some of his nearer
towns and fortifications, and there descended into
vol. ii. 20

154
many familiarities, and amongst others, to show us
how to makg frogs leap at their own skins : a strange
purchase, riiethought, at a time when kingdoms are
in question ! But it may be it was an art to cover
his weightier meditations."
The next morning the archduke sent signor As-
canio to Wotton to inquire whether he had in his
instructions " any particular form of accord to pro
ject unto the emperor ;" and at a second audience
he repeated in person the same inquiry ; but so
little was James's speculative love of peace se
conded by any practical skill in the usual and ob
vious means of bringing it about, by the sugges
tion of mutual concessions and compensations, that
the ambassador found himself reduced to the fol
lowing vague and unprofitable answer: "That.
your, majesty thought it first necessary on both
sides to dispose the affections, and then, by reci
procal intelligence between your servants from
Vienna and Prague, to collect some measure of
agreement; for otherwise, if we. should find both
parties fixed in extreme resolutions, it were a folly
to spend any further the honour of our master."
The archduke, who probably thought that it would
be a still greater folly on his own side to treat fur
ther with so tardy and inefficient a mediator when
Spinola was already in full march to attack the
Palatinate, the duke of Bavaria to join the empe
ror in Bohemia, and the elector of Saxony to fall.
upon Lusatia", contented himself with assuring the
ambassador that he would find the emperor " per-
suasible enough if his reputation might be saved :
and, for his own part, he thought that the count
palatine, being the inferior, might yield without
prejudice of his." He addressed letters of the
same tenor to the king of Great Britain, and " at
my leave-taking," adds the ambassador," he spake

155
With much reverence of your majesty, with much
praise of your christian mind, and with much thank
fulness of the honour you had done him."
" Of Strasburg and Ulm," proceeds Wotton, " I
may speak conjunctively, being of one nature, both
free and both jealous of their freedom, which
makes them fortify apace. Towards me they
likewise joined in one point of good respect, in not
suffering me to come to their senate-house, but in
treating with me where I was lodged by the de
puted persons, out of reverence, as they professed,
due to your majesty, who had done them so much
honour with your letters and with communication
of your ends by your humble servant. They both
commended your majesty's christian intentions, and
professed themselves hitherto in the same neutral
ity ; but because it were uncivil for them to con
tribute their counsels where such kings did employ
their wisdom and authority, they would only con
tribute their prayers; with the like temperate
conceits as these." 
By the duke of Wirtemberg the ambassador
was received " very nobly, and kindly feasted at
his table ;" but here his mediations were as need
less as they had been useless in other places. The
duke spoke with great professions of esteem of
the king, and no less of his son-in-law, to whom he
freely gave the title of king of Bohemia, conclud
ing with frequent vows that he would defend the
Palatinate with all his power ; " being tied there
unto not only by the bond of confederacy, but
likewise by reason of state, not to suffer a stranger
to neighbour him."*
From Augsburgh Wotton was to repair to the
duke of Bavaria, then in arms about Lintz inUp-
* Rdiquitz Wottmiana, p. 383 et seq.

156
per Austria ; and thence to the emperor at Vien
na ; towards whom he was charged with a string
of propositions very idle in the advanced state of
the contest, and he was still treating about them
when the defeat of the prince of Anhalt in the
great battle of Prague, in the month of Novem
ber, completed the ruin of the king of Bohemia
and rendered all mediation obviously hopeless.
Wotton immediately quitted Vienna and pursued
his course to Venice. It is related, that at his au
dience of leave, the emperor, after some handsome
compliments, presented the ambassador with a va
luable jewel. The gift was accepted by Wotton
with the usual expressions of thanks ; but the next
morning he bestowed it on an Italian lady in whose
house he was lodged. This behaviour was regard
ed by the emperor as an affront ; but sir Henry
Wotton, on being informed of it, explained, "that
though he received it with thankfulness, yet he
found in himself an indisposition to be the better
for any gift that came from an enemy to his royal
mistress the queen of Bohemia."*
In what manner Wotton was peculiarly attach
ed to the service of this queen does not appear ;
but several letters addressed to her are published
among his Remains, expressive of a strong inte
rest in her concerns. One of them is thus inscrib-,
ed : — " Most resplendent queen, even in the dark
ness of fortune !" He also ventured to make pub
lic the following glowing lines " On his mistress the
queen of Bohemia:"
" You meaner beauties of the night
That poorly satisfy our eyes
More by your number than your light,
You common people of the skies,
What are you when the sun shall rise?
* Walton's Lives, vol. ii. p. 237, Zouch's edit.

157
" You curious chanters of the wood
That warble forth dame Nature's lays,
Thinking your voices understood
By your weak accents, what's your praise
When Philomel her voice shall raise ?
" You violets that first appear,
By your pure purple mantles known,
Like the proud virgins of the year,
As if the spring were all your own,
What are you when the rose is blown ?
" So when my mistress shall be seen,
In form, and beauty of her mind,
By virtue first, then choice, a queen,
Tell me if she were not design'd
Th' eclipse and glory of her kind."
While the charms of this royal lady were capa
ble of inspiring her servants with verse like this,
it is no wonder that swords were ready to " leap
from their scabbards" to espouse her quarrel. The
whole chivalry of the English court Was on fire to
support the claims of her husband and to avenge
her sufferings. Her father alone remained unmov
ed : he peremptorily refused to depart from the
neutrality of which he had made such earnest pro
fession ; and though no law at that time prohibited
English subjects from offering their military ser
vices to any foreign power, at their pleasure, it
was long before he could be drawn to sanction by
a reluctant consent the levies referred to in the
conference between the archduke and Wottori.
The amount of these succours was restricted by
the king to the insignificant number of 2,200 in
fantry ; but they were all picked men and officer
ed by the flower of the nobility and gentry ; men
who were impelled to take arms not alone by im
patience of the inglorious repose of king James's
court, nor even by the chivalrous feelings which a

158
distressed queen and beauty was fitted to inspire,
but by the higher motive of testifying in a foreign
quarrel their attachment to the noble cause of re
formed religion and civil liberty ; — a cause which
they regarded as basely betrayed at home. Sir
Horace Vere, well known as a leader of the Eng
lish auxiliaries in the Dutch war of independence,
at this period the first military character in the
country, and closely connected with the puritanical
party, was the general. Under him two regiments
were commanded, and in great part paid and equip
ped, by the young earls of Essex and of Oxford.
Essex was well pleased to lose amid the clash of
arms the memory of his domestic injuries, and to
find an honourable occasion of absenting himself
from the court of a prince who suspected and
hated because he was conscious of having injured
him. His talent for the military profession was
respectable, though not brilliant, and in this cam
paign he laid the foundation of that experience
which afterwards was his principal title to the su
preme command in the momentous conflict where
Englishman was arrayed against Englishman.
Henry earl of Oxford reflected honour, by his
free arid gallant spirit, on as long a line of noble
ancestors as any English peer could boast. He
was now in his eight-and twentieth year, and had
passed some time in foreign travel. Sir Henry Wot
ton thus mentions him in aletter to sir Thomas Lake,
dated Venice February 1617: — " My lord of Ox
ford having at Florence heard of the imprisonment
of Mr. Henry Bertie, his near kinsman, by the Inqui
sition at Ancona, went the next day post to Rome,
after he had first procured the great duke's palace
there for his own security, and letters of favour
which were to follow him. Since which time Mr.

159
Bertie was removed, perchance upon his interces
sion, and as safe for himself as it is nobly done."*
The same ambassador writes from Venice to
secretary Winwood in the June of the same year,
thus : — "Now because it is likely that his majesty
will be pressed to the assistance of this republic,
my lord of Oxford intendeth to employed the in
tercession of his friends at home that he may have
leave to contract with them here, and to transport
unto them some volunteer troops ; wherein, as I
conceive it, his majesty shall but leave his sub
jects in their natural liberty, and yet much oblige
the state unto him, without any charge of his own,
or so much as any direct engagement of himself in
the cause. My lord himself is grown a goodly
gentleman, of great ability for his years both of
body and judgement; and hath already taken a
way to make both his affection and resolution well
known to them here, by going in a very noble
manner, both himself and his followers, to the siege
of Gradisca, as the public voice leadeth him."f
It does not appear that James permitted any
levies for the Venetians to be made, but the earl
continued abroad till the latter end of the year
1618. The small body of English, on landing in Hol
land, found Spinola already at Aix-la-Chapelle on
his march to attack the Palatinate : they were ob
liged to cross the Rhine below Wesel to avoid him ;
and but for the assistance of prince Maurice, who
sCoured the country before them with 2000 horse,
it would scarcely have been practicable for them
to join the army of the allies in safety. A few skir
mishes served to exhibit their native valor, but a
general action was equally avoided by Spinola and
v
*SirE. Brydges' Memoirs of the peers of England during the reign of
James I. p. 495.
i Ibid 496.

160
by Maurice : the allied troops were sent into winter
quarters without performing any thing consider
able, and the two English earls, leaving their men
in garrison, hastened homeward to importune the
king for reinforcements; the preservation of the
hereditary dominions of the Palatine, not the re
covery of the crown of Bohemia, being now the
only object of the war.
James, equally averse to war by temper and by
interest, clung fast to the opinion, infused into him
by Gondomar, that the most effectual means of
preserving or recovering the inheritance of his
grand-children would be to pursue the negotiation
with Spain for the marriage of his son with the infan
ta ; in compliment to which near and dear connex
ion, it was affirmed that the king her father would
exert his influence with the emperor to prevail up
on him to reinstate the Palatine and conclude a
a solid peace in Germany. He therefore appears
to have firmly resolved in his own mind to permit
ofTmore volunteers, to go upon this service, and on
no account to make the situation of his son-in-law
aground of national hostilities : in the mean time he
hoped to turn the zeal of his people to his own
private advantage. With this view, he took oc
casion to profess that he would never tamely be
hold his children stripped of their patrimony, and
that if his earnest mediations in their behalf should
prove unavailing, war must ensue. In order there
fore to enable him to assume a becoming attitude,
he demanded of his subjects a general benevo
lence, which he attempted to levy, in the first in
stance, on the lord-mayor and other substantial
citizens. But the project did not then succeed;
besides the general aversion to this illegal taxation,
a well-founded distrust of the application of the
sums collected to their ostensible object, seems

161
to have prevailed ; and in the end James was con
vinced, to his mortification, that the assembling of
a parliament was the only practicable means of
supplying his now urgent necessities. In the mean
time, he sought to acquire merit in the eyes of his
people by offering his zealous mediation in behalf
of the oppressed protestants of France.
The situation of these religionists was indeed
deplorable. Mary of Medici, the queen-mother of
France, unable to endure the insignificance to
which she was reduced while the king's favourite
Luynes disposed of every thing, at his pleasure,
had formed a cabal in which she contrived to en
gage most of the princes of the blood, and among
others the dukes of Rohan and Soubize, chiefs of
the party of the Reformed. The intrigue being
speedily detected and baffled, the queen-mother
and the princes hastened to make their peace with
the king at the expense of the unhappy Calvinists,
who were thus deprived of all their cautionary
towns on the Loire and some in other parts. Fill
ed with just alarm, they carried their complaints
to the king of Great Britain, who immediately in
structed his ambassador to intercede for them with
Louis, and, should gentle means prove ineffectual,
to employ menace. This ambassador, — a repre
sentative most unlike his principal, — was no other
than the celebrated sir Edward Herbert of Chir-
bury, who had been resident at the French court
since the year 1616, and had distinguished himself
by the splendour of his establishment and the un
yielding spirit with which he fought and won the
battles of punctilio, in which the lives of all diplo
matic characters were at this period consumed.
He threw his whole ardent soul into the more se
rious business now committed to his management,
and hastened to the" royal camp at St. Jean d'An-
VOL. II. 21

162
gely. Here he was treated by the insolent favour
ite Luynes with a degree of slight and rudeness
hot ill-adapted to the tame and inefficient char
acter of the British sovereign, but utterly in
supportable by the spirit of his ambassador. Her
bert retorted, violent language ensued on both
sides, and the contest terminated in a formal re
quest from Louis XIII. for the ambassadors recall.
James of course complied, and sent the earl of Car
lisle in his place ; who, on inquiring into the cir
cumstances of the quarrel, discovered that Luynes
had misrepresented the conduct of Herbert, of
which he apprised his master. " Hereupon sir
Edward kneeled to the king, and humbly besought
him, that since the business between Luynes and
him was become public, that a trumpeter, if not a
herald, on sir Edward's part, might be sent to
Luynes, to tell him, that he had made a false re
lation to the king of the passages between them;
and that sir Edward would demand reasons of
him sword in hand on that point; but the king was
not pleased to grant it."*
On the death of Luynes, which speedily follow
ed Herbert was reappointed to the embassy; and
soon after his final return in 1624 was gratified
with the title of Baron Herbert of Chirbury. The
French protestants, however, reaped no benefit
from the inept attempts of king James to persuade
to justice and moderation the politicians of the
court of Louis XIII.
The king of France was desirous, notwithstand
ing, of maintaining the relations of peace and amity
with his good brother of England, and since ex
pensive and ostentatious embassies were so much
to his taste, he determined to gratify him. Being
* Coke's Detection, p. 96.

163
the next year so near to England as Calais, he
took the opportunity to dispatch thither, in the
capacity of ambassador extraordinary, the marquis
Cadenat, brother to his deceased favourite Luynes,
attended by a train of fifty or sixty gentlemeri and
three hundred of inferior condition. The pre
sumption and impertinence of these persons seems
even to have exceeded that by which, according
to the confession of Sully himself, French diplo
matists usually rendered themselves and their
country odious to all the nations of Europe.
The first act of Cadenat, of whose reception we
have a full account from Finett, was to offend the
dignity of the earl of Arundel, who was sent to
meet and compliment him at his lodging at Graves-
end, by "not meeting his lordship till he came to
the stair-head of his chamber door, and at his
parting accompanying him no further ;" of which
the earl showed his resentment by appointing a
meeting in the street the next morning, previously
to their embarking together on board the royal
barges, and by quitting the ambassador at the
bottom of the stairs of Somerset-house, appointed
for his residence ; telling him that there were
gentlemen there who would show him his lodging.
" His majesty," continues the narrator, " sensible
more of the cause given by the ambassador, than
of the measure returned by the earl of Arundel,
stormed much at it," and extorted from Cadenat
an apology in the form of a plea of indisposition
when he received the first visit of the earl. After
this, the marquis was conducted in great state to
Westminster, and had a gracious audience of the
king in the house of lords, which was adorned with
rich hangings on the occasion. Two or three
days afterwards he was invited by the king to an
entertainment, when he had the assurance to keep

164
his majesty waiting for his dinner above an hour.
His suite, in the mean time, were brought to the
court of requests, where a table was spread for
them ; but when the duke of Lenox, who had con
ducted them thither, quitted them without seeing
even the principal persons of .their number seated,
they began to think themselves slighted. To
make the matter worse, the lord-chancellor, lord-
treasurer and lord-privy-seal, entered the room in
their robes of office, and without ceremony placed
themselves all together on the right hand side of
the table ; on which the Frenchmen took their
cloaks and, " with shows of much discontent," de
parted to their coaches. The master of the cere
monies and others followed and entreated them to
return, but in vain; they one and all protested
that they had dined at home, and drove off. Their
principal cause of quarrel was, that "gentlemen
of the long robe, as they, with a French scorn,
termed those great officers of state," should, have
taken precedence of them; but one of them was
also offended that he had not been invited to dine
with the king; his father having, on a similar oc
casion, dined with queen Elizabeth. The whole
story perhaps betrays a want of real cordiality
between the two courts. At the end of a fort
night this captious and parading embassy, which
imposed a needless charge of 200/. per diem on the
treasury of James, departed, — to the great joy of
all persons concerned.*
Howel, the letter writer, has the following anec
dote connected with this subject : — " There is a
flaunting French ambassador come over lately,
and I believe his errand is nought else but compli
ment  He had an audience two days since,
* Finetti Phikxenis, p. 67 et seq.

165
where he with his train of ruffling, long-haired
Monsieurs, carried himself in such a light garb,
that after the audience the king asked my lord-
keeper Bacon what he thought of the French
ambassador: he answered, that he was a tall pro
per man. 'Aye,' his majesty replied, 'but what
think you of his head-piece ? Is he a proper man
for the office of an ambassador?' 'Sir,' said Bacon,
' tall men are like houses of four or five stories,
wherein commonly the uppermost room is worst
furnished.' "
But matters of higher importance now occupied
the attention of the king and his ministers:
It was at length determined that parliament
should be summoned to assemble on January 30th
1621, and many consultations were held upon the
means of rendering the meeting safe and profita
ble to the king. What these means were, may be
partly collected from the following passage of a
letter from the lord-chancellor to Buckingham :
 " Yesterday I called unto us the two chief-
justices and serjeant Crew about the parliament
business. To call more judges I thought not good.
It would be little to assistance, much to secrecy.
The distribution of the business we made was
into four parts.
" First, the perusing of the former grievance,
and of things of the like nature which have comen
since. " Secondly, the consideration of a proclamation
with the clauses thereof, especially touching elec
tions, which clauses nevertheless we are of opin
ion should be rather monitory than exclusive.
" Thirdly, the inclusive : that is to say, what
persons were fit to be of the house, tending to
make a sufficient and well composed house of the
ablest men of the kingdom, fit to be advised with

166
area ardua regni as the style of the writs goeth,
according to the pure and true institution of a
parliament ; and of the means to place such per-
• sons without novelty or much observation. For
this purpose we made some lists of names of the
prime counsellors and principal statesmen and
courtiers ; of the gravest and wisest lawyers ; of
the most respected and best tempered knights
and gentlemen of the country. And here, obiter
we did not forget to consider who were the bout-
feus of the last session, how many of them are
dead, how many reduced, and how many remain,
and what were fit to be done concerning them.
" Fourthly, the having ready of some common
wealth bills, that may add respect and acknow
ledgment of the king's care ; not wooing bills, to
make the king and his graces cheap ; but good
matter to set them on work, that an empty sto
mach do not feed upon humor.
" Of these four points, that which concerneth
persons is not so fit to be communicated with the
council-table, but to be kept within fewer hands.
The other three may when they are ripe."*
In the proclamation here spoken of, drawn by
Bacon with his accustomed eloquence, much is
said in praise of peace, and of the king's earnest
desire at all times to maintain it : nevertheless, it
is declared, that his majesty sees himself compell
ed to have recourse to warlike preparations for
the recovery of the Palatinate to his son-in-law,
in case negotiation should fail.
The causes of assembling the parliament are
then thus stated : — " Although the making of war
or peace be a secret of empire, and a thing pro
perly belonging to our high prerogative royal and
* Letters and Memoirs of Sir F. Bacon.

167
imperial power, yet nevertheless, in causes of that
nature which we shall think ,fit not to reserve but
to communicate, we shall ever think ourselves
much assisted and strengthened by the faithful
advice and general assent of our loving subjects.
Moreover, no man is so ignorant as to expect that
we should any ways be able (moneys being the
great sinews of war) to enter into the list against
so great potentates without some large and boun
tiful help of treasure from our people, as well
towards the maintenance of the war, as towards
the relief of our crown and estate. And this the
rather, for that we have now, by the space of full
ten years (a thing unheard of in our times) sub
sisted by our own means, without being charge
able to our people, otherwise than by some vo
luntary gifts of some particulars, which though in
total amounted to no great matter, we thankfully
acknowledge at their hands."
" Upon these considerations, and for that also
in respect of so long intermission of a parliament,
the times may have introduced some things fit to
be reformed, either by new laws or by the mode
rate desires of our loving subjects dutifully inti
mated unto us (wherein we shall ever be no less
ready to give them all gracious satisfaction than
their own hearts can desire)," the parliament is
declared to be summoned.
A part of the original draught of this proclama
tion was omitted in the printing, because his ma
jesty thought that it anticipated too much of
what he had designed for the matter of his own
speech to the house ; but the document is not the
less interesting. Little did its author anticipate,
as he traced it, the results of this invitation to the
parliament to inquire into abuses !

168
Previously to the actual opening of the session,
Bacon became aware that the means used by the
government to pack a house of commons had not
proved entirely successful ; and in one of his offi
cial letters to Buckingham, he communicated the
following warning :  " If his majesty said well
that when he knew the men and the elections he
would guess at the success, the prognostics are
not so good as I expected, occasioned by the late
occurrence abroad, and the general licentious
speaking of state matters, of which I wrote in my
last." As a remedy against this licence of the
tongue, a proclamation was immediately issued
prohibiting all persons, from the highest to the
lowest, from speaking of state affairs, or discussing
the conduct of any of the princes his majesty's
allies : an attempt at restraining the natural liber
ty of mankind, it may be added, which proved as
unwise as it was tyrannical ; since by betraying on
the part of administration both fear, and some
thing like a sense of guilt, it inspired opponents
with courage as well as indignation. ,
Notwithstanding all unfavourable appearances,
James and his ministers continued to flatter them
selves that the sacrifice of a few oppressive mono
polies would satisfy the spirit of reformation
which they perceived to be abroad ; and James
prepared to mollify the temper of both houses by
a speech in which he deigned to apologise in
some degree for his misunderstandings with for
mer parliaments. In the first, he said, he was
guided by the counsellors of the late queen, and
perhaps there had been some mistakes commit
ted ; in the second he was led by " a strange kind
of beasts called undertakers," whose name he
detested. At the same time, his majesty was
careful to enlarge upon his own extraordinary

169
merits towards his people, and to instruct the house
in the sacred obligation under which it lay of sup
plying his necessities, since kings were before par
liaments, and all their privileges derived from royal
concessions. Whatever apprehensions the chancellor might
have entertained of the consequences of this meet
ing of parliament to the king's affairs in general, it
is perfectly clear that he felt none for himself. It
was in the house of commons that his matchless
eloquence had been displayed in its fullest splen
dour; — had gained its most signal triumphs; — he
had often boasted to the king of the influence
which he possessed there, and an attack upon his
conduct from that quarter appears to have been
the danger furthest from his thoughts.
This great man was now at the summit of offi
cial rank and dignity, political power and literary
fame ; and before the circumstances of his fall and
ruin are related, it will be interesting to dwell
awhile on the particulars of his felicity : — After
occupying for some time the situation of lord-
keeper, he had lately been invested with the dig
nity of lord-high-chancellor, and the titles of baron
Verulam and viscount St. Albans had been added
to his style :-^honours, however, which have long
since been swallowed up in the superior glory
which surrounds the simple name of Francis
Bacon. He had published in the preceding year the se
cond part of his great philosophical work the No
vum Organum; and the homage of the learned
greeted him from every quarter of lettered Eu
rope. His authority in the state and his acceptance
with the prince were second.only to those of Buck-
vql. u. 22

170
ingham, and to this favourite he believed that he
had rendered his services and his counsels nearly
indispensable. The deep feeling of reverence which he che
rished for the memory of his excellent father did
him honour, and it caused him to account it no
trifling article in the estimate of his prosperity,
that he had been enabled to become the posses
sor of York-house in the Strand, where sir Nicho
las Bacon had resided as lord-keeper, and where
he himself was born. It was here that early in
the year 1620 he had celebrated with great state
and magnificence his sixtieth birth-day; an occa
sion which was seized by Ben Jonson to address a
few rugged but expressive lines of congratulation
to— " England's high chancellor, the destin'd heir
In his soft cradle to his father's chair,
Whose even thread the fates spin round and full
Out of their choicest and their whitest wool."
His seat of Gorhambury, also the abode of his
father, and the scene of his youthful pleasures and
studies, had been adorned by him with equal care
and cost ; the gardens, formed on the stately and
elaborate plan which he has described in his es
says, were the peculiar object of his attention and
the chief solace of his leisure moments. It was
here, reclined beneath " his own contemporary
trees," that he passed his wisest and his happiest
hours, in the solitary meditations of genius, in con
ference with a chosen few of the most inquiring
spirits of the age, or in the pleasing task of sug
gesting subjects of speculation or experiment, or
dictating portions of nis works, to a band of young
men of promising talents whom he maintained in

171
his" house for the purpose of serving him as assist
ants or amanuenses.
One of these followers was the afterwards cele
brated Thomas Hobbes, the philosopher of Malms-
bury, who was soon distinguished by his lord above
the rest, for his quickness in seizing the scattered
hints and heads of topics which he threw out to
him, and arranging and expanding them with a true
perception of their scope and meaning. Hobbes,
he would say, understood him : and he employed
him in the office of translating into Latin a portion
of his philosophical writings. Another portion was
undertaken by Toby Matthew, son of the arch
bishop of York, with whom, notwithstanding his
wandering life and the obloquy to which his con
version to the Romish faith and close connection
with the king of Spain long exposed him, Bacon
maintained the strictest intimacy apparently, which
he enjoyed with any one after the death of his be
loved brother Anthony. In one of his letters to
Buckingham he calls Matthew his other self
Among the learned friends of Bacon may also
be enumerated the excellent bishop Andrews, lord
Herbert of Chirbury, sir Henry Saville, sir Henry
Wotton, and Selden, who addressed to him a
" brief discourse" on the nature of the office of
chancellor, and whose opinion he afterwards request
ed on the validity of the parliamentary sentence
pronounced against him. Many other names both
native and foreign might doubtless be 'added to the
list, and in general it may be affirmed, that his ac
quaintance was eagerly sought by the eminent in
every class, and by all whom an ingenuous love of
excellence prompted to render homage to the
greatest general philosopher, the first orator and
the finest writer of his age.

172
High as must have been the expectations excit
ed by his fame in all who approached him, none
could have retired in disappointment from the pre
sence of. him who was gifted beyond all others
with that best of accomplishments the, art of con
versation. To his peculiar talent of discoursing in
every style and on every subject ; of adapting him
self to all with whom he conversed, and excelling
them on their own topics, we possess the testimony
of Osborn, — no incompetent judge, — in the fol
lowing passage of that part of his " Advice to his
son" where he speaks of the advantage of general
knowledge to a gentleman :¦ —
" My memory neither doth, nor, I believe, pos
sible ever can, direct me to an example more splen
did in this kind than lord Bacon, earl of St. Al
bans, who in all companies did appear a good pro
ficient, if not a master, in those arts entertained
for the subject of every one's discourse. So as I dare
maintain, without the least affectation of flattery
or hyperbole, that his most casual talk deserveth
to be written : as I have been told that his first or
foulest copies required no great labour to render
them competent for the nicest judgements. A high
perfection, attainable only by use, and treating
with every man in his respective profession, and
what he was most versed in ! So as I have heard
him entertain a country lord in the proper terms
relating to hawks and dogs, and at another time
outcant a London chirurgeon. Thus did he not
only learn himself, but gratify such as taught him ;
who looked upon their callings as honoured through
his notice. Nor did an easy falling into argument,
-^-not unjustly taken for a blemish in the most,-—
appear less than an ornament in him ; the ears of
the hearers receiving more gratification than trou-

.173
ble ; and so not less sorry when he came to con
clude than displeased with any did interrupt
him. Now, this general knowledge he had in all
things, husbanded by his wit, and dignified by so
majestical a carriage he was known to own, struck
such an awful reverence in those he questioned,
that they durst not conceal the most intrinsic part
of their mysteries from him, for fear of appearing
ignorant or saucy. All which rendered nim no
less necessary than admirable at the council-table,
where in reference to impositions, monopolips, &e.
the meanest, manufactures were an usual argument :
and, as I have heard, did in this baffle the earl of
Middlesex, that was born and bred a citizen."*
Thus adorned with all the gifts of nature and of
fortune, and surrounded by that reverence which
his age, his station, his surpassing genius and the
mild majesty of his demeanour impressed on all
who approached him, it is perhaps not surprising
that Bacon should have believed himself beyond
the reach of accusation or censure ;¦ — that he
should have flattered himself that one still small
voice alone would ever dare to reproach him as
the corrupt judge, the tool of lawless power, the
base betrayer of the rights and liberties of his fel
low-countrymen : but he was fatally deceived.
The parliament assembled ; it voted two whole
subsidies to the king as a kind of propitiatory offer
ing, and immediately proceeded upon grievances,
of which monopolies were made the first head,
and those arising out of abuses in the courts of
justice the second. A committee was appointed
on March 12 for this latter investigation; and sir
Robert Philips the chairman soon after reported
*0sborn's Advice, part ii. c. 24.

174
to the house that they had received information
respecting a case of bribery which " touched the
honour of so great a man, so endued with all parts
both of nature and art, as that he would say no
more of him, not being able to say enough." A
second report was brought up two days after, con
taining further accusations of the same nature
against the chancellor, and a debate ensued on the
proceedings proper to be held on so momentous
an affair.
Sir Edward Sackville, afterwards earl of Dor
set, — an ingenious and accomplished man, known
by his patronage of letters, — sir Heneage Finch
recorder of London, and some others, spoke ear
nestly in defence of the chancellor; but at length
it was carried, that heads of an accusation against
him should be drawn up by sir Robert Philips, sir
Edward Coke, sir . Dudley Digges and Mr. Noy,
and presented to the lords at a conference. What
might be the secret feelings of Coke on perform
ing this office towards the base rival who had in
sulted over himself when suffering under an un
merited disgrace, cannot be known ; but it is said
that his conduct was marked by an honourable
forbearance. The lords appear to have entertained the com
plaint of the commons with less hesitation than
might in that age have been expected, considering
the high place of the party accused, and his re
puted favour with the king; they appointed a com
mittee to investigate the charges, and as early as
March 20 Buckingham presented a letter to the
house from the chancellor, in which he only ven
tured to petition, that the house would " maintain
him in its good opinion without prejudice till his
cause was heard;" and that he might be allowed

175
convenient time to make his defence, with the as
sistance of counsel and the privilege of excepting
against and cross-examining the witnesses produ
ced against him. A courteous and favourable answer
was returned by the peers to these requests ; ex
pressing the satisfaction that they should feel if
his lordship should clear his honour in these mat
ters, but instructing him immediately to prepare
for his just defence. In the mean time they pro
ceeded diligently to the examination of witnesses,
both in the house itself and by a select committee.
During these transactions, the festival of Easter
was made a plea for the prorogation of parliament
from March 27 to April 18 : it is said that Buck
ingham had regard to the chancellor in this step,
hoping that the cessation would mitigate the ve
hemence of resentment entertained against him
in both houses : but such a result, it may be re
marked, could scarcely be expected while unan
swered charges rested upon their memories ; and
the favourite had reasons of nearer concern for
desiring an interval of deliberation.
In the matter of monopolies none had been so
guilty as the Villiers family, to whom every thing
was granted by the influence of the marquis and
the shameful facility of the king ; and if the par
liament should be suffered to proceed in its course,
it seemed probable that a storm of national indig
nation would be raised against them in which the
favourite himself might suffer shipwreck. The
house of commons had already singled out three
patents as abuses of the highest degree of enormi
ty; — they were those for the licensing of inns,
the licensing of hostries, and the manufacture of
gold thread, in which two notorious characters of
the names of Mompesson and Michel were the

176
agents of Buckingham and his family. By virtue
of the two first, the patentees were enabled to
exact for their licenses whatever sums they
pleased; and on the refusal of inn-keepers or pub
licans to comply with their arbitrary extortions,
they fined or threw them into prison, at their dis
cretion. The knaveries and oppressions practised
under the authority of the third patent were mani
fold. The monopolists manufactured thread so
scandalously debased with copper, that it was said
to corrode the hands of the artificers and the flesh
of those who wore it. This adulterated article
they vended at an arbitrary and exorbitant- price ;
and if they detected arty persons in making or sel
ling a better' and cheaper article, they were em
powered to fine and imprison such interlopers
without law; whilst a clause in their patent pro
tected themselves from all actions to which they
would otherwise have been liable in consequence
of these attacks upon the liberty and property of
their fellow subjects, and of the right of search
even in private houses which they assumed.
" These gilt flies were the bolder," as a quaint
writer expresses himself, "because sir Edward
Villiers, half-brother to the lord marquis, was in
their indenture of association, though not nam
ed in their patent."*
So monstrous a system of iniquity and oppres
sion, existing solely for the benefit of a few rapa
cious and profligate projectors, could not, it was
evident, stand a moment before the face of an En
glish parliment. Both houses were equally zeal
ous for the abolition of the patents and the con
dign punishment of the knaves who had made them
* Hacket's Life of Williams, p. 49.

177
the instruments of their iniquity; and the kino-
himself, who, little aware perhaps of the extent of
the promise, had engaged in his speech to the
commons to amend the errors of his grants, was
pledged not to obstruct the course of justice.
Every day fresh petitions were presented to the
commons, pointing out fresh sources of oppression
arid of illegal exaction, and loudly demanding re
dress. No one could now foresee where the
demand for reformation would stop: James be
came uneasy and his favourite lost all peace of
mind: One course alone remained for the protec
tion of the monopolists and perhaps of higher de
linquents; — to dissolve the parliament. This plan
readily suggested itself to the marquis, and was
strenuously urged upon him and upon his master
by the selfish and unprincipled crowd of courtiers
and dependents, regardless alike of the safety of
the king and the welfare of the country, and anx
ious only for the preservation of their own iniqui
tous gains. " If the parliament should sit a year,
they said, what good could be expected from them
but two or three subsidies? That it were less
danger for the king to gather such a sum, or grea
ter, by his prerogative, though it be out of the
way, than to wait for the exhibition of a little
monev, which will cost dishonour, and the ruin of
his most loyal and faithful Servants."* This rash
counsel we are told was listened to by Bucking
ham, and would probably have been carried into
effect but for the interposition of dean Williams.
He addressed a writing to Buckingham, strongly
representing " that the parliament in all it had
hitherto undertaken deserved praise as well for
* Life of Williams, p. 49.
vol. ii. 23

178
their dutiful demeanor to the king, as for their
justice to the people." That the prerogative had
been left untouched, and all petitions for redress
of grievances impartially received; "which they
must sift, or betray the trust of their country which
sent them." That the king himself had encour
aged them to the work ; using these very words :
" If 1 know my errors, I will reform them." " But
your lordship," he added, "is jealous, if the parlia
ment continue in this vigor, of your own safety, or
at least of your reputation, least your name should
be used and be brought to the bandy. Follow
this parliament in their undertakings, and you may
prevent it : Swim with the tide, and you cannot
be drowned. They will seek your favour, if you
do not start from them, to help them to settle the
public frame, as they are contriving it. Trust to
me and your other servants that have some credit
with the most active members to keep your clear
from the strife of tongues. But if you assist to
break up this parliament, being now in pursuit of
justice, only to save some cormorants, who have de
voured that which must be regorged, you will pluck
up a. sluice which will overwhelm yourself. The
king will find it a great disservice. before one year
expire. The storm will gather, and burst out into
a greater tempest in all insequent meetings.
. . . . u Delay not one day before you give your
brother sir Edward a commission for an embassage
to some of the princes of Germany, or the North
lands, and dispatch him over the sea before he be
missed. Those empty fellows sir Giles Mompes-
son and sir Francis Michel, let them be made
victims to the public wrath .... Nay, my sentence
is, cast all monopolies and patents of griping pro
jections into the dead sea after them. I have

139
searched the signet office and have collected
almost forty, which I have hung in one bracelet
and are fit for revocation. Damn all these by one
proclamation, that the world may see that the
kingj who is the pilot that sits at the helm* is
ready to play the pump, to eject sUch filth as grew
noisome in the nostrils of his people. And your
lordship must needs partake in the applause.". . . .
The marquis was not slow in perceiving the ad
vantages of a plan by which he was taught to
make good his own retreat at the expense of his
instruments and associates. He instantly carried
Williams with him to the king, " whom they found
accompanied in his chamber with the prince, and
in serious discourse together upon the same per
plexities." Williams's paper was read : " And
whatsoever seemed contentious or doubtful to the
king's piercing wit, the dean improved it to the
greater liking by the solidity of his answers.
Whereupon, the king resolved to keep close to
every syllable of those directions. Out of this bud
the dean's advancement very shortly spread out
into a blown flower. For the king, upon this trial
of his wisdom, either called him to him, or called
for his judgement in writing, in all that he delib
erated to act or permit in this session of parlia
ment in his most private and closest consulta
tions."* The recess of parliament, whatever might have
been the - hopes or intentions of those who pro
cured it, had only given time for the production
of fresh matter against the chancellor. The in
stances of bribery and corruption with which he
was charged, now amounted to eight-and-twenty :
* Life of Williams, p. SO et seq.

wo
his excellent judgment informed him that defence
was unavailing, and would but incense his prose
cutors and the king himself against him ; and on
April 24 the prince of Wales signified to the house
that he was the bearer of a written submission
from the chancellor, which was immediately read.
In this humiliating appeal, which is nevertheless
a model of pathetic and insinuating eloquence, he
begins by craving of their lordships " a benign in
terpretation : for w°rds that come from wasted
spirits and an oppressed mind, are more safe in be
ing deposited in a noble construction, than in being
circled with any reserved caution." Proceeding to
the merits of his case, he says, " I have chosen
one only justification out of the justification of Job.
For after the clear submission and confession which
I shall now make unto your lordships, I hope 1
may say and justify with Job in these words ; ' I
have not hid my sins as did Adam, nor concealed
my faults in my bosom.' This is the only justifi
cation which I will use.
" It resteth therefore, that, without fig leaves, I
do ingenuously confess and acknowledge, that hav
ing understood the particulars of the charge, not
formally from the house, but enough to inform my
conscience and my memory, I find matters sufficient
and full both to move me to desert my defence and
to move your lordships to condemn and censure
me. " Neither will I trouble your lordships by sing
ling those particulars which I think might fall off.
. . . Neither will I prompt your lordships to ob
serve upon the proofs, where they come not home,
or the scruple touching the witnesses. Neither
will I represent to your lordships how far a de
fence in divers things mought extenuate the offence

181
in respect of the time arid manner of the gift, or
the like circumstances. But only leave these
things to spring out of your own noble thoughts
and observations of the evidence and examinations
themselves, and charitably to wind about the par
ticulars of the charge, here and there, as God
shall put into your minds ; and so submit myself
wholly to your piety and grace."
• Passing artfully from his own delinquencies to
the circumstances of his judges, he represents ; that
the peers have a further extent of arbitrary power
than other courts ; and that if they be not " tied
by ordinary courses of courts or precedents in
points of strictness and severity, much more in
points of mercy and mitigation." He pleads that
" the questioning of men of eminent places hath
the same terror, though not the same rigour, with
the punishment." " But," he adds, " my case
standeth not there ; for my humble desire is, that
his majesty would take the seal into his hands;
which is a great downfal, and may serve, I hope,
in itself, for an expiation of my faults."
After some further pleas of extenuation, craftily
insinuated and mingled with appeals to the feelings
of the peers, he ends with this petition : " That
my penitent submission may be my sentence, and
the loss of the seal my punishment ; and that your
lordships will spare any further sentence, but re
commend me to his majesty's grace and pardon for
all that is past."
But the peers justly conceived, that a confession
in which no particular offences were acknowledg
ed ; and which also was afterwards extenuated in
the same submission, could not be received as an
adequate satisfaction for crimes of so high a na-

182
ture ; and they sent to him the particulars of his
accusation, requiring an explicit answer to each.
With . this requisition the chancellor complied:
and out of the eight-and-twenty articles of which
the charge consisted, though he explained some
and extenuated others, he acknowledged without
exception the greater number, and gave a direct
denial to none. The lords, after perusing this new
confession, declared themselves satisfied of its in
genuousness, and they sent to him certain commis
sioners empowered to declare as much, and to de
mand whether it were his own hand that was sub
scribed to the same, and whether he would stand
to it. His answer was in these words : " My lords*
it is my act, my hand, my heart : I beseech your
lordships to be merciful to a broken reed."
Their next proceeding was to send a deputation
to the king,' with the prince of Wales at its head,
requesting him to sequester the great seal : to
which his majesty assented, and four great officers
were sent to the chancellor to demand it. They
courteously told him, that they were loth to- visit
him on such an occasion, and wished it had been
better. " No* my lords," replied he, " the occa
sion is good :" and then, delivering them the great
seal, he added, " It was the king's favour that gave
me this, and it is my fault that hath taken it away.
Rex dedit, culpa abstulit."
The following day, on demand of the speaker
of the lower house, the peers proceeded to pro
nounce their sentence in the absence of the delin
quent, who pleaded sickness. It consisted of four
articles : " That the lord viscount St. Alban,lord
chancellor of England, shall undergo fine and ran
som of 40,000/. : That he shall be imprisoned in
the Tower during the king's pleasure : That he

183
shall be for ever uncapable of any office, place, or
employment, in the state or commonwealth : That
he shall never sit in parliament, nor come within
the verge of the court."
These proceedings are remarkable in many re
spects : during the whole course of them much
deference and tenderness was exhibited towards
their illustrious object by the members of both
houses ; yet in one point, — the disabling of him
from ever sitting in parliament, — the sentence was
more severe than any ever pronounced upon an
impeachment ; in all previous examples it had been
the consequence of an attainder. Another memo
rable circumstance was, that two of the petitions
preferred against the chancellor gave occasion to
the first precedents on record of appeals received
by the house of lords against the decisions of the
high court of chancery ; from which the king in
his celebrated star-chamber discourse had express
ly declared that there lay no appeal. This inno
vation was passed over by James in silence ; but
during the reign of his son a dispute was raised
npon the point, and the jurisdiction of the peers in
this matter was not established without a struggle.
The fine set upon the chancellor appears exces
sive ; it was certainly more than he had the means
of discharging ; for prodigality, and a habit of weak
indulgence to his servants and officers, not avarice,
had been the means of exposing him to the temp
tation of illicit gain, and, notwithstanding the mag
nitude of his income as chancellor, he was over
whelmed with debt and scarcely a richer man than
his father left him. But the lords felt the less re
pugnance to pronounce a somewhat harsh sentence,
capable of strongly deterring future offenders, be-

184
cause, as some of them observed, they .left him in
the hands of a good and gracious' master.
James had shed tears on the first intelligence of
his chancellor's being accused: he speedily libe*.
rated him from the Tower ; remitted his fine, and,
in the end, absolved him from all the other parts
of his sentence and granted him a very consider
able pension; though his own distresses often in
terfered with the payments. These facts are un
doubted ; it also appears from the evidence of au
thentic letters which passed between Bacon and
Buckingham, that' the favourite continued to him
after his fall a considerable appearance of friend
ship; that he obtained for him the promise of
some pecuniary favours from the king, and was
the medium through which the monarch once
availed himself of the counsels of his degraded
chancellor in a matter of state. ;
But there was a hollowness in all these demon
strations ; and there is great reason to regard Ba
con as the victim of a secret combination between
the king and his minion. Even the story told by
Bushel, a.t that time his servant and afterwards, a
miner, quack and. impostor, — that his lord was ab
solutely prohibited by the king from making his
defence,— derives a confirmation from collateral.
testimony which renders it not unworthy of belief.
The fact indeed of the chancellor's having accept
ed bribes in the instances charged by the house of
commons, is too well substantiated by the details
contained in the accusation, and in his own confes
sion and submission, to permit us to regard him as
an entirely innocent victim. But, had he not been
restrained either by a positive command of his ma
jesty, or at least by a knowledge of what must be
the royal wish, he might undoubtedly have palliat-

185
ed his offence in a more effectual manner. Re
specting many of the bribes, he might have shown,
that they came in the shape of customary compli
ments which preceding chancellors had not scru
pled to accept. He might have proved, that in a
large proportion of the cases in which he had
taken money for decrees in chancery, the parties
had been particularly recommended to him by
Buckingham, who had doubtless first received
some gratuity for this exertion of his interest. To
these circumstances, now established beyond con
tradiction by the published correspondence of Ba
con and Buckingham, he evidently alludes in his
memorial of access to the king in 1622. " Of my
offences, far be it from me to say, Dat veniam cor
dis, vexat censura columbas, but I will say that I
have good warrant for : ' They were not the great
est offenders in Israel on whom the wall of Shilo
fell. ' " Such topics of justification however would
have ruined him forever with the king, without
securing his acquittal by the peers. There was
a second head of accusation impending over him,
which had already been alluded to in the house
of commons, and might have afforded good ground
for an impeachment or a praemunire : his conduct
with respect to the passing of patents.
These instruments, so much abused in that age,
were incapable of being carried into effect, unless
the king's warrant for the grant desired was con
firmed by the chancellor ; and it Was an important
duty of this officer not to affix the great seal with
out a careful examination of the patent, and a re
ference of it back to the king in case it appeared
to contain any thing contrary either to the interests
of the sovereign or to the rights or welfare of the
subject. It was under the sanction of Bacon, how-
vol. n. 24

186
ever, that the most odious and oppressive of the
monopolies complained of had been erected; and
this part of his conduct, the heaviest article cer
tainly in the list of his public delinquencies, seems
not to have been forgotten by the lords in passing
judgment upon him for corruption. But in this
part of his misconduct, likewise, Buckingham was
the instigator, and he and his connections were the
parties principally benefited. Had the cause come
to a full hearing, the contempt justly due to the:
servile and dishonest compliances of Bacon would
have been forgotten in the indignation inspired by
the arrogant and overbearing .iniquity of the fa
vourite ; nor could the king, in common decency,
have given way to the punishment of the chan
cellor for his agency in this odious system of ve
nality and oppression, without at the same time
inflicting some mark of disgrace on Buckingham,.
who must have stood forth as the great cause and
origin of all the grievances complained of. The
king however was determined at all risks to pre
serve his favourite : this Bacon knew ; and had he
been endowed with that boldness which he himself,
out of a sense doubtless of his own deficiencies, has
pointed out as the first, second and third requisite
for public business, he would probably have found
means either to compel the king to resort to a dis
solution of parliament, or to extort from him some
effectual pledge for his own return to power after
undergoing the sentence of the peers. But his
constitutional timidity rendered him incapable in
this instance of employing that " wisdom for a
man's self" which, in theory, no man understood
so well ; he confessed his guilt, trusting to the
faith of the faithless for his indemnification; and
relying perhaps too much on the want which they

187
Would feel of his services ; and he found too late
that he was betrayed and ruined.
Another trust which deceived him was that
which he placed in his own popularity. Nurtured
from infancy in the servility of a court, Bacon
seems never to have learned, or totally to have
forgotten, that an attachment to liberty made any
part of the English character ; and in spite of all
the wrestings of law and justice against the peo
ple and in favour of the usurpations of prerogative
with which his conscience must have upbraided
him in secret, he actually believed that he was
revered as a patriot.
A letter written to the king between his first
and second submission to the lords affords the fol
lowing expression of his persuasions on this head :
" When I enter into myself, I find not the ma
terials of such a tempest as is come upon me. I
have been, as your majesty knoweth best, never
author of any immoderate counsel, but always
desired to have things carried suavibus modis. I
have been no avaricious oppressor of the people ;
I have been no haughty, or intolerable, or hateful
man, in my conversation or carriage ; I have in
herited no hatred from my father, but am a good
patriot born. Whence should this be ? For
these are the things that use to raise dislikes
abroad. " For the house of commons, I began my credit
there, and now it must be the place of the sepul
ture thereof; and yet, this parliament, upon the
message touching religion, the old love revived,
and they said I was the same man still, only
honesty was turned into honour.
" For the upper house, even within these days,
before these troubles, they seemed to take me

188
into their arms, finding in me ingenuity, which
they took to be the true straight line of nobleness,
without any crooks or angles*
" And, for the briberies and gifts, wherewith I
am charged, when the book of hearts shall be
opened, I hope I shall not be found to have the
troubled fountain of a corrupt heart, in a deprav
ed habit of taking rewards to pervert justice;
howsoever I may be frail, and partake of the
abuses of the times.*
"And therefore I am resolved, when I come to
my answer, not to trick my innoGency (as I writ
to the lords) by cavilations or voidances : but
to speak to them the language that my heart
speaketh to me, in excusing, extenuating, or inge
nuously confessing: praying to God to let me see
the bottom of my faults, and that no hardness of
heart do steal upon me under show of more neat
ness of conscience than is cause. But, not to tnouc
ble your majesty any longer, that which I. thirst
after, as the hart after the streams, is, that I may
know by my matchless friend (Buckingham), that
presenteth to you this letter, your majesty's heart,
which is an a byssus of goodness, as I am an abys-
sus of misery, towards me. I have been ever
your man, and counted myself but an usufructary
of myself, the property being yours. And now,
making myself an oblation, to do with me as may
best conduce to'the honour of your justice^ the
honour of your mercy, and the use of your ser
vice, resting as clay in your* majesty's gracious
hands" From this letter it appears that the chancellor
was at first by no means aware of the irretrievable
* The chancellor sometimes pleaded that he had indeed sold justice,
but not injustice.

189
nature of his disgrace, — the whole depth of his
fall. He seems to have believed that it was
entirely in the king's power, and might perhaps
be in his intention, to save him from The ignominy
of a sentence, and probably to restore him to
office. But gradually the full extent of his ca
lamity opened upon him : — his release from the
Tower, — his interview with the king, — even the
wish expressed by his majesty on one occasion to
hear his advice as to the conduct to be pursued
by him respecting grievances, — led to no return
of power or favour; and it is lamentable to find
him, in his letters to the king, sinking at last to
the abjectness of a supplication like the follow
ing :—
" Help me, dear sovereign lord and master, and
pity me so far as I that have borne a bag be not
now in my age forced, in effect, to bear a wallet ;
nor I that desire to live to study, may not be
driven to study to live." Even this piteous en
treaty seems to have produced no relief: he had,
as we have before stated, a large nominal pension ;
but the embarrassed state of the treasury, — the
gradual fbrgetfulness into which he sunk at court,
— his own profuse habits, and the weight of debt
under which he laboured, conspired to keep him
necessitous. There is considerable doubt as to
the state of actual indigence to which some have
affirmed that this great man was reduced : but it
may safely be affirmed that he lived in constant
difficulties, and died insolvent. Yet in some re
spects the five years that Bacon survived his fall,
were the most glorious of his whole life : retired
from the temptations and the distractions of pub
lic life, his active intellect expatiated at will
through the regions of contemplation, and gather-

190
ed. there the fruits of immortality. Even in his
addresses to the king some glimpses of a noble
mind appear.
One of the first inducements which it occurred
to him to offer to his majesty for treating him with
lenity and generosity, was, that he should then be
able to promise him two great works, — a good
history of England, and a better digest of the laws.
The first of these promises he fulfilled in part by
his valuable history of Henry VII. ; the second
he had begun to perform, but was obliged to de
sist by the want of necessary assistance and encour
agement. " I hope," says he, in one of his peti
tionary letters, "my courses shall be such, for
this little end of my thread which remaineth, as
your majesty, in doing me good, may do good to
many both that live now and shall be born here
after." In his memorial of things to be spoken to his
majesty, on being permitted to come to his pre
sence, at the latter end of the year 1622, occurs,
the following imperfect memorandum: ...." My
story is proud ; I may thank your majesty ; for I
heard him note of Tasso, that he could know
which poem he made when he was in good con
dition, and which when he was a beggar. I
doubt he could make no such observation of
me." This portion of his story might indeed be
f>roud : :the completion of his great work on phi-
osophy ; a new and much enlarged edition of his
invaluable essays ; besides the history of Hen
ry VII.. and many detached pieces on a varietv of
subjects, were the noble products of his years of
disgrace and sorrow.
Jonson, his eulogist, not his flatterer, in prospe
rity, wrote of him thus nobly in his adversity :

191
" My conceit of his person was never encreased
toward him by his place or honours : but I have
and do reverence him for the greatness that was
only proper to himself, in that he seemed to me
ever, by his work, one of the greatest men, and
most worthy of admiration, that had been in many
ages. In his adversity I ever prayed, that God
would give him strength; for greatness he could
not want. Neither could I condole in a word or
syllable for him, as knowing no accident could do
harm to virtue, but rather help to make it mani
fest."* Bacon appears to have fallen a victim to a
rash exposure of himself to cold in the perform
ance of a philosophical experiment. He expired
in April 1626 at the house of the earl of Arundel
at Highgate. " For my name and memory," he
beautifully writes in his last will, " I leave it to
men's charitable speeches, and to foreign nations,
and the next ages."t
* Discoveries.
t See for this part of the life of Bacon the letters and memorials chronolo
gically arranged in the collection of his works.

CHAPTER XXI.
1621.
Disaffection of the parliament. — Usher appointed to preach before the com
mons, — his conference with James. — Conduct of Laud. — King's speech
against monopolies. — Case of attorney Yelverton. — King's speech respec-
ting the affairs of the Palatine. — Supplies delayed. — Parliament adjourn
ed. — Opposition lords — earls of Essex and Oxford, — earls of Southamp
ton — his imprisonment. — Lord Say and Sele, — earl of Warwick, — lord
Spencer. — Insulting conduct of the earl of Arundel ; his office of earl
marshal. — Competitors for the post of Chancellor. — Sir Lionel Cranfield,
—Dean WHUams keeper of .the seajs^— Liberation of the earl of North
umberland, — of the earl and countess of Somerset. — Williams made bish
op of Lincoln. — Circumstances of Laud's appointment to the see of St.
David's. — Archbishop Abbot kills a man by chance, — proceedings respect
ing him.— Account of bishop Andrews, — Lalji^ elegy on his death by Mil
ton.
During the suspension of the use of parliaments
in which James had for so many years persist
ed, the monarch, from a vain conceit of the re
verence entertained for his wisdom and regal vir
tues, the favourite, from insolence and inexperience,
and the courtiers, from habitual insensibility to the
effects of abuses by which they profited, had all
deceived themselves as to the sentiments entertain
ed of their conduct by the nation at large ; but the
time was now come when they were to be rudely
awakened from their dream of self-complacency.
The proclamation against speaking of public
affairs, was the more disregarded the oftener and
the more urgently it was reiterated. Swarms of
political libels flew abroad, in despite of the fetters
of an imprimatur which then rested upon the press,
and one of the sharpest of these, called " Tom

193
Telltruth," was written under the guise of obedi
ence to that clause of the royal proclamation which
commanded all good subjects to give information
of discourse held against the measures of govern
ment. Gondomar, whose extraordinary power over
the mind of the king, and " more than parliament
protections" of priests and Jesuits, as they are cal
led by Tom Tell-truth, had justly provoked the
Eeople, was violently insulted in the streets of
¦ondon; and the house of commons began to
take measures for the protection of the protest
ant religion. It was matter of notoriety, that
several concealed catholics had gained admittance
by court favour into the house itself; and for the
purpose of reducing such members to a distressing
dilemma, it was moved by the country party, — the
designation which now first began to be appropria
ted to the opponents of the court, — that the com
mons should go in a body and publicly receive the
sacrament at St. Margaret's church. The resolu
tion was the more displeasing to the king, as it was
one which he could not decently oppose ; and no
other resource remained than to send for the
preacher nominated by the house, and to furnish
him with the heads of what was deemed by his
majesty a suitable discourse. This preacher was
that very learned and pious divine the celebra
ted James Usher, who had already become known
to the king by the following circumstances :
It had appeared to the church of Ireland a pro
per assertion of its independence on that of Eng
land, to publish articles of its own, in which the
peEi of Usher had been chiefly employed. The
Calvinistic doctrine of predestination, clearly laid
down in some of these articles, and the judaieal
observance of the sabbath enjoined in others, had
vol. ii. 25

194
given occasion to some officious persons to accuse
the compiler of the sin most fatal in that reign
to clerical preferment, — that of purltanism : but
James was prepossessed in his favour by the
"Continuation of Jewel's Apology for the church
of England ;" a learned work and wtll seasoned
with commentary on the Apocalypse, which Usher
had dedicated to him some time before; and on his
visiting England in 1619, fortified with an earnest
letter of recommendation from the lord-deputy and
council of Ireland to the English council, the mon
arch had deigned to appoint him an audience, and
in person to examine him on points of doctrine and
discipline. The Irish divine had passed this or
deal so satisfactorily, that his royal examiner, never
slack in rewarding what he acknowfedged as
ecclesiastical merit, soon after nominated him to
the see of Meath.
On this occasion, his majesty remarked to Usher,
that he had but an unruly flock to look unto next
Sunday; adding, that he did not conceive how,
after the late heats in the house, all the members
could be in a fit state to partake of the sacred
rite, and that he feared some would eat and drink
their own condemnation: he required the bishop
to tell them, that he hoped they were prepared,
but wished them better prepared; to exhort them
to affection and concord; and to teach thein to
love God first, and then their king and country;
and especially to look upon the distressed state of
Christendom, and to grant supplies for its relief;
closing all with the favourite maxim which his
majesty often repeated to his parliament, — "He
twice gives who gives quickly."
Thus tutored, Usher mounted the pulpit; but
his distinguished zeal against the church of Rome,

195
probably the circumstance which had recommen
ded him to the choice of the house, led him to
overlook the^ scope of the king's injunctions, and to
dwell principally on the protestant notion respect
ing the presence of Christ in the sacrament, which
he strongly distinguished from transubstantiation.
It may be worth noting, that the prebendaries
of Westminster refused the pulpit of St. Margaret's
to Usher on this occasion, asserting their own
right to officiate before the parliament ; and the
service was in consequence performed in the
Temple church. This opposition originated with
Laud, who thus ominously commenced his political
career by a bold defiance of the will of the house
of commons.
Somewhat daunted by all these manifestations
of the spirit of his people, the king went to the
house of lords previously to the Easter recess,
and there pronounced a speech remarkable for
the total omission of his favourite prerogative doc
trines, and for a certain humble, and, as it were,
penitential tone, which formed an extraordinary
contrast with the boastful and arrogant strain in
which he had hitherto thought proper to address
the great council of the nation.
He began by stating, that whereas it had been
his errand the last time he appeared in that place,
to declare the "verity" of his proceedings, and the
caution used by him in passing the patents now in
question before them; it was his present purpose
to express his readiness to put in execution what
ever they should sentence respecting them. As
the first proof of his sincerity in this matter, he
mentioned the diligent search which he had caused
to be made after the person of sir Giles Mompes-
son, who had fled. (The truth however was, that

196
this delinquent had been suffered to escape through
the influence of Buckingham, and was never
brought to justice.) " I do assure you," he added,
" had these things been complained of to me before
the parliament, I would have done the office of a
just king, and out of parliament would have pun
ished them as severely, and peradventure more
than ye now intend to do. But. now that they are
discovered to me in parliament, I shall be as ready
in this way as I should have been in the other;
for I confess I am ashamed, — these things proving
so as they are generally reported to be, — that it
was not my good fortune to be the only author of
the reformation and punishment of them by some
of the ordinary courts of justice. Nevertheless^
 I will be never a whit the slower to do my
part for the execution  So precious unto me is
the public good, that no private person whatso*
ever, were he never so dear unto me, shall be re
spected by me, by many degrees, as the public
good." His majesty went on to declare his resolution
not to infringe upon any of the privileges of the
house of lords; and expressed his attachment to
the peerage, which he had evinced by causing his
only son to take his seat among them ; " But," he
added, " because the world at this time talks so
much of bribes, I have just cause to fear the whole
body of this house hatn bribed him to be a good
instrument for you upon all occasions; he doth so
good offices in all his reports to me. And the like
I may say of one that sits there.— Buckingham,-—
he hath been so ready upon all occasions of good
offices, both for the house in general and every
member in particular."

197
After acknowledging the free and affectionate
dealing of both houses in granting him two subsi
dies, in a more loving manner than they had been
given to any king before, he said, that the least re
turn he could make was to "strike dead" the
three great monopolies which had been peculiarly
the subject of complaint. He likewise desired
that the lords would proceed with a bill before
them against informers: "For," said he, "I have
already showed my dislike of that kind of people
openly in star-chamber ; and it will be the greatest
ease to me and all those that are near about me
at court that may be : for, I remember that since
the beginning of this parliament, Buckingham hath
told me, he never found such quiet and rest as in
this time of parliament from projectors and in
formers, who at other times miserably vexed him
at all hours." The extraordinary indecorum of
these familiar notices of the sentiments and say
ings of a particular nobleman in an address of the
king to the house of lords, need not be pointed
out : it seemed as if his majesty was anxious to
show to all the world the full extent of his Weak
ness, and the undivided possession which his fa
vourite held of his thoughts at all times and in all
places. " And now," concluded his majesty, " I confess
that when I looked before upon the face of the
government, I thought, as every man would have
done, that the people were never so happy as in
my time : for even as at divers times I have looked
upon many of my copices, riding about them, they
appeared on* the outside very thick and well grown
unto me; but when I turned into the midst of
them, I found them all bitten within, and full of
plains and bare spots ; . . . . even so this kingdom,

198
the external government being as good as ever it
was, and, I am sure, as learned judges as ever it
had, and, I hope, as honest administering justice
within it ; and for peace both at home and abroad,
I may truly say, more settled arid longer lasting
than ever any before; together with as great
plenty as ever: so as it was to be thought, that
every man might sit in safety under his own vine
and fig tree : yet I am ashamed, and it makes my
hair stand upright to consider, how in this time
my people have been vexed and polled by the vile
execution of projects, patents, bills of conformity
and such like ; which, besides the trouble of my
people, have more exhausted their purses than
subsidies would have done."
With reference to the attorney-general, whose
cause was then depending, his majesty informed
the house, that if they had forborne to meddle with
him in examination because he was his prisoner,
he freely remitted and put him into their hands.*
The case of this public officer was a remarkable
one, and worthy of being somewhat minutely de
tailed. Sir Henry Yelverton is stated to have been "an
obliged servant" of the house of Howard and the
earl of Somerset, by whose favour he held the of
fice of attorney-general at the time of the detec
tion of Overbury's murder; and on that occasion
he strove to protect his patrons by persuading
Weston to stand mute on his trial. Buckingham,
from the beginning of his career, appears to have
looked with an evil eye upon this adherent of his
predecessor, and Yelverton had further incensed
him by some interference respecting the marriage
" See the entire speech in Annals of James I, and Charles I., p. SO.

199
of sir Edward Villiers, and still more by his official
resistance to certain illegal patents granted at the
intercession of the favourite. At length, in 1620,
the attorney, whose professional merit seems hi
therto to have served him as a protection, gave
his powerful enemy a handle against him by pass
ing certain clauses in a charter granted to the city
of London, not agreeable, it was said, to the war
rant, and derogatory to his majesty's honour and
profit. On this occasion, the option was offered
him of submitting himself privately, or defending
himself openly, and by the advice of friends he
accepted the former alternative ; but this humilia
tion not being deemed sufficient, the matter was
afterwards brought before the star-chamber,
where the attorney, though not unprovided, as he
affirmed, of a satisfactory defence, again submitted
himself, and again in vain. Though no corruption
was laid to his charge, his departure from the war
rant was treated as so high a misdemeanour, that,
after a long and bitter speech against him by sir
Edward Coke, he was sentenced to pay a fine of
4,000/., to lose his office, and be imprisoned in the
Tower during pleasure. While he was still in
confinement,' the zealous burgesses of Northamp
ton elected him their representative ; but before
he had taken his seat, he was accused by the
house of commons to the lords of certain unjusti
fiable acts relative to the patents of inns and hos-
teries, and that of gold thread.
Yelverton expressed his satisfaction at being
called to justify his conduct openly before the bar
of that honourable house, and, referring the par
ticulars of his defence to a future day, said in
the mean time, with respect to the patent of inns,
that if he deserved well of his majesty in any

208
thing, it was in this matter; that the king and the
subject were more abused by that patent than by
any other; and that it was for his opposition to it,
as he conceived, that he suffered at that day. On
his defence before the peers, he gave in a particu*
lar and satisfactory answer to every article of the
charge ; and, fired by consciousness of injured in
nocence, he assumed courage to conclude his speech
with the following striking narrative :
" When sir Giles (Mompesson) saw I would not
be wooed to offend his majesty in his direction, I
received a message by Mr. Emmerson, sent me
from sir Giles ; that I would run myself upon the
rocks, and that I should not hold my place long, if
I did thus withstand the patent of inns ; or to this
effect : He had a message to tell me from my lord
of Buckingham, that I should not hold my place a
month, if I did not conform myself in better mea
sure to the patent of inns ; for my lord had oh-
tained it by his favour, and would maintain it by
his power.
....." Soon after, I found the message in part
made good ; for all the profits almost of my place
were diverted from me, and turned into an unusual
channel, to one of my lord's worthies ; that I re
tained little more than the name of attorney. It
became so fatal and so penal that it became almost
the. loss of suit to come to me, my place was but the
seat of winds and teinpests. Howbeit, I dare say, if
my lord of Buckingham had but read the articles
exhibited in this place against Hugh Spencer, and
had known, the danger of placing and displacing
officers about a king, he would not have pursued
me with such bitterness,
" But by opposing my lord in this patent of inns,
and in the patent of ale-h^ses, i& the Irish cus-

201
toms, and in sir Robert Naunton's deputation of
his place in the court of wards, these have been
my overthrow ; and for these I suffer at this day
in my estate and fortune (not meaning to say I
take it, but as I know, and for my humble opposi
tions to his lordship) above twenty thousand
pounds." Such an attack upon the conduct of the favou
rite was not to be endured : James was pleased to
regard it as an attempt against his own honour,
and sent word to the lords that he intended " to
do himself justice ;" but the house, not greatly re
lishing this kind of interference, besought his ma
jesty to leave the punishment to them, and with
out taking any notice of the accusation brought
against Yelverton by the commons, they proceed
ed to adjudge him for his speeches against the
king, to pay a fine of 10,000 marks, to make sub*
mission, and to be imprisoned during pleasure ;
and, for what he had said against the marquis, to
pay a further fine of 6,000 marks. But this sen
tence, so severe in appearance, proved in reality
little more than nominal. Buckingham, rising in
his place, instantly forgave his part of the fine,
and the house agreed to intercede with the king
for the remission of the rest; nor was his impri--
sonmcnt of long duration. Buckingham also, over
awed by the spirit which his intended victirn had
displayed in his defence, and apprehensive perhaps
of further disclosures, took him into favour, and he
was afterwards made a judge.
On the resumption of business after the recess,
the king, to whom the proceedings of the parlia
ment had become a matter of great interest and
importance, came again to the house of lords, pre
pared with another fpooing speech for the two
vol. n. 26

202
houses. He gave fresh encouragement fo their
zeal for the redress of grievances, declaring with
peculiar warmth against bribery and corruption in
courts of justice, and enjoining them to spare none
who should be found guilty m these respects ,• a
very intelligible disclaimer of any desire on his
part to protect the devoted chancellor. Passing
then to the affairs of the palatine, he explained,
that the amount of the subsidies granted at the
meeting of parliament, which he again thankfully
acknowledged, had been already expended in suc
cours to his daughter and her family, now refugees
in Holland, and in subsidies to the princes of the
protestant union. He said, that he had procured
a truce in this quarter, and hoped that a peace
might be concluded ; but stated, that the expenses
of the negotiation, or of the levy of an army,
should it finally prove necessary, could not be sup-.
Sorted without a fresh grant of money, for which
e pressed in the most urgent manner, adding a
solemn protestation that he would not dissolve
the parliament till they should have concluded the
matters which they had in hand.*
But the house of commons was little disposed
to vote more money without the certainty of a
war for the recovery of the Palatinate, and with
out a full discussion of certain measures, which in
volved, as they well knew, the most cherished.
principles or prejudices of the monarch. These
were, — the indulgence granted to catholics in the
non-execution of the penal laws; — the treaties
concluded with the king of Spain and the empe
ror, to the detriment, as was thought, of the coun
try, and the hazard of the protestant cause; — and
* Annals of James L and. Charles I., p. 52.

203
the negotiations carrying on for the marriage of the
f)rince of Wales to the infanta. It was his jea-
ousy on these subjects principally, which had in
duced James to issue, and more than once to reite
rate, his proclamation against speaking on state af
fairs : but the parliament had certainly some ground
for believing its discussions virtually excepted out
of the general prohibition. James himself, after
his warning to the commons at their first meeting
to abstain from interfering with affairs belonging to
his prerogative, had deigned to mention to them
the existence of a treaty for the marriage of the
prince with the Spanish princess, " which," he said,
" if it were not for the benefit of the established
religion in England, and of the reformed abroad,
he was not worthy to be their king."* With re
spect to the security of the protestant religion, al
so, there had been some application made to his
majesty, at the beginning of the session, through
the lord-chancellor, which did not appear, under
such management, to give offence. But the senti
ments of the king and the house of commons re
specting the first principles of government and the
leading maxims of policy, both foreign and domes
tic, were in truth irreconcileably discordant, and in
the present disposition of both, there was no pros
pect of any amicable adjustment* The longer the
session continued, the more cause James found to
tremble for his favourite .prerogative doctrines,
now openly attacked, and the less hope he per
ceived of a fresh vote of supply: at length, losing
all patience, on the 4th of June, before any one
business had been brought to a conclusion, before
a single bill, except that of subsidy, had passed, in
* Coke's Detection, p. 96.

204
Violation of his own absolute promise he comman
ded the lord-treasurer to adjourn the parliament
to November 16.
This interruption was highly resented by the
commons, who regarded it as a flagrant violation of
their privileges; adjournment being, as they af
firmed, not in the option of the sovereign, but of
each house within itself; and they requested a con
ference with the peers on the subject. The peers
however refused to join with the commons in their
intended protest; for which the king, coming to
the house of lords, returned them his thanks in
person; at. the same time he offered, at their in
tercession, to defer the adjournment for a few days*
which were afterwards prolonged to a fortnight.
The commons, before their separation, unani
mously voted a declaration, in which they strongly
expressed their sorrowful feeling of the distresses
of his majesty's children abroad, and the generally
afflicted state of the professors of the same chris
tian religion with the church of England, and
solemnly pledged themselves, should his majesty's
present negotiations, — in which they begged that
there might be no delay, — fail of their effect,, so to
support him, both with their lives and fortunes,
"as that, by the divine help of almighty God,
(which is never wanting to those who in his fear
shall undertake the defence of his cause,) he may
be able to do that with his sword, which by a
peaceable course shall not be effected."
Although the peers as a body had not thought
proner to join with the commons in the assertion
of their claims respecting adjournments, the upper
house was not destitute of a spirited minority who
stood forth in opposition to the court, and encoun
tered its adherents in frequent and warm debates.

205
The earls of Oxford and Essex, indignant at the
refusal of further levies to support the cause of
the Palatine, were zealous and active malcontents.
A more formidable opponent, from his mature age,
his talents, and the active part which he had for
merly sustained in the counsels of Essex, was the
earl of Southampton. This accomplished noble
man was of a haughty and impetuous temper, and to
the personal quarrels in which it involved him, are
probably to be ascribed, in great measure, the
sudden changes from favour to disgrace which had
distinguished his public career. The act of grace
by which James, at the commencement of his
reign, had relieved the earl from all the conse
quences of his attainder, had been succeeded, in
1604, by a short imprisonment, which some have
ascribed to political, and others to conjugal jeal
ousy on the part of the king. A return of favour
two years afterwards, gained him the office of
warden of the New Forest for life. Afterwards,
he directed his thoughts to the subject of colonisa
tion in the western hemisphere, and in 1609 be
came an active member of the Virginia company.
The next year his majesty gave himself the su
perfluous trouble of making a reconciliation be
tween this' gallant nobleman and that noted pol
troon Philip earl of Montgomery. They had
fallen out, it seems, at tennis, and boxed each
other's ears with their rackets, — such were the
manners of the age,— but no further bloodshed
ensued. In 1613, lord Southampton returned in
haste from the continent to sustain the honour of
a royal visit at his house in Hampshire ; he atten
ded the king into Scotland in 1617, and, soon after
his return, was rewarded, for this courtly atten
tion by admission to the council-board, which he

206
had long solicited in vain. But his disposition was
ill-adapted to the servility and base intrigue which
prevailed in the court and cabinet of James; he
obtained no share of political power, was chosen
treasurer of the Virginia company contrary to the
wishes of the king, and both in this station, which
was one of considerable weight and influence, and
in his place in the house, showed himself an op
ponent of the measures of the court.* What was
still more audacious, he " rebuked the lord marquis
of Buckingham with some passion and acrimony
for speaking often to the same thing in the house,
and out of order."t
Scarcely was the parliament adjourned, when
the offended minion caused his master to commit
the earl to private custody in the house of his
friend Dr. Williams dean of Westminster, and
afterwards to confine him to his own seat at Titch-
field under the inspection of sir William Parkhurst.
The following letter written by him during the
time of his restraint to Williams, then bishop of
Lincoln, at once exhibits the high spirit of the
man, and exposes the abjectness of conduct requir
ed of him as the means of recovering his freedom.
The earl of Southampton to the bishop of Ldncoln.
" My lord,
" I have found your lordship already so favoura
ble and affectionate unto me, that I shall be still
hereafter desirous to acquaint you with what con
cerns me, and bold to ask your advice and counsel;
which makes me send this bearer to give your
lordship an account of my answer from the court,
* Memoirs of King James's peers by sir E. Brydges, p. 322.
f Life of Williams, p. 69.

207
which 1 cannot better do than by sending unto you
the answer itself, which you shall receive here in
closed. Wherein you may see what is expected
from me ; — that I may not only magnify his ma
jesty's gracious dealings with me, but cause all my
friends to do the like, and restrain them from
making any extenuation of my errors; which, if
they be disposed to do, or not to do, is impossible
for me to alter, that am not likely for a good time
to see any other than mine own family. For my
self, I shall ever be ready, as is fit, to acknowledge
his majesty's favour to me, but can hardly per
suade myself that any error by me committed de
served more punishment than I have had; and
hope that his majesty will not expect that I should
confess myself to have been subject to a star-
chamber sentence, which God forbid I should
ever do. I have, and shall do according to that
part of my lord of Buckingham's advice to speak
of it as little as 1 can, and so shall I do in other
things, to meddle as little as I can. I purpose,
God willing, to go to-morrow to Titchfield, the
place of mine confinement, there to stay as long as
the king shall please,"* &c.
The bishop appears to have felt considerable
indignation at the measure of chastisement inflic
ted on the earl, of the unpopularity and inexpedi
ency of which he was also fully sensible ; and he
thus boldly expostulated by letter with the arro
gant favourite : " It is full ^ime his attendant were
revoked in my poor opinion, and himself left to
the custody of his own good angel. Remember
your noble self," he adds, " and forget the aggra
vations of malice and envy, and then forget, if you
* Cabala, p. 57. edit. 1684,

208
can, the earl of Southampton."* To the earl him
self however, in answer to the letter from him
above quoted, he explains and softens matters as
much a possible, and persuades him to mildness
and patience. Respecting the punishment which
the earl might have incurred, he thus delivers his
opinion :
" How far you could be questioned in the star-
chamber, is an unseasonable time to resolve. The
king hath waived off all judgement, and left noth
ing for your meditation but love and favour, and
the increasing of both these. Yet I know, upon
my late occasions to peruse precedents in that
court, that small offences have been in that court,
in former times, deeply censured. In the six
teenth of Edward II., for the court is of great an
tiquity, Henry lord Beaumont, running a way of
his own about the invading of Scotland, and dis
senting from the rest of the king's council, — be
cause of his absenting himself from the council
table was fined and imprisoned, though otherwise
a most worthy and deserving nobleman/'t
Several things are to be learned from this pas
sage : First, that it was his capacity of a privy-<
councillor which afforded the pretext on which
the earl was punished for political opinions, —
or rather for his treatment of Buckingham : Sec
ondly, that any precedent, though of the worst
kings in the rudest and most turbulent times, was
eagerly caught at by the ministers of James as a
justification of his attacks on the liberty of his sub
jects: Thirdly, that whoever in this reign ventur
ed, though in the most legal and constitutional
manner, to resist the royal will, was understood to
* Cabala, p. 59. t Ibid., p. 58.

209
do so at the peril of arbitrary penalties which
might extend to fines ot any amount and imprison
ment of any duration ; a circumstance which ought
to inspire the highest reverence for those who
dared to show themselves patriots in such an age,
while it suggests a strong excuse for those abject
submissions by which very well-meaning persons
were sometimes glad to atone for any exertions of
public spirit which had proved offensive to per
sons in authority.
The earl of Southampton, disgusted probably
with the dark suspicions and the busy malice by
which he had been so frequent a sufferer at home,
accepted the command of an English regiment
raised for the Dutch service. His eldest son ac
companied him ; but an epidemic broke out among
the troops, to which the young man speedily be
came a victim, and his afflicted father soon shared
his fate, dying at Bergen-op-zoom in November
1624. Other principles, and a very opposite cast of
character, communicated their impulse to William
Fienes, lord Say and Sele, one of the most distin
guished opposition-leaders of this reign and parlia
mentarians of the next. This peer was of Nor
man extraction, and the nobility of his line was as
ancient as the conquest ; but an ancestor who sus
tained a considerable part in the wars of York and
Lancaster, and was finally slain in the battle of
Barnet, having been twice made a prisoner during
that contest, was so impoverished by the payment
of heavy ransoms, that his posterity had sunk into
indigence and obscurity ; received no summons to
Sarliaraent during several descents, and at length,
iscontinued even the title. Richard Fienes, the
father of William, had been content to receive,
vol. ii. 27

210
knighthood from the hands of queen Elizabeth ;
but under her successor he had taken out letters
patent confirming to him and his heirs theposses-
sion of the title of barons Say and Sele. The cir
cumstances of the family were still continued nar
row, and William Fienes, born in 1586, though
the eldest son, is said to have enjoyed a fellowship
of New College Oxford, as being of kin to Wil
liam of Wickham the founder. He married how
ever, in very early life, the daughter of John Tem
ple of Stow, and became a noted puritan. This
nobleman was at once necessitous and haughty,
and was judged by some to thwart the court, part
ly from a certain moroseness of temper, and part
ly, as his abilities were unquestionably great, with a
view of making it worth while to purchase his ad
herence. If such were his design, he in some degree suc
ceeded ; for king James, in the year 1624, was
induced to create him a viscount, and thus took
off for a time the edge of his opposition ; but in
the following reign he stood forth the undaunted
defender of the invaded rights of the people, as
well as the systematic enemy of the hierarchy,
and the personal antagonist of some of the leading
churchmen of the day. Clarendon himself has
testified of lord Say, that " he had always oppos
ed and contradicted all acts of state, and all taxes
and impositions, which were not exactly legal;
and so had as eminently and as obstinately refused
the payment of ship-money as Mr. Hampden had
done." He also says of him, that he, was " of the
highest ambition ; but whose ambition would not
be satisfied with offices and preferments, without
some condescensions in ecclesiastical matters :" in
other words, he had principles both political and

211
religious, which, whatever might he his ambition
or his necessities, he constantly preferred to his
own interest or advancement.
Robert earl of Warwick was the son of the
third lord Rich and first earl of Warwick of that
name, by the lady Penelope Devereux, that beauti
ful and beloved sister of the earl of Essex, whose
attachment to Charles Blount earl of Devonshire
afterwards occasioned her divorce. He possessed,
with the personal graces of his mother, somewhat
of the aspiring and adventurous spirit of his uncle.
Though a man of wit, gaiety and pleasure, he
found means to conciliate the favour of the puri
tanical party in the church, and, pursuing steadily
a popular course in politics, became an eminent
leader in the civil contest of the following reign.
Robert, first lord Spencer of Wormleighton
was a nobleman of great worth and honour, of a
plentiful fortune and independent mind. With
the exception of a mission of ceremony to carry
the order of the garter to the duke of Wirtem-
berg, which he performed splendidly, and doubt
less at Considerable expense to himself, he was
never invested with any public employment ; and,
except when summoned to the performance of his
parliamentary duties, he passed his time on his
own estate, in the calm enjoyment of the rural
pleasures which he loved, and in the exercise of
the virtues adapted to his station. .He was at
once loyal to his king, and true to his country ;
he spoke well in the house of lords and was
heard with favour ; and his diligence and capacity
caused him to be nominated on most committees
and conferences with the lower house.
Lord Spencer was connected with the earl of
Southampton by the marriage of his son and heir

212
to a daughter of that nobleman ; and like him,
but perhaps from motives more purely of a public
nature, opposed with' force and spirit the arbitra
ry principles of the government ;— conduct which
on one occasion drew upon him a memorable
affront frorri a nobleman on the opposite side, who
probably found it easier to insult than to confute
him. The circumstance was this :
In a debate respecting some matters connected
with the royal prerogative, lord Spencer stood
forth as the advocate of popular privileges, and
referred^ as was natural on such an argument in
such a place, to the great actions of their ances
tors. The earl of Arundel, whom the blood of
the Howards entitled, as he imagined, to look
down with scorn on the recent nobility and scanty
pedigree of the Spencers, replied with bitterness;
" My lord, when these things were doing, your
ancestors were keeping sheep." Here the house
judged it proper to interpose, and ordering both
noblemen to withdraw, it came to a resolution,
that the earl of Arundel, as the aggressor, should
be committed to the Tower ; nor was he after
wards liberated, without a due submission.
The native arrogance of the earl of Arundel, as
well as his attachment to prerogative, was much
augmented by his appointment soon after to exer
cise the office of hereditary earl-marshal. There
were, it seems, two distinct offices comprised
within this grant, that of earl-marshal of England,
and that of marshal of the king's household ; the
first of which, comprising the cognisance of duels
without the realm, combats within it, armory, bla
zon, and a few other matters not triable by com
mon law, was exposed to no objection, had been
exercised by different noblemen under letters

213
Satent since the attainder of the last duke of
lorfolk, -and was at this time in commission.
But the other, in virtue of which the marshal,
with the seneschal or steward, held plea of
trespasses, contracts and covenants made within
the verge of the court, implied an extent of un
controlled authority so formidable, that the lord-
keeper thought it his duty to delay sealing the
patent of the earl of Arundel while he represent
ed its inconveniences to Buckingham. He writes
of it as " a poAver limited by no law or record,
but to be searched out from chronicles, antiqua
ries, heralds and such obsolete monuments, and
thereupon held these sixty years (for my lord of
Essex's power was strictly bounded and limited)
unfit to be revived by the policy of this state."*
Notwithstanding this warning, the king persisted
in granting to the earl the united offices in as
ample manner as they had been held by the
Mowbrays and Howards his ancestors. A higher
imprudence, the temper of the man and the spirit
of the age considered, could scarcely have been
committed ; the revival of the obsolete marshal's
court became in the next reign an intolerable
grievance, which it was found necessary to re
move, and in the meantime it might be regarded
as one of the most flagrant of those acts by which
James aggravated the sense of oppression which
had already united in opposition to his govern
ment men of characters, principles and designs, so
various, and apparently irreconcileable.
During the sitting of parliament the great seal
remained in commission, and this delay and appa
rent hesitation in the disposal of it, gave time and
opportunity for a variety of court-manoeuvres.
* Cabala, p. 64.

214
The lord-treasurer, to procure some advantage to
himself, began to claim for the king the casual
fines, a full moiety of the profits of the chancellor's
office ; a bill was prepared by certain members of
parliament for settling the places of custodes rotu-
lorum and clerks of the peace for life on their pos
sessors ; and the under officers petitioned the lords
to be allowed " some collops out of the chancel
lor's fees."* There were also several candidates
mentioned for the place itself; especially the two
chief-justices, — sir James Ley ana sir Henry Ho-
bart ; — the last of whom was on the point of
marriage with a lady of the Villiers' family, — and
sir Lionel Cranfield, also " married in the kindred
that brought dignity to their husbands ;" — the on
ly circumstance, it may be added, which could have
inspired such a person with the audacity to raise
his thoughts to the seat from which a Bacon had
fallen, and the highest dignity of a subject.
Cranfield, characterised by the biographer of
Williams as " a man of no vulgar head-piece, yet
scarce sprinkled with the Latin tongue," was born
and bred in the city, and originally a merchant ;
afterwards he had turned projector, by which term
was then designated a person who occupied him
self in pointing out to the officers of the exche
quer, sources of profit to his majesty often neither
honourable nor legal, and in suggesting to the cour
tiers objects to make suit for in the shape of grants
out of this or that particular branch of the royal
revenue, monopolies, patents or licenses. By the
favour of Buckingham he had already been push
ed forward into the post of master of the wards,
— a place of great trust and profit, -—and he sub
sequently obtained the high office of lord-treasurer.
* Life of Williams, p. 52.

215
Dean Williams affected to patronise the preten
sions of Cranfield; but in his secret soul he had
fixed upon the custody of the great seal, as his own
reward for counsels which had rescued the favour
ite from disgrace and his master from anxiety, and
he at length succeeded in bringing them to regard
it as his due.
It is related on contemporary authority, that the
king, on receiving the seal from the four great of
ficers, sent to demand it of Bacon, had been over
heard by some about him to say, " ' Now by my
saul I am pained at the heart where to bestow
this; for as for my lawyers, I think they be all
knaves.' Which it seemeth that his majesty spake
at that time," adds the narrator, " to prepare a
way to bestow it on a clergyman, as the marquis
of Buckingham had intended."*
This predestination of the office, we may also
remark, at a time when Bacon was still permitted
to flatter himself with the hope of his own rein
statement, is another and most convincing proof of
the treachery practised towards him by the king
and the marquis.
It was not without considerable precaution, how
ever, that James ventured upon the unpromising
experiment of investing a churchman with this
great judicial office, of which, under the protestant
sovereigns of England, laymen and lawyers, had
been the exclusive occupants. Williams himself
found it expedient to propose, that in future the
place of lord-keeper, — the highest title at which
he dared to aim, — should be held for no longer
term than three years ; — that in his own case a
probation of a year and a half, during which he
*Sir J. D'Ewes's Life of himself, MS. in the Brit. Mus.

216
should be regarded as little more than a commis
sioner, should precede his full assumption of the
place ; and that two judges should sit with him as
assessors to guide his judgment. Hacket, his right
reverend biographer and eulogist, has also been
careful to inform us, that Williams, when chaplain
to lord-chancellor Ellesmere, had taken great
pains to acquaint himself with various branches of
the business of the office, and with the rules by
which decisions in equity were guided : a state
ment which, if correct, proves in a remarkable
manner the long reach of his ambition. It is
pretty clear, however, that his knowledge was no
thing more than a smattering; and even by the
confession of his apologist, his proud and choleric
disposition eminently disqualified him for judicial
functions. Lord Clarendon- states without hesita
tion that Williams, " though a man of great wit
and good scholastic learning, was generally thought
so very unequal to the place, that his remove was
the only recompense and satisfaction that could be
made for his promotion." By the lawyers, as a
body, this appointment was naturally viewed with
profound disgust, and more unbiassed spectators
could not but regard it as an alarming indication of
the growing influence of the clergy over the mind
of the king, and also of the inveterate jealousy
with which he beheld that class of men, to whom
the study and administration of the English law
had afforded a different measure of right and jus
tice from the arbitrary will of a monarch and the
friendship and enmities of a minion. It is said,
that during the first term of the new lord-keeper,
the lawyers objected to pleading before him ; and
though they afterwards relaxed on this point, the,
general dislike continued.

217
The new lord-keeper, however, was by no
means destitute of redeeming merits ; learned and
munificent, he became one of the noblest patrons
of men of letters, and he appears to have distri
buted the church preferment in his disposal with
excellent judgment and conspicuous liberality.
Though irascible and violent, he was by no means
vindictive; and a sense of the expediency of tak
ing all good means to mitigate or counteract the
disgust and envy which had accompanied his ex
traordinary elevation, combined with the better
parts of his nature to render him on many occa
sions a powerful intercessor for the disgraced and
the unfortunate. It was through his skilful repre
sentations, seconding the entreaties of the earl of
Carlisle, that James was at length prevailed upon
to liberate, after a fifteen years' captivity, that al
most forgotten victim of suspicion and court in
trigue, the earl of Northumberland. It is said
that this nobleman availed himself with reluctance
of a liberation procured for him by the earl of Car
lisle, who had, a few years before, married his
youngest daughter without his consent, and whose
friendship and alliance he still contemned. Pride
was indeed a leading feature in the character of
Northumberland which misfortunes seem to have
had the effect rather of aggravating than soften
ing ; and it was by a striking display of it that he
signalised his deliverance.
The information had reached his ears in his con
finement that the ostentatious Buckingham was
drawn by six horses ; two more than had ever
been seen harnessed to a coach before ; and he re
marked, that if this favourite had six, he himself
might well have eight ; in which extraordinary
vol. ii. 28

218
state he accordingly rode through London on his
way to Bath for the recovery of his health.
After this sally, however, he found it expedient,
willingly or otherwise, to retire to his mansion of
Petworth in Sussex, remote alike from the intrigues
of the capital and from the hereditary seats of the,
Percy power and grandeur in the north; and there
to wear away in tranquil obscurity the remnant of
a troubled existence.
A more'questionable exerqise of the royal mer
cy, of which also his biographer gives the lord-
keeper the credit, was the liberation of the guilty
earl and countess of Somerset from the Tower,
which was accomplished in January 1622. The
contemporary impression produced by this act is
thus preserved in a letter from Thomas Meautys
to his patron lord Bacon : —
"I met even now with a piece of news so unex
pected, and yet so certainly true, as that, howsq-;
ever I had much ado at first to desjre the relaterj
to speak probably ; yet now I dare send it your;
lordship upon my credit. It is my lord of Somer
set's and his lady's coming out of the Tower on
Saturday last, fetched forth by my lord Falkland,
and; without the usual degrees of confinement, at
first to some one place, but absolute and free to go
where they please. I know not how peradventure
this might occasion you to cast your thoughts
touching yourself into some new mould, though not
in the main, yet something on the bye."* From
the last ' sentence of this extract it appears thati
Meantys must have conceived of Somerset's rer
turn to favour as no improbable event; in which
case it might become worth his patron's while to
* Bacon's Works, vol. vi. p. 304, 8vo. edit.

219
show him some attentions. But for this surriiise
there was no foundation. Instead of being suffer
ed to go whither he pleased, he was ordered to
confine himself to the house of lord Wallingford
or its neighbourhood ; and James never was guilty
of readmitting him to his presence. He lingered
out a useless and miserable life, embittered at
once by the stings of conscience and by the ranco
rous hatred between his countess and himself
which had succeeded their criminal passion, and
which was so vehement and implacable, that thet
are related to have passed several years in the
same house without the interchange of a single
word. The bounty of the king towards his favourites,
it is well known, observed no limits; and Williams
had not held the seals a month before the bishopric
of Lincoln was added to his preferments ; the re
venues of this bishopric, as of most others, had
been shorn down close for the benefit of the cour
tiers of Elizabeth; and on this pretext, the new
prelate obtained permission to retain his deanery
of Westminster, a good rectory and other bene
fices. Three more bishoprics became vacant
about the same time ; that of Salisbury, which the
lord-keeper begged for his friend the worthy and
Candid Davenant, whose deariery of St. Paul's now
crowned the modest wishes of Donne,r — that of
Exeter, which be obtained for Dr. Valentine Ca
rew, — and that of St. David's, Which, from mo
tives of personal interest, he asked for Laud; on
whom his own deanery of Westminster would
otherwise have been conferred by Buckingham.
The following remarkable particulars of the ne
gotiation are recorded by Hacket :

220
"The see of St. David's did then want a bishop,
but not competitors : the principal was Dr. Laud,
a learned man and a lover of learning. He had
fastened on the lord-marquis to be his mediator,
whom he had made sure by great observances:
but the archbishop of Canterbury had so opposed
him, and represented him with suspicion (in my
judgement improbably grounded) of unsoundness
¦in religion, that the lord-marquis was at a stand,
and could not get the royal assent to that promo
tion. His lordship, as his intimates know, was not
wont to let a suit fall which he had undertaken;
in this he was the stifle r, because the archbishop's
contest in the king's presence was sour and super
cilious. Therefore he resolved to play his game
in another hand; and conjures the lord-keeper to
commend Dr. Laud strenuously and importunate
ly to the king's good opinion, to fear no offence,
neither to desist for a little storm. Accordingly
he watched when the king's affections were most
still and pacificous ; and besought his majesty to
think considerately of his chaplain the doctor, who
had deserved well when he was a young man in
his zeal against the millenary petition : and for his
incorruption in religion, let his sermons plead for
him in the royal hearing, of which no man could
judge better than so great a scholar as his ma
jesty. " ' Well,' says the king, ' I perceive whose attor
ney you are ; Stenny hath set you op. You have
pleaded the man a good protestant, and I believe
it : neither did that stick in my breast when I stopt
his promotion. But was there not a certain lady,
that forsook her husband and married a lord that
washer paramour? Who knit that knot? Shall
I make a man a prelate, one of the angels of my

221
church, who hath a flagrant crime upon him?'
'Sir,' says the lord-keeper very boldly, 'you are a
good master, but who dare serve you if you will
not pardon one fault, though of a scandalous size,
to him that is heartily penitent for it? I pawn
my faith to you, that he is heartily penitent ; and
there is no other blot that hath sullied his good
name. Velleius said enough to justify Murena
that had committed but one fault, Sine hoc facinore
potuit videri probus.'' ' You press well,' says the
king, ' and I hear you with patience ; neither will
I revive a trespass any more which repentance
hath mortified and buried. And because I see I
shall not be rid of you, unless I tell you my unpub
lished cogitations, the plain truth is, that I keep
Laud back from all place of rule and authority,
because I find he hath a restless spirit, and cannot
see when matters are well, but loves to toss and
change, and to bring things to a pitch of reforma
tion floating in his own brain, which may endanger
the steadfastness of that which is in a good pass,
God be praised. I speak not at random, he hath
made himself known to me to be such a one: for
when three years since I had obtained of the assem
bly of Perth to consent to five articles of order and
decency, in correspondence with this church of En
gland, I gave them promise by attestation of faith
made, that I would try their obedience no further
anent ecclesiastic affairs, nor put them out of their
own way, which custom had made pleasing unto
them, with any new encroachments  Yet this
man hath pressed me to invite them to a nearer
conjunction with the liturgy and canons of this
nation ; but I sent him back again with the frivo
lous draught he had drawn  For all this he
feared not mine anger, but assaulted me again

222
with another ill-fangled platform, to make that
Stubborn kirk stoop more to the English pattern :
but I durst not play fast and loose with my word.
He knows not the stomach of that people, but I
ken the story of my grandmother the queen-re
gent; that after she was inveigled to break her
promise made to some mutineers at a Perth meet
ing, she never saw good day, but from thence,
being much beloved before, was despised of all the
people. And now your importunity hath com
pelled me to shrive myself thus unto you, I think
you are at your furthest and have no more to say
for your client.
" ' May it please you, sir,' says the lord-keeper,
' I will speak but this once : you have indeed con
victed your chaplain of an attempt very audacious,
and very unbeseeming; my judgement goes quite
against his  I am assured, he that makes new"
work in a church begets new quarrels for scriblers,
and new jealousies in tender consciences. Yet I
submit this to your sacred judgement, That Dr.
Laud is of a great and tractable wit. He did not
well see how he came into this error; but he will
presently see the way how to come out of it. Some
diseases which afe very acute are quickly cured.'
'Andy is there no whoe, but you must Carry it?'
says the king: 'Then take him to you, but on my
soul you will repent it :' and so Went away in anger,
using other fierce and ominous wordsy which were
divulged in the court, and are too tart to be re
peated."* The' sagacity of the king proved in this instance
prophetic. Laud^ with a fierce temper, narrow pre
judices and great ignorance of the world, was
* Life of Williams, p. 63.

223
better fitted to pursue blindly the measures of
Buckingham than his more sagacious rival the
lord-keeper, whom he quickly supplanted in the
favour of this all-powerful favourite.
Just at the time when the three bishops elect
were awaiting consecration, an accident occurred
which gave raise to much curious discussion, much
court intrigue, and some striking displays of cha
racter. Abbot archbishop of Canterbury though a per
son of austerity in most respects, indulged himself,
it seems in the amusement of hunting, and as he
was following his sport in the park of his friend
lord Zouch, aiming at a buck with his cross-bow,
the bolt glanced and killed the game-keeper. The
circumstance was a startling one, and absolutely
unprecedented in the church history of England,
By the common law, the archbishop had incurred
by this involuntary homicide the forfeiture of all
his goods and chattels to the king; but James, in
dulgent from sympathy to a mischance of which
his favourite diversion was the cause, instantly
remarked, " that an angel might have miscarried,
in that sort;" and he kindly addressed to the pri
mate a consolatory letter, written with his own,
hand, in which he assured him, "that he would not
add affliction to his sorrow, nor take one farthing
from his chattels and; moveables, which were conr
fiscated, by our civil penalties."*
Thus far all was well ; but the church was not
so easy to be satisfied in the matter as its lay head.;
and Williams, as keeper of the king's conscience,
judged it necessary to address to the marquis of
Buckingham the following admonitory letter :
* Life of Williams, p. 65.

224
"An unfortunate occasion of my lord's, grace
his killing of a man casually, as it is here constant
ly reported, is the cause of my seconding yester
day's letter unto your lordship. His grace, upon
this accident, is by the common law of England to
forfeit all his estate unto his majesty, and by the
canon law, which is in force with us, irregular ipso
facto, and so suspended from all ecclesiastical func
tion until he be again restored by his ecclesiastical
superior, which I take it is the king's majesty, in
this rank and order of ecclesiastical jurisdiction. If
you send for Dr. Lamb, he will acquaint your lord
ship with the distinct penalties in this kind.
" I wish with all my heart his majesty would be
as merciful as ever he was in all his life ; but yet I
held it my duty to let his majesty know by your
lordship, that his majesty is fallen upon a matter pf
great advice and deliberation. To add affliction to
the afflicted, as no doubt he is in mind, is against
the king's nature ; to leave virum sanguinum, or a
man of blood, primate and patriarch of all his
churches, is a thing that sounds very harsh in the
old councils and canons of the church. The pa
pists will not fail to descant upon the one and the
other. 1 leave the knot to his majesty's deep wis
dom to advise and resolve upon."*
It is presumed, that either at an earlier period
of the English church, whilst that sentiment of
disdain and aversion for the superstitions and im
postures of popery which had prompted the refor
mation, was still lively; or at a later period, when
the light of reason and philosophy had shone more
clearly upon these questions, — the notion that a
protestant prelate could thus be incapacitated for
* Cabala, p. 55.

225
the exercise of his professional functions, would
have been rejected with contempt. But in the
age of James, when the canonists and schoolmen
were still studied at Oxford and Cambridge as much
as at Paris or Bologna, the subjeet was judged
worthy to be treated as one of great difficulty and
serious importance ; it was even mentioned as a
circumstance of some weight, that the doctors of
the Sorbonne had debated the case and voted it
to amount to a full irregularity. And yet there is
good ground to believe that the enmity entertained
by certain leading churchmen against the arch
bishop, had more share than theological scruple
in the objections raised against him. The king
however still regarded him with favour, and seems
to have firmly resolved on bringing him safe
through his difficulties. The merits of the arch
bishop in the eyes of his majesty were indeed very
considerable, and are thus summed up by a cleri
cal contemporary :
" He was painful, stout, severe against bad man
ners, of a grave and voluble eloquence, very hos
pital, fervent against the Roman church, and no
less against the Arminians, which in those days
was very popular ; — He had built and endowed a
beautiful eleemosynary mansion at Guildford, where
he was born ; he sent all the succours he could
spare to the queen of Bohemia, the king's only
daughter; was a most stirring councillor for the
defence of the Palatinate ; was very acceptable to
the nobility and to the people both of this realm
and of Scotland, where he had preached often
fourteen years before, when he was in the train of
the earl of Dunbar. All these flowers in his gar-
vol. ii. 29

226
land were considered severally and mixtly, when
this gloomy day of misfortune bedarkened him."*
Williams coincided with the archbishop in his
Calvinistic opinions ; but as a statesman and poli
tician, he discountenanced all rigour either against
Arminians or Catholics; and he equally disapprov
ed the degree of severity exercised by the arch
bishop in the high-commission court in depriving
clergymen convicted of scandalous immorality of
all ecclesiastical preferments, and thus, in many
cases, reducing them and their families to utter
beggary. Besides these grounds of objection to
the primate, ambition like Williams's can scarcely
be supposed to have overlooked the brilliant pros
pect which a vacancy at Lambeth would have
opened to him at this crisis of his fortune.
Dr. Laud had a quarrel of twenty years stand
ing with Abbot; who had on several occasions at
Oxford opposed and censured him on account of
the popish tendencies of doctrines maintained by
him in his academical exercises. It was with the
lord-keeper and the bishop elect of St. David's
that the suggestion of the archbishop's irregularity
appears to have originated.
After an interval which marks his reluctance to
proceed in the business, the king, finding that the
acts of the spiritual courts were suspended till
sentence should be pronounced respecting the
archbishop, found it necessary to nominate com
missioners to decide, the cause. They were ten, in
number; namely, the lord-keeper, the bishops of
London, Winchester and Rochester, the bishops
elect of Exeter and St. Davids, chief-justice Ho-
bart, judge Dodderidge, sir Henry Martin dean of
* Life of Williams, p. 65.

227
the Arches, and Dr. Steward an eminent civilian.
After much pains and many conferences, this grave
and learned synod was obliged to announce to the
world an irreconcileable disagreement of opinion
among its members. On the first question pro
pounded to them, " Whether the archbishop were
irregular by the fact of involuntary homicide ?"
the four laymen and the bishop of Winchester
"who was a strong upholder of incontaminate an
tiquity," decided in the negative ; the other five
bishops in the affirmative. On the second ques
tion, " Whether that act might tend to scandal in
a churchman?" the bishop of Winchester, judge
Hobart, and Dr. Steward doubted: the rest de
termined, that there might arise from such an ac
cident "a scandal taken, but not given." On the
third question, " How the archbishop should be
restored, in case the king should follow the opinion
of those who maintained that there was an irre
gularity?" All agreed that the restitution must
proceed from the king; and the bishop of Win
chester, with the laymen, thought it might be in
cluded in the same patent with the pardon; but
the other prelates held that it ought to be per
formed by bishops commissioned for the purpose,
after the manner of a formal clerical absolution.
The king preferred the mode which excluded
the agency of the bishops, and by letters under
his great seal assoiled the primate, and rendered
him capable of using all the authority of a metro
politan in the same manner as if the homicide had
never happened.
The archbishop showed a deep feeling of his si
tuation, and during life observed a monthly fast in
memory of his misfortune ; yet it always served
the high churchmen his enemies as a topic of re-

228
proach, and a pretext for slighting his authority.
The lord-keeper, with the bishops elect of St.
Davids and Exeter, went so far as to throw them?
selves at the king's feet and implore that, since
their opinions on the subject had been made known,
they might not be compelled to wound their con
sciences by receiving consecration from the pri
mate, when it might lawfully be given by other
bishops. James, instead of enforcing the autho
rity of his own decision as head of the church,
conceded the point, and the consecration was per
formed accordingly by five bishops. Subsequently
however Abbot was permitted to consecrate many
bishops, and Laud himself on one occasion thought
proper to join him in imposition of hands. In the
narrative of this transaction, it is impossible not to
be struck with the primitive simplicity and manly
sense of Andrews bishop of Winchester, contrasts
ed with the scholastic subtilities, concealed malice
and crooked politics, of Laud and Williams. It
will be useful to contemplate more closely this
truly venerable model of a protestant of Eliza
beth's rather than of James's days.
Lancelot Andrews was born in the city of Lon
don in 1555, under the reign of queen Mary. His
parents were honest and religious; his father born
of an ancient family in Suffolk, after passing most
of his life at sea, had attained the creditable and)
comfortable situation of master of the Trinity
house. From his childhood Lancelot displayedl
an uncommon love of learning and a natural seri
ousness which rendered him indifferent to the
usual diversions and exercises of his age. His pro
ficiency in his Greek and Hebrew studies at Mer-
chant-taylors' school recommended him to the no
tice of Dr. Watts, residentiary of St. Paul's, who

229
bestowed on him one of the scholarships which
he had recently founded at Pembroke Hall, Cam
bridge. After taking his degree of bachelor of
arts, a fellowship was speedily, and with much ho
nour, conferred upon him; and commencing his
studies- in divinity, his great abilities and unwearied
application ensured his proficiency in that branch
of science. He was chosen catechist in his col
lege, and after a time, his fame spreading, he be
came known as a great adept in cases of consci
ence, and was much resorted to in that capacity.
Henry earl of Huntingdon, a noted patron of the
stricter class of divines, now engaged him to attend
him into the north, where he was lord-president,
and in this situation Andrews had the satisfaction
of converting several recusants, priests as well as
laymen. Secretary Walsiogham next took notice
of his merit, presented him to the living of Grip-
plegate, and afterwards added other preferments.
His next step was that of chaplain in ordinary
to queen Elizabeth, who, much approving his,
preaching, his grave deport merit and has single life,
made him first prebendary, and shortly before her
death dean, of Westminster. In this situation,
which imposed upon him the superintendence of
Westminster school, his conduct was a model cer
tainly unsurpassed, and probably unequalled, by
any of his successors. Dr. Hacket informs us,
that when Williams was preferred to the same of
fice, having heard what pains Dr. Andrews had
taken to train up the youth on that foundation? he
sent for himself from Cambridge to give him ful
ler information; and he thus details the merits of
the friend and instructor of his youth in language
warm with gratitude :

230
" I told him how strict that excellent man was,
to charge our masters that they should give us
lessons out of none but the most classical authors ;
that he did often supply the place both of head
schoolmaster and usher for the space of an whole
week together, and gave us not an hour of loiter-
ing-time from morning to night. How he caused
our exercises in prose and verse to be brought to
him to examine our style and proficiency. That
he never walked to Chiswick for his recreation
without a brace of this young fry ; and in that way
faring leisure had a singular dexterity to fill those
narrow vessels with a funnel. And, which was
the greatest burden of his toil, sometimes thrice
in a week, sometimes oftener, he sent for the up
permost scholars to his lodgings at night, and kept
them with him from eight till eleven, unfolding to
them the best rudiments of the Greek tongue and
the elements of the Hebrew grammar ; and all
this he did to boys without any compulsion of cor
rection; nay, I never heard him utter so much
as a word of austerity among us.
" Alas ! this is but an ivy leaf crept into the lau
rel of his immortal garland. This is that Andrews
the ointment of whose name is sweeter than spices.
This is that celebrated bishop of Winton, whose
learning king James admired above all his chap
lains ; and that king, being of most excellent parts
himself, could the better discover what was emi
nent in another. Indeed he was the most aposto
lical and primitive-like divine, in my opinion, that
wore a rochet in his age ; of a most venerable
gravity, and yet most sweet in all commerce ; the
most devout that ever I saw when he appeared
before God; of such a growth in all kind of learn
ing, that very able clerks were of low stature to

231
him :  full of alms and charity; of which none
knew but his father in secret: a certain patron to
scholars of fame and ability, and chiefly to those
that never expected it. In the pulpit, a Homer
among preachers  1 am transported even as
in a rapture to make this digression : For who
could come near the shrine of such a saint, and
not offer up a few grains of glory upon it ? Or
how durst I omit it? For he was the first that
planted me in my tender studies, and watered
them continually with his bounty."*
In reference to the walks of this good dean to
Chiswick with the schoolboys for his companions,
so affectionately commemorated by Hacket, it
may be mentioned from another source, that from
his youth upwards, his favourite, if not his only re
laxation, had been walking, either by himself or
with some chosen companions ; " with whom he
might confer and argue and recount their studies :
and he would often profess, that to observe the
grass, herbs, corn, trees, cattle, earth, waters,
heavens, any of the creatures, and to contemplate
their natures, orders, qualities, virtues, uses, was
ever to him the greatest mirth, content and re
creation that could be : and this he held to his
dying- day."t
Doubtless, with so constant a love of the ap
pearances of external nature acting upon his pious
and contemplative mind, this excellent instructor
embraced these opportunities of teaching his
young disciples to look up through the medium of
a beautiful creation to its benignant author ; — and
happy those who are thus instructed to know and
love their maker.* Life of Williams.
+ Fuller's Abel redivivus, article Andrews.

232
All who have made mention of this exemplary
prelate agree in revering him for the virtues pe
culiarly fitted to his station. He was humane, hos
pitable, charilable to the poor, of unfailing bounty
and kindness to the deserving, especially to poor
scholars and divines, and munificent in his dona
tions to learned and charitable foundations. But
he had still rarer and perhaps higher merits. He
was disinterested, inflexible in principle, and coura
geously independent. The extensive patronage
which he possessed appears to have been in his
hand an instrument devoutly consecrated to the
advancement of religion, learning and good morals.
To all promptings of self-interest, to all solicita
tions of men in power, he resolutely turned a deaf
ear when they interfered with higher motives.
It is said by his biographer, of the sins which he
abhorred most were simony and sacrilege. The
first of these " was so detestable to him as that
for refusing to admit divers men to livings whom
he suspected to be simonically preferred, he suffer
ed much by suits of law : choosing rather to be
compelled against his will to admit them by law,
than voluntarily to do that which his conscience
made scruple of."* We are further told that his
dread of committing sacrilege, caused him in the
time of Elizabeth to refuse successively the
bishoprics of Salisbury and Ely whert offered to
him under the usual conditions of that time, — the
alienation of church-lands in favour of laymen and
courtiers. He is also said, when bishop of Win
chester, to have refused several large sums of mo
ney for renewals of leases which he conceived in
jurious to his successors. * Fuller, ut supra.

233
It should appear however, that in these sacri
fices of worldly interest, Andrews was rather in
fluenced by a nice sense of professional integrity
and worldly honour than by any superstitious
opinions respecting the sacredness of church pro
perty ; for Selden has mentioned him as the only
bishop who thought proper to express an appro
bation of his " History of tythes," so much the
object of alarm or horror to the clerical body at
large. The accession of James facilitated the advance
ment of Andrews by putting an end to that sys
tem of spoliation to which he was resolved not to
become instrumental. Struck with his style of
preaching, and filled with admiration at the extent
and solidity of his erudition, the king spontaneously
nominated him to the see of Chichester, adding a
good living in commendam, and ordered him to
write in favour of the oath of allegiance. In pro
cess of time his majesty appointed him lord almo
ner, translated him first to Ely, and finally to
Winchester, and made him dean of the chapel
royal and a privy-councillor. But even this extra
ordinary accumulation of benefits, acting on a
mind peculiarly susceptible of the sentiments of
gratitude, was unable to abase the spirit of An
drews to that servile adulation which the monarch
loved, and which other dignitaries of the church
paid him without scruple, though at the expense
of truth, of patriotism* and sometimes even of
piety. To this effect a striking anecdote has been pre
served by Waller the poet. On the day when
James had dissolved in anger the parliament which
assembled in January 1621, on account of its re
fusal of further supplies, Waller went to court
VOL. ii. 30

234
and saw the king dine in public. Bishop Andrews,
and Neil then bishop of Ely, stood behind his
chair : the monarch turned to them, and, with his
usual indiscretion, asked them aloud, if he might
not levy money upon his subjects when he wanted
it, without applying to parliament. Neil, one of
the most shameless of his flatterers, replied with
out hesitation, " God forbid you might not ! for
you are the breath of our nostrils." " Well, my
lord," said the king to Andrews, " and what say
you ?" " Sir," replied the bishop, " I am not
skilled in parliamentary cases." " No put-offs,
my lord," insisted the king, " answer me pre
sently." " I think, then," replied the bishop,
" that it is lawful for you to take my brother
Neil's money, for he offers it." Nothing but the
wit of the answer could have atoned for its cou
rage. Bishop Andrews was one of the few clerical
members of the society of antiquaries : Bacon
appears to have held him in high esteem, arid
addressed to him his " Dialogue on a holy war,"
with an interesting epistle dedicatory, in which
he enters at large into his own manner of life, and
details the philosophical reflections and pursuits
which consoled him under adversity and disgrace.
The bishop ended his honourable and exemplary
career in September 1626,. in his 71st year. "His
death was bewailed, amongst the national calami
ties of the time, in an animated Latin elegy from
the pen of a youth, whose noble mind, penetrated
with that affectionate veneration for the Wise and
good which affords the best presage of future
excellence, delighted thus to pay its pure unhid
den hoihage to the reverend sanctity of the agCB
prelate, This youth was Milton, then in m6

235
eighteenth year. The concluding lines, in which
he represents himself as transported in a vision to
the gardens of the blessed, have been thus beau
tifully rendered into English by the poet of the
« Task :"
. . . . " While I that splendour, and the mingled shade
Of fruitful vines, with wonder fixt survey'd,
At once, with looks that beamed celestial grace,
The seer of Winton stood before my face.
His snowy vesture's hem descending low
His golden sandals swept, and pure as snow
New-fallen shone the mitre on his brow.
Where'er he trod, a tremulous sweet sound
Of gladness shook the flowery fields around :
Attendant angels clap their starry wings,
The trumpet shakes the sky, all aether rings,
Each chaunts his welcome, folds him to his breast,
And thus a sweeter voice than all the rest :
' Ascend, my son ! thy father's kingdom share !
My son ! henceforth be freed from every care ! '
So spake the voice, and at its tender close
With psaltry's sound th' angelic band arose.
The night retir'd, and chased by dawning day
The visionary bliss pass'd all away.
I mourn'd my banish'd sleep with fond concern ;
Frequent to me may dreams like these return."

CHAPTER XXII.
1621, 1622.
Parliament assembled. — Speech of the lord-keeper. — Lord Digby's account
of his negotiations. — Petition and remonstrance of the commons. — The
king's letter to the speaker. — Reply of the commons. — The king's rejoin
der. — His reception of a committee of the house. — Conciliatory advice of
the lord-keeper neglected by the king. — Notice of adjournment delivered
by the prince of Wales. — Protestation entered by the house on its jour
nals. — Imprisonment of Philips, Selden, Pym and Mallory. — Other mem
bers sent to Ireland. — Attempts to ruin sir Edward Coke. — Sir John
Savile bought over by the court. — Liberation of Selden. — Committal of
the earls of Southampton and Oxford. — Lord Spencer and others repri
manded. — Remonstrance against the creation of Scotch and Irish peers.
— Menacing words of the king to the earl of Essex. — A benevolence ex
torted. — Freedom of speech restrained. — Caricatures of king James.—
General liberation of Prisoners for recusancy. — Restraints laid on
preachers.-^Anecdote of the lord-keeper.
King James's reluctance to call the parliament
again into activity had appeared by his directing
it to be further adjourned from November 1621 to
the* February following; but the return of lord
Digby at this juncture from an unsuccessful em
bassy undertaken in behalf of the palatine, seemed
to render an immediate declaration of war against
the house of Austria inevitable, and parliament
was therefore again summoned to meet for dis
patch of business in November.
In the absence of the king, for which illness was
the plea, the lord-keeper addressed the two
houses : he claimed extraordinary praise for graci
ous care of his majesty over the nation since the
last recess, in giving favourable answers to several

237
petitions touching trade; in importing bullion and
prohibiting the exportation of iron ordnance ; and
moreover, in reforming by proclamation six-or
seven-and-thirty patents complained of as grievan
ces : and all this " without the least trucking or
merchandizing with the people; a thing unusual
in former times."
Having made the most of this part of his case,
the orator proceeded to remind the lower house
of its pledge to assist his majesty in carrying on
war for the recovery of the hereditary dominions
of the palatine ; he stated that his majesty had
" heroically" sent forty thousand pounds of his own
to keep together the army of count Mansfeldt in
the Lower Palatinate, and urged the necessity of
speedy supplies of money from parliament to pre
vent it from disbanding.
Lord Digby then gave, by his majesty's com
mand, a narrative of his own unsuccessful negotia
tions in Germany ; they had failed simply because
the duke of Bavaria, having possessed himself of
the whole of the Palatinate except a few garrison
ed towns, and being authorised by the emperor to
hold it as his own, did not think proper to relin
quish his prey at the mere request of the king of
Great Britain, who had no equivalent to offer him.
It even appeared that this prince had treated with
something very much resembling ridicule the ef
forts of the ambassador to procure his consent to
a truce, of which the beaten party would have
reaped the sole advantage.
To these gracious communications a vote of
supply was the expected return ; but a well-foun
ded disdain of the trifling and temporising conduct
of the king, and distrust of his further intentions,
checked the feelings of the house ; and they re-

238
solved first to try the spirit of the king by a peti
tion and remonstrance setting forth the causes of
the public dissatisfaction then prevailing, and
pointing out the remedies. The presentation, of
this remonstrance proved the most important
political event in the reign of James ; it was the
signal and commencement of that open discord be
tween king and parliament which involved in its
results both the fate of the Stuarts and the higher
destinies of England jtself; and it will be neces
sary to examine with attention a document so im
portant. The preamble states the case of the commons
as follows?
" We  in all humble manner calling to mind
your gracious answer to our former petition con
cerning religion, which, notwithstanding your ma
jesty's pious and princely intentions, hath not pro
duced that good effect which the danger ,of these
times doth seem to us to require : and finding how
ill your majesty's goodness hath been requited by
princes of different religion, who, even in time of
treaty, have taken opportunity to advance their
own ends, tending to the subversion of religion and
disadvantage of your affairs and the estate of your
children: by reason whersof, your ill-aifected sub
jects at home, the popish recusants, have taken
too much encouragement, and are dangerously in
creased in their number and their insolenqies : we
cannot but be sensible thereof, and .therefore
humbly represent what we conceive to he the
causes of so. great ;and growing mischiefs, and what
be the remedies."
The causes are thus enumerated :
" The vigilancy and ambition of the pope of
Rome and his dearest son, the one aiming at as

2S9
large a temporal monarchy as the other at a spiri
tual supremacy.
" The devilish positions and doctrines whereon
P°. followers, tor advancement of their temporal ends.

?'
opery is built, and taught with authority to their

" The distressed and miserable estate of the
professors of true religion in foreign parts.
" The disastrous accidents to your majesty's
children abroad, expressed with rejoicing, and even
with contempt of their persons.
" The strange confederacy of the princes of the
popish religion, aiming mainly at the advancement
of theirs and subverting of ours, and taking the
advantages conducing to that end upon all occa
sions. " The great and many armies raised and main
tained at the charge of the king of Spain, the chief
of that league.
" The expectation of the popish recusants of the
match with Spain, and feeding themselyes with
great hopes of the consequences thereof.
" The interposing of foreign princes and their
agents in the behalf of popish recusants, for coun
tenance and favour unto them.
" Their open and usual resbrt to the houses,
and, which is worse, to the chapels, of foreign am
bassadors. " Their more than usual Concourse to the city,
and their frequent conventicles and Conferences
there. " The education of their children in 'Many seve
ral seminaries and hotrses of their religion in for
eign parts, appropriated to the English fugitives.
" The grants of their just forfeitures, intended
by your majesty as a reward of service to the
grantees; 'but beyond your majesty's intention

240
transferred, or compounded for, at such mean rates
as will amount to little less than a toleration.
" The licentious printing and dispersing of po
pish and seditious books, even in the time of par
liament. " The swarms of priests and Jesuits, the com
mon incendiaries of all Christendom, dispersed in
all parts of your kingdom."
The remedies proposed are chiefly these :
" That seeing this inevitable necessity is fallen
upon your majesty, which no wisdom or provi
dence of a peaceable and pious king can avoid,
your majesty would not omit this just occasion
speedily and effectually to take your sword in your
hand. " That once undertaken upon so honorable and
just grounds, your majesty would resolve to pur
sue and more publicly avow the aiding of those of
our religion in foreign parts, which doubtless would
reunite the princes and states of the union, by
these disasters disheartened and disbanded.
" That your majesty would propose to yourself"
to manage this war with the best advantage, by
a diversion or otherwise, as in your deep judge
ment shall be found fittest, and not to rest upon
a war in these parts only, which will consume
your treasure and discourage your people.
" That the bent of this war, and the point of
your sword, may be against that prince, whatso
ever opinion of potency he hath, whose armies
and treasures have first diverted and since main
tained the war in the Palatinate.
" That for securing of our peace at home, your
majesty, would be pleased to review the parts of
our petition formerly delivered unto your majesty,
and hereunto annexed, and to put in execution, by

241
the care of Choice commissioners to be thereunto
specially appointed, the laws already and here
after to be made for preventing of dangers by po
pish recusants and their wonted evasions.
" That, to frustrate their hopes for a future age,
our most noble prince may be timely and happily
married to one of our own religion."
Some following articles provide for the domes
tic and protestant education of the children of re
cusants, and for the forfeiture of the estates of
these persons : " This," it is added, " is the sum
and effect of our humble declaration, which we
(no ways intending to press upon your majesty's
undoubted and regal prerogative) do with the ful
ness of our duty and allegiance numbly submit to
your most princely consideration : the glory of
God, whose cause it is ; the zeal of our true reli
gion, in which we have been born, and wherein
by God's grace we are resolved to die ; the safety
of your majesty's person, who is the very life of
your people; the happiness of your children and
posterity ; the honour and good of the church and
state, dearer unto us than our own lives, having
kindled these affections truly devoted to your ma
jesty." The commons conclude by making known, that
it is the intention of the house to give at the end
of the session one entire subsidy, when they hope
that his majesty will vouchsafe his royal assent to
such bills as they shall have prepared for the
general good, and that he would also be pleased to
grant, as was usual at the end of a session, a gener*
al pardon ; and that it might extend not only to
criminals but to old debtors of the crown before.
thp king's accession, and to persons endangered on
account of omissions or evasions of some of the
vol. n. 31

242
burdensome forms belonging to wardship and the
suing out of liveries ; " which gracious favour," it
was added, " would much comfort your good sub
jects, and free them from vexation with little loss
or prejudice to your own profit."*
This remonstrance, it must be confessed, was
fitted to disconcert all the projects of James : it
penetrated without reserve into the deepest re
cesses of those state mysteries which he held so
dear and so sacred : it proclaimed the futility of
those elaborate negociations in which he had ex
posed himself to become the dupe of Spain and
the laughing-stock of Europe : it warned him that
his arbitrary suspension of laws enacted by the
wisdom of the legislature for the security of church
and state,'was felt by the people and its representa
tives as an encroachment and an injury ; and the
blandishments which he lavished on foreign and do
mestic enemies, as an insult : it taught him, that
the darling project of alliance which had prompted
all these sacrifices of dignity and of principle was
contemplated with abhorrence; — and, above all,
that the purses of the English people would never
be opened to him but in the cause of protestant
ism and the liberties of Germany against the great
catholic league, the emperor, and, especially, the
king of Spain.
Surprised, indignant and alarmed, James eagerly
sought some means of diverting this, meditated at
tack on his pride and his feelings ; and overlook
ing in his agitation the strange irregularity of such
a proceeding, he addressed to the speaker of the
house of commons the following rash and arrogant
letter : * Rushworth's Collections, vol. i. p. 40.

243
"Mr. Speaker,
" We have heard by divers reports to our great
grief that our distance from the houses of parlia
ment, caused by our indisposition of health, hath
emboldened some fiery and popular spirits of some
of the house of commons, to argue and debate
publicly of the matters, far above their reach and
capacity, tending to our high dishonour and breach
of the prerogative royal.
" These are' therefore to command you to make
known, in our name, unto the house, that none
therein shall presume henceforth to meddle with
any thing concerning our government, or deep mat
ters of state, and namely not to deal with our dear
est son's match with the daughter of Spain, nor to
touch the honour of that king, or any other our
friends and confederates : and also not to meddle
with any man's particulars which have their due
motion in our ordinary courts of justice.
"And whereas we hear they have sent a mes
sage to sir Edward Sandys, to know the reasons of
his late restraint, you shall in our name resolve
them, that it was not for any misdemeanor of his
in parliament ; but to put them out of doubt of
any question of that nature that may arise among
them hereafter, you shall resolve them in our name,
that we think ourself very free and able to pu
nish any man's misdemeanors in parliament as well
during their sitting as after : which we mean not
to spare hereafter, upon any occasion of any man's
insolent behaviour there that shall be ministred unto
us: and if they have already touched any of these
points, which we have forbidden, in any petition of
theirs, which is to be sent unto us, it is our plea
sure that you shall tell them, that, except they re-

244
form it before it come to our hands, we will not
deign the hearing nor answering of it.
"Hated at Newmarket, 3d Dec. 1621.'

»>

The reply transmitted in the name of the house
of commons was firm and vigorous. In this piece
they begin by professing their sorrow at the dis
pleasure shown by his majesty's letter to the
speaker; but they take comfort to themselves in
the assurance of his grace and goodness, and of
their own faithfulness and loyalty. They entreat
that their good intentions "may not undeservedly
suffer by the misinformation of partial and uncer
tain reports, which are ever unfaithful intelligen
cers ;" but that his majesty would vouchsafe to
understand from themselves, and not from others,
what their humble petition and declaration, re
solved upon by the universal voice of the house,
did contain : they also beseech, that his majesty
would not henceforth give credit to private reports
against all or any of the members -of that house,
on whom they themselves should not have inflicted
a censure, but that in the mean time they might
"stand upright" in his royal judgement.
Adverting then to the cause of their assembling
in parliament, and to the particulars of informa
tion laid before them by his majesty's command,
they infer that they " were called to a war," and
certainly with the king of Spain, who had five ar
mies on foot, and who was known to have occupied
the Lower Palatinate ; and they take credit for
the unprecedented celerity and alacrity with which
their zeal for his majesty and his posterity had
prompted them to proceed in voting the necessary
supplies and considering of the mode of conduct*
ing hostilities.

245
They add, that although they cannot conceive
that the honour and safety of his majesty and his
posterity, the patrimony of his children invaded
and possessed by their enemies, the welfare of re
ligion, and the .state of the kingdom, are matters
at any time unfit for their deepest consideration in
time of parliament,— yet that at this time they
were clearly invited to it ; and the mention of
popish recusants, and whatever they had said
touching the honour of the king of Spain, — in
which, however, they contend that they had ob
served due bounds, — had necessarily arisen out of
the subject.
They disclaim all intention of invading his ma
jesty's undoubted prerogative in disposing of his
son in marriage ; but they maintain, that as the re
presentatives of the whole commons of England,
who have a large interest in the prosperity of the
king and royal family, and of the state and com
monwealth, it became them to offer their opinion
respecting this matter.
On these considerations, they hope that his ma
jesty will now be pleased to receive their petition
and declaration at the hands of their messengers,
to read and favourably to interpret it ; and to give
answer to as much of it as relates to popish priests
and recusants, to the passing of bills, and to par
dons. '
The following emphatic protest concludes the
piece : — " And whereas your majesty doth seem
to abridge us of the ancient liberty of parliament
for freedom of speech, jurisdiction and just liber*
tj of the house, and other proceedings there
(wherein we trust in God we shall never transgress
the bounds of loyal and dutiful subjects,) a liberty
which we assure ourselves so wise and so just a

246
king will not infringe,the same being our ancient
and undoubted right, and an inheritance received
from our ancestors ; without which we cannot free
ly debate nor clearly discern of things in question
before us, nor truly inform your majesty : in which
we have been confirmed by your majesty's most
gracious former speeches and messages : We are
therefore now again enforced in all humbleness to
pray your majesty to allow the same, and thereby
to take away the doubts and scruples your majes
ty's late letter to our speaker hath wrought upon
us."* .
This reply produced from the king a very long,
very violent and very unbecoming rejoinder; of
which the following are the most characteristic
passages: He begins by observing, that he must apply the
words used by queen Elizabeth in answer to an
insolent proposition made by a Polonian ambassa
dor : " We looked for an ambassador; we have re
ceived a herald." (That is, a messenger of war.)
He had expected a message from the house of
thanksgiving for his continued gracious behaviour
towards his people since the last recess, in putting
down by proclamation six or seven-and-thirty pa
tents; — in his cares for the good government of
Ireland, recommended to his attention by parlia
ment ; and* in other "points of grace," which he
enumerates. H' But not only have we heard no
news of all this, but contrary, great complaints of
the danger of religion within this kingdom, tacitly
implying our ill government in this point. And
we leave you to judge whether it be your duties,
that are the representative body of our people, so
*Rushworth, vol. i. p. 44.

247
to distaste them with our government ; whereas,
by the contrary, it is your duty, with all your en
deavours, to kindle more and more a dutiful and
thankful love in the people's hearts towards us,
for our just and gracious government."
With respect to their taxing him "of trusting"
uncertain reports and partial informations, he says,
" We wish you to remember that we are an old
and experienced king, needing no such lessons,, be
ing in our conscience freest of any king alive from '
hearing or trusting idle reports ;" and as to their
petition in particular, he adds, that he had made
their own messengers compare the copy of it
which they brought with that which he had re
ceived before, which corresponded exactly, ex
cepting a concluding sentence added by them af
terwards. So little, apparently, was this king
aware that the disrespect to the house implied in
the neglect of official forms, formed in itself a
ground of just complaint !
He also tells them, that if, in ignorance of the
contents of their petition, 'he had received it, to
his own great dishonour, he could have returned
nothing to their messengers but that he judged it?
unlawful and unworthy of an answer. For, as to
your conclusion thereof, jt is nothing but protestatio
contraria facto ; for in the body of your petition
you usurp upon our prerogative royal, and meddle
with things far above your reach, and then, in the
conclusion, you protest the contrary ; as if a rob
ber would take a man's purse and then protest he
meant not to rob him."
His majesty denies that the communications made
by him to the house could in any . manner autho
rise their proceedings. He had indeed made
known that he was resolved by war to regain the

248
Palatinate, if otherwise he could not; and had in
vited them to advise upon a supply for keeping
the forces there from disbanding, and raising an
army in the spring. "Now what infere ce can be
made upon this, that therefore we must presently
denounce war against the king of Spain, break our
dearest son's match, and match him to one of our
, religion, let the world judge. The difference is no
greater than if we would tell a merchant, that we
had great need to borrow money from him for
raising an army ; that thereupon it would follow
that we were bound to follow his advice in the di
rection of the war and all things depending there
upon. But yet, not contenting yourselves with
this excuse of yours, which indeed cannot hold
water, you come after to a direct contradiction. . . .
saying, that the honour and safety of us and our
posterity, and the patrimony of our children, in
vaded and possessed by their enemies, the welfare
of religion, and state of our kingdom, are matters
at any time not unfit for your deepest considera
tions in parliament. To this generality we answer
with the logicians, that where all things are con
tained nothing is Omitted. So as this plenipotency
of yours invests you with all power upon earth,
lacking nothing but the pope's, to have the keys
also both of heaven and purgatory. And to this
vast generally of yours we can give no other ans
wer ; for it will trouble all the best lawyers in the
house to make a good commentary upon it. For
so did the puritan ministers in Scotland bring all
kind of causes within the compass of their juris
diction, saying, that it was the church's office to
judge of slander; and there could be no kind of
crime or fault committed but there was a slander
in it, either against God, the king or their neigh-

249
bour:  Or like Bellarmine's distinction of the
pope's power over kings, in ordine ad spiritualia,
whereby he gives them all temporal jurisdiction
over them."
With respect to the war for which, as the king
observes, the parliament was so eager, he pro
fesses in general terms, that he will suffer no con
sideration, not even the marriage of his son, to
interfere with the restitution of the Palatinate,
and boasts, that by his intervention with the king
of Spain and the archduchess in Flanders, he had
already preserved it from further conquest for a
whole year. " But," he adds, " because we con
ceive that ye couple this war of the Palatinate
with the cause of religion, we must a little unfold
your eyes therein :" And he proceeds, contrary
certainly to historic truth, to lay the whole blame
of the war of Bohemia, and the consequent op
pression of the protestants in Germany, on the
ambition of his son-in-law, and his unjust usurpa
tion of the crown of another.
He severely reprimandll the parliament for the
terms in which the king of Spain and his inordi
nate ambition are spoken of in their petition ;
omitting " the particular ejaculations of some foul-
mouthed orators in your house, against the honour
of that king's crown and state." Respecting the
prince's marriage, — he is indignant that the house
should not place so much confidence in his reli
gion and wisdom as to rely on the declaration,
which he now repeats, that religion shall receive
no injury by it ; and he makes known, that he is
already too much advanced in the treaty to re
tract with honour. After much more objurgatory
language, respecting what he treats as their un
pardonable presumption, quoting the uncivil Latin
vol. 11. 32

250
proverb, " Let not the ^hoe-maker go beyond his
fast;" he condescends,^ ungraciously enough, to
explain 'away in some degree his general prohibi
tion of their meddling with matters of government
and mysteries of state, accusing them, at the same
time, of misplacing and misjudging his sentences
in a manner that any scholar, in interpreting an
other man's book, would be ashamed of. And
thus he concludes :
" And although we cannot allow of the style
calling it your ancient and undoubted right and
inheritance ; but could rather have wished that
ye had said, that your privileges were derived
from the grace and permission of our ancestors
and us ; — for most of them grow from precedents,
which shows rather a toleration than inheritance :
— Yet, we are pleased to give you our royal
assurance, that as long as you contain yourselves
within the limits of your duty, we will be as
careful to maintain, and preserve your lawful li
berties and privileges as ever any of our prede
cessors were ; nay, as to preserve our own royal
prerogative. So as your house shall only have
need to beware to trench upon the prerogative of
the crown ; which would enforce us, or any just
king, to retrench them of their privileges that
would pare his prerogative and flowers of the
crown. But of this we hope there shall never be
cause given."*
King James is said by Osborn to have had the
infirmity, common to all " passionate men who
abound in fear," of carrying "a traitor in his face,"
by which,, on all occasions when his ruling pas
sions were awakened, his thoughts were discover-
* Rushworth, vol. i. p. 46.

251
ed to every spectator; — it seems that in these
circumstances he had no more command of his
words than of his looks. As if the answer which
he intended to deliver were not in itself sufficient
ly bitter, he is reported to have received the
committee of the house of commons which attend
ed him at Newmarket with the petition and
remonstrance, with a taunt not to be forgotten.
" Chairs !" he cried as they entered the presence-
chamber, " Chairs ! here are twelve kings coming
to me !" The obvious policy of forbearing to
exasperate those whom there is no certainty of
intimidating, appears to have been regarded by
this master of king-craft as beneath his notice ;
but the lord-keeper better understood its impor
tance : he perceived with alarm the perplexities
in which his master was thus heedlessly entang
ling himself; and before the king's letter had
been dispatched, he hastened to convey to the
marquis of Buckingham the following hint of the
means by which the royal indiscretion might yet
be repaired  " His majesty's last letter, though
never so full of honey, as I find by passages re
ported out of the same, being as yet not so happy
as to have a sight thereof, hath notwithstanding
afforded those spiders that infest thai noble house
of commons, some poison, and ill constructions to
feed upon, and to induce a new diversion or plain
cessation of weightier businesses. His majesty
infers, and that most truly, for where were the
commons before Henry 1. gave them authority to
meet in parliament ? that their privileges are the
graces and favours of former kings, which they
claim to be their inheritance and natural birth
rights. Both these assertions, if men were peace-

252
ably disposed and affected the dispatch of common
businesses, might be easily reconciled.
, " These privileges were originally the favours
of princes, and are now inherent in their persons :
Nor doth his majesty go about to impair or di
minish them. If his majesty will be pleased to
qualify that passage with some mild and noble
exposition, and require them strictly to prepare
all things for a session, and to leave this needless
dispute, his majesty shall thereby make it appear
to all wise and just men that these persons are
opposite to those common ends whereof they vaunt
themselves the only patrons."*
The advice was neglected : the letter was trans
mitted to the house of commons in its original
state; and in spite of a subsequent letter of ex
planation from the king to secretary Calvert, it
produced all the ill-effects which the lord-keeper
anticipated. The house, finding the king inflexi
bly resolved not to declare war against Spain nor
yet to give up the marriage with the infanta, and
being itself equally determined to grant him a
subsidy on no other conditions, — in which it had
the full support of popular sentiment, — was pre
cisely in the temper and circumstances best fitted
to enter upon the question of privileges warmly
and courageously, — to repel aggression, to assert
its rights, and even, if necessary, to oppose pre
tension to pretension.
The delivery of the king's letter had been close
ly followed by a notice of adjournment till the
ensuing February, which was communicated by
the prince of Wales to the clerk of the hou«e.
But there was still time to strike a blow ; and at a
* Cabala, p. 65.

253
late hour, and it is said in a thin house, — the court
party having probably withdrawn themselves, —
the following memorable protestation was entered
upon the journals :
" The commons now assembled in parliament,
being justly occasioned thereunto, concerning sun
dry liberties, franchises and privileges of parlia
ment,  do make this protestation following:
" That the liberties, franchises, privileges and
jurisdictions of parliament are the ancient and un
doubted birthright and inheritance of the people
of England ; And that the arduous and urgent af
fairs concerning the king, state and defence of the
realm and of the church of England, and the
maintenance and making of laws, and redress of
mischiefs and grievances which daily happen with
in this realm, are proper subjects and matter of
council and debate in parliament ; And that in the
handling and proceeding of those businesses, every
member of the house of parliament hath, and of
right ought to have, freedom of speech, to pro
pound, treat, reason and bring to conclusion the
same ; And that the commons in parliament have
like liberty and freedom to treat of these matters
in such order as in their judgements shall seem
fittest ; And that every member of the said house
hath like freedom from all impeachment, impri
sonment and molestation (other than by censure of
the house itself) for or concerning any^epeaking or
reasoning, or declaring of any matter or matters
touching the parliament, or parliament business;
And that if any of the said members be complain
ed of and questioned for any thing done or said in
parliament, the same is to be showed to the king
by the advice and assent of all the commons as-

254
sembled in parliament, before the king give cre
dence to any private information."*
No sooner did intelligence of this act reach the
king, than, hurrying up to London from Newmar
ket, he hastily assembled around him at White
hall the privy-council and such of the judges, six
in number, as were then on the spot, and sending
for the clerk of the house of commons, and com
manding him to produce his journal book, he with
his own hand tore out the protestation, and order
ed the deed to be registered by an act of council.
After this explosion, the reassembling of the
parliament was not to be thought of; and it was
dissolved a week afterwards by a proclamation, in
which the king assigned as the motive of this
measure, the inordinate liberty assumed by some
members of the house, "evil-tempered spirits,"
who "sowed tares among the corn." He conclud
ed however by the assurance, that he meant to
govern well, and would gladly lay hold on the first
occasion to summon a new parliament.
His majesty's new plan of good government was
quickly unfolded. Of the members who had been
most active in drawing up the petitions and the
protestation so offensive to the sovereign, sir
Robert Philips was committed to the Tower, and
Selden, Pym and Mallory to other custody : sir
Dudley Digges, sir Thomas Crew, sir Nathaniel
Rich and sir James Perrot, also supporters of
popular rights, with sir Edwin Sandys, illegally
imprisoned for his conduct in the former sessions,
were sent against their will to execute a commis
sion in Ireland, purposely contrived as a mode of
driving into banishment obnoxious patriots. On
* Rushworth, vol. i. p. S3.

355
sir Edward Coke the storm of royal indignation
fell with still greater fury.
Sir Edward had been a member of the last par
liament, in which his great experience, his rank
and consequence, and his profound knowledge of
the constitution, necessarily rendered him a leader;
and neither his family connexion with Bucking
ham, nor the anxiety which a man fond of power
must have felt to preserve that court-favour the
restoration of which he had purchased so dearly,
had restrained him from performing the duty of
an Englishman. He had spoken warmly on the
trying topics of liberty of speech, the increase of
popery and other grievances : he had also taken
occasion to declare the invalidity of proclamations
opposed to the tenor of acts of parliament ; and he
had called the royal prerogative "a great over
grown monster." For these misdemeanors, he
was committed close prisoner to the Tower, his
children and servants being denied access to him
in the king's own name ; he was again struck off
the list of privy-councillors ; the doors and locks of
his house and chambers were sealed up; his papers
were seized, not excepting his securities for money ;
and, to complete his ruin, vexatious prosecutions
were instituted against him while thus a prisoner
and deprived of the means of providing for his
defence. A plot had been formed some time before, ori
ginating with Bacon^ for bringing Coke before the
star-chamber, on account, or on pretext, of his
having, on the trial of the earl of Somerset, sup
pressed some true examinations and brought for
ward some false ones: but this charge, which
seems to have called forth the indignation of the
parliament, it had been found expedient to aban-

256
don, and he was now sued by his majesty in the
king's-bench for the sum of 30,000/., an old debt
pretended to be due from sir William Hatton, lady
Coke's first husband, to queen Elizabeth; "And
this," writes Roger Coke his grandson, " was pro
secuted by sir Henry Yelverton with all severity
imaginable : but herein the king's counsel were
not all of one piece, for when a brief against sir
Edward was brought to sir John Walter (I think)
then attorney-general, he returned it again with
this expression, 'Let my tongue cleave to the
roof of my mouth whenever I open it against sir
Edward Coke ;' however, after the trial the ver
dict was against the king."*
On the failure of these modes of attack, it was
intended to unite him to his brother exiles in Ire
land, and his name was joined with those of other
commissioners empowered ¦. in very general terms
to report on the state of the Irish church, and to
inquire into grievances and abuses in that country.
The legal researches of Coke had taught him,
that the popular notion, on which the government
had lately thought proper to act, of the right of
the king arbitrarily to command the services of
any one of his subjects on such public duty as he
should think fit, or to imprison him in case of re
fusal,, was founded on nothing but error or tyran
nical usurpation, and he took care to promulgate
his sentiments on the subject. On further reflec
tion, however, he did not, in his own case, persist
in availing himself of this defence ; on the contrary,
he made known his entire willingness to accept the
offered appointment ; hoping, apparently, to per
form some acceptable service either to the king,
* Coke's Detection, p. 106.

257
whose favour he was unwilling utterly to renounce,
or to the people ; and trusting, as he said to his
acquaintance, that he should find Mompessons there
to be brought to justice. But this was a result
of the inquiries of so scrutinizing an investigator
which the courtiers regarded as so much more to be
expected than desired, that, on the whole, it was
judged more expedient to dispense with the ser
vice which sir Edward had evinced so much ala
crity to undertake.
He had already been liberated; and thus ended
for the present the schemes of vengeance against
a man of whom James himself had once observed,
that, toss him which way you would, he would al
ways light, like a cat, on his legs.
A different method was adopted for overcoming
the active and able opposition of sir John Savile,
one of the knights of the shire for York. This
gentleman, who had gained in the former parlia
ment the character of a popular martyr, had stood
a poll against the combined interests of secretary
Calvert and sir Thomas Wentworth,— afterwards
the celebrated earl of Strafford, — and sueeeded in
throwing out the secretary. A letter addressed by
Wentworth to Calvert during the contest throws
light at once on the proceedings of Savile, and on
the means sometimes employed by the court in
that age for insuring the election of favoured can
didates : . ..." I find the gentlemen of these parts
generally ready to do you service. Sir Thomas
Fairfax stirs not, but sir John Savile by his instru
ments exceeding busy, intimating to the common
sort under hand that yourself, being not resiant in
the county, cannot by law be chosen ; and being
his majesty's secretary, and a stranger, one not safe
to be trusted by the county ; but all this, accord*
vol. u. 33

258
ing to his manner, so closely and cunningly as* if
he had rip. part therein; neither doth he as yet fur
ther declare himself, than only that he will be' at
York the day of the election, and thus* finding he
cannot work them from me, labours only to sup
plant you  I have heard, that when sir Fran
cis Darcy opposed sir Thomas Lake in a matter
of like nature, the lords of the council writ to sir
Francis to desist. I know my lord chancellor is
very sensible of you in this business; a word to
him, and such a letter would make an end of all."*
Why the lords of the council did not interpose
in the manner here suggested we are not informed;
but they had probably already pitched upon the
Yorkshire member as the subject of an experiment
in the new art of parliamentary corruption: ad
mission to the privy-council, the office of comptrol-4
ler of the household and a peerage, formed the
price at ¦ which his patriotism^ or rather perhaps*
his opposition!, was found ma'rketable.-
Of the members who had been imprisoned, Sel
den was treated with most lenity ana soonest ob
tained his liberation. The custody to which he1
was committed was that of the sheriff of London,
who entertained him in his house With great civili
ty, and granted him the indulgence which he valu
ed more than any other, permission to make use
of some of his own books. Whilst in this situation,
he made application to the lord-keeper*— that zeal*
ous friefld of the learned,- for his good offices in pro
curing his release ; and to Wirhatas-'s intercession
with Buckingham, coming inaid of hisownsomewha*
disingenuous disclaimer of having ever given the
least approbation to" the power and jiudicatuire late-
* The earl of Strafford's Letters and Dispatches; Vol. i. p. fo.

259
ly usurped by the house of commons," he seems to
have owed the distinction made in his favour.
After a restraint of five weeks he was summoned
before some members of the privy-council, who
showed a disposition to ensnare him by certain
captious questions respecting the jurisdiction of
parliament; but the worthy bishop of Winchester
afforded him his protection, and he was then dismis
sed on his petition ; as were all his fellow-sufferers,
after a longer or shorter period of imprisonment.
Nor <did the members of the upper house es
cape some marks of the royal displeasure : the
committal of the earl of Southampton has been
mentioned ; the earl of Oxford, for words spoken
in a private company reflecting on the king and
government, was imprisoned in the Tower; and
lord Spencer and several others received repri
mands on the following occasion :
The nobility of Englacd, and particularly the
barons, had ever since the accession of James,
borne with some uneasiness the intrusion of the
Scotch nobility, who, maintaining that the two na
tions had now become one, claimed to take prece
dence among the peers of the realm according to
the dates of their creation. But the grievance
became much more flagrant when the king and his
courtiers, among their devices for raising money,
had hit upon the expedient of selling Scotch and
Irish peerages to such persons as were found will
ing to purchase them; Englishmen by birth, of
obscure families, for the most part of little conse-.
quence, and totally unconnected with the countries
from which they derived their titles. At length,
during the sitting of parliament in the year 1621,
it was determined no longer to endure this injury
in silence ; and a firm but respectful representation

260
addressed to the king, was drawn up and obtained
the signatures of thirty-three peers. In this num
ber all the opposition, or country party, were in
cluded, — a circumstance which doubtless aggra
vated the displeasure of his majesty on the occa
sion. A previous intimation of what was designed
prevented the alarm which the unexpected at
tendance of such a troop of noblemen might have
excited in the royal breast ; and " being prepared
for it," says the historian, " he mustered up his
spirits, thinking it too great an abasement for ma
jesty to stoop at their summons, being so publican
action, or to lessen or recall what he had done.
Yet he was troubled, not knowing what quarrels
the struggle for place and precedency might pro
duce ; or what ill-blood the discontent of so many
of the nobility at one time might engender : there
fore he sent for them all, or the most eminent and
leading men of them, some days after, and expos
tulated the business with them one by one, in pri
vate, knowing he could deal best with them so ;
beginning with some of them roughly, yet still he
closed with them at last ; his anger being, as it
were, raised to make them humble and reconcile
themselves to him, that he might the better recon
cile himself to them. And to the earl of Essex
he vented this expression ; ' I fear thee not, Essex,
if thou wert as well beloved as thy father, and
hadst forty thousand men at thy heels.' Which
words he uttered as if he had chid himself that
they made an escape from him. And though this
petition did not derogate from the dignity of those
creations past, yet the king willingly restrained
himself for the time to come."* That is to say,
* Wilson, p. 188.

261
he promised to restrain himself; but many more
of these Irish peers were afterwards created, both
by James and by his successor.
The strange words of defiance thrown out by
the king against Essex, — which some,-when they
afterwards saw that nobleman at the head of the
parliament's army, regarded as spokert in the spirit
of prophecy, — tended to their own accomplish
ment by aggravating the well-founded disgust of
the earl, and sending him in the following year
to improve his military experience in the service of
Holland. Similar motives, added to a vehement
hatred of the Spaniards, between whom and the
United Provinces hostilities had recommenced,
carried thither also the gallant earl of Oxford;
who, in his first campaign, was numbered among
the victims of fatigue and of the climate.
" In all times," says Selden in his table talkj*" the
princes in England have done something illegal to
get money; but then came a parliament and all
was well ; the people and the prince kissed and
were friends, and so things were quiet for a while :
afterwards there was another trick found out to
get money, and after they had got it, another par
liament was called to set all to rights." But there
had now been a departure from this ancient rou
tine : the king and the parliament had not parted
friends ; money had been refused to the monarch
in the regular way, because he had attempted to
raise it on the false pretence of a war which he
clearly never intended to wage, in order to squan
der it on favourites and to carry on a system of
policy odious to the nation. He had lost all the
merit of the abolition of the monopolies by an ill-
timed display of arbitrary principles ; and the dis
missal of the parliament wag immediately succeed-

262
ed by a project for raising money by the illegal
mode of a benevolence, mote than once put in
practice by James himself on former occasions
with some success. Letters from the privy-coun
cil were directed to the judges, to the high-sheriffs,
and to the mayors, bailiffs and justices of peace all
over the country, stating the necessity of an imme
diate levy of money to maintain a war for the re
covery , of the Palatinate, urging these functionaries
to subscribe liberally themselves, and to enjoin the
same upon all persons within their sphere of influ
ence, and concluding with the direction, that if any
should, " out of obstinacy or disaffection, refuse to
contribute herein proportionably to their estate
and means," they should certify their namesto the
council-board: — a formidable advance towards the
imposition of a real tax without consent of parlia
ment. As a necessary precaution against the spread of
disaffection among the people, James now " ordered
the judges on their circuits to make it an article in
their Charges, That the king, taking notice of the
people's liberal speaking of matters far above
their reach, and also of their licentious and unduti-
ful Speeches touching state and government, not
withstanding several proclamations to the contrary,
was resolved no longer to pass it without the se
verest punishment; and they were to proceed to
do exemplary justice where they should find any
such offenders."*
If by these menaces the king was enabled to
suppress among his own subjects the natural ex
pression of the sentiments inspired by a govern
ment which consulted so little either their rights
* Coke's Detection, p. 105.

263
or theii* feelings, it was out of his power to re
strain the demonstrations of contempt and ridicule
by which his character was assailed on the conti
nent. The government of Flanders, not feeling it
a part of its duty to protect the honour of the
good ally of the king of Spain, his Britannic ma
jesty became the subject of public mockery in all
the principal towns of the Netherlands.
In one of their comedies a messenger, entering
in breathless haste, announced that the Palatinate
was about to receive the most formidable succours ;
for the king of Denmark would contribute a hun
dred thousand pickled herrings, the Dutch a hun
dred thousand butter boles, and the king of Great
Britain a hundred1 thousand1 ambassadors. Some
times he Was depicted1 with a scabbard without a
sword, sometimes with a sword that nobody Could1
draw, though several" Were pulling at it. At Brus
sels they painted him with an empty purge and his
pockets turned inside outwards. At Antwerp the
queen of Bohemia Was represented like a poor
Irish mantler, with her hair hanging about her
ears and a child at her back, and the king her fa
ther Carrying the cradle after her. It was proba
bly an English caricature Which represented' the
monarch going down a pair of stairs, on every
step of which was written Peace.
in the silence to Which the people had noW been
reduced respecting the measures of government,
the king, still bent on eonciKating' the friendship of
the Spanish court, venfttfe'd ort the effensiye act of
commanding the liberation of all persons through
out the kingdom imprisoned for any act' of recu
sancy. The full extent of this Comprehensive in
dulgence was thus explained to the judges by the

264
lord-keeper in a letter accompanying the neces
sary writs :
 " I am to give you to understand from his
majesty, how his royal pleasure is, that upon re
ceipt of these writs, you shall make no niceness or
difficulty to extend that his princely favour to all
such papists as you shall find prisoners in the gaols
of your circuits for any church recusancy whatso
ever, or refusing the oath of supremacy, or dis
persing popish books, or hearing or saying of mass,
or any other point of recusancy which doth touch
or concern religion only, and not matters of state."*
And thus, after all that the king himself had
said, done and written respecting the oath of al
legiance, that palladium of his state, the refusal to
take it was quietly classed among points of religion
unconnected with matters of state. Not the least
remarkable of the political concessions of the royal
theologian !
The pulpit was in this age the principal organ
of public opinion ; and two days after the date of
the general pardon to recusants, on which it was
certain that the whole Calvinistic party would
comment with extreme bitterness, the primate re
ceived the royal command to transmit to the
clergy certain directions for preachers, of which
the following were the heads :
That no preacher under the rank of a dean
should take occasion to dwell on any topic not
comprehended and warranted in essence and sub
stance in the articles of religion and homilies.
That in the afternoons the clergy should never
preach but on texts from the creed, catechism,
commandments and Lord's-prayer ; and that those
* Fuller's Church history, b. x. p. 101.

265
should be most approved who confined themselves
to catechising the children.
That henceforth no clergyman under the rank
of a dean should preach in any popular auditory
on the deep points respecting predestination, elec
tion, reprobation and grace, resistible, or irresisti
ble. That no preacher should treat on the preroga
tive, authority, or duty, of princes, or otherwise
meddle in matters of state, or the differences be
tween princes and people, than they are instruct
ed in the homilies of obedience and the articles.
That no preacher should fall into bitter invec
tives or railirigs against the persons either of
papists or puritans, but only, as occasion should
offer, vindicate the doctrines of their church against
either adversary.
Lastly, that the archbishops and bishops (whom
his majesty had good cause to blame for former
remissness) should be more choice and careful in
licensing preachers, and that lecturers (a new body
severed from the ancient clergy) should only be li
censed in the court of faculties at the recommen
dation of the bishop of the diocese, with the fiat
of the archbishop of Canterbury, and a confirma
tion under the great seal : and that the contrav.en-
ers of these regulations should incur suspension
for a year and a day, until his majesty, by the
advice of the next convocation, should prescribe
some further punishment.*
By these regulations the parochial clergy found
themselves interdicted precisely from those topics,
political and theological, on which they were heard
with most attention and applause; and the lectu-
* Fuller's Church history, b. x. p. 109.
vol. ii. 34

$266
rers, — the most popular class of preachers,-— were
in effect silenced.
Loud were the murmurs which ensued, and
numbers of the puritanical sect chose rather, by
perseverance in the forbidden course, to brave
punishments under which they were supported
generally by self-approbation and always by the
sympathy and admiration of their zealous follow
ers, than by a tame submission to forfeit at once
their popularity, their consequence, and perhaps
the testimony of their own consciences. The
lord-keeper saw with uneasiness the progress of a
kind of pretty persecution which, he deprecated as
equally vexatious, impolitic and mischievous ; he
became the advocate and protector of many of the
sufferers, and two or three pleasant stories are re
lated by his biographer of the ingenious artifices
by which he sometimes entrapped the king into the
exercise of lenity and indulgence. One of these is
told as follows: — A scholar: of Oxford named
Knight, who had recently taken orders, had
preached a sermon in the university, in which he
"delivered that which derogated much from the
safety of regal majesty." The vice-chancellor in
formed against him to Laud, and Laud carried the
report to the king. " Presently the floods lift up
their voices ; ruin is thundered against Knight, who
had set such a beacon on fire in the face of the
university." To the Gate-house he was commit
ted a close prisoner, where he lay a great while,
"macerated with fear, and want, and hard lodg
ing." Dr. White, the same who purchased Sion
College for the clergy of London, was threatened
with a similar fate : as a residentiary of St. Paul's
the good man, then very aged, had preached a
sermon which was falsely represented to the! king

267
as of a disloyal tendency ; " for he was very rich,"
and the informers hoped to divide his money
amongst them.
Both these unfortunate divines threw them
selves upon the humanity of the lord-keeper, and
he resolved to exert himself to the utmost in their
behalf. Going to the king with some instructions
for preachers in his hand, which had been commit
ted to him to draw up, he begged that his majesty
would allow this article to be added to the rest ;
—that no man should preach before the age of
thirty or after that of sixty. The king exclaimed
that there was madness in the notion; — he had
many chaplains under thirty who preached before
him at Royston and Newmarket much to his con
tentment ; and his prelates and chaplains who
were far advanced in years were the greatest
masters of divinity in Europe. " I agree to all
this," said the keeper; "and since your majesty
will allow both young and old to go up into the
pulpit, it is but justice that you show indulgence
to the young ones, if they run into errors before
their wits be settled, and pity to the old ones if
some of them fall into dotage." He ended by
begging, and not in vain, the grace of both the
preachers, who " had been foolish in their several
extremes of years."* The general course, how
ever, of his master's policy proceeded unaltered,
all whose measures at this period were directed to
promote the completion of his favourite project,
— the Spanish match; the negotiations. for wnich
will next engage our attention.
* Lift of Williams, p. 88.

CHAPTER XXIII.
1622; 1623.
Embassy of John Digby, earl of Bristol, to Spain. — Account of him.— Views
of Buckingham. — >He persuades the prince to go to Spain ; — their mode
of gaining the king's consent. — The prince's journey. — Lines by Waaler.
— His arrival and reception at Madrid. — Correspondence of the king and
Buckingham. — James required to own the pope's supremacy. — Corres
pondence of the prince with the pope. — Secret articles added to the trea-?
ty. — Disagreement between Buckingham and the Spanish ministry. — Des-,
ponding letter of James,— his steps in favour of recusants. — Etiquette of
the Spanish court. — Articles signed. — Letter of Bristol. — Departure of
the prince. — Letter of Bristol to the prince.
On the death of Philip III. of Spain and the ac
cession of his son Philip IV., in the spring of the
year 1622, lord Digby, soon after created earl of
Bristol, was sent ambassador extraordinary to
that court, not only to perform the accustomed
ceremonies of condolence and congratulation, but to
resume with the new monarch the marriage trea
ty which his predecessor had contrived to length
en out for so many years without bringing it percep
tibly, nearer to its accomplishment. This ambassa
dor was a person of considerable political distinction,
and the steps of his advancement in public life
deserve to be traced. >
John Digby, fourth son of sir George Digby of
Coleshill in Warwickshire, was descended from
the second of seven brothers of a family long dis
tinguished for their zeal in the cause of the house
of Lancaster, who all fought in Bosworth field
against king Richard III. ; and from the eldest of

269
which brothers the unfortunate sir Everard Digby
derived his birth. The same conspiracy which
proved fatal to this gentleman, the head of the
house, became, through the following circumstan
ces, a means of advancement to the younger
branch. John Digby, after an education at Oxford, and
two or three years passed in France and Italy,
had returned home an accomplished gentleman of
five-and-twenty. He was in Warwickshire when
the gun-powder plot burst forth; and having been
a witness of the insurrection attempted by the dis
appointed conspirators on their arrival in that
county, for the purpose of seizing the person of the
princess Elizabeth, lord Harrington, under whose
care she was residing, pitched upon him as a fit
person to post to court with tidings of the safety
of the princess and the defeat of the whole design.
The very handsome exterior of the messenger,
set off by a dignified and spirited demeanor, in
stantly caught the eye of the king, whose atten
tion was thus drawn to the intelligence and address
which he discovered in the execution of his com
mission. Digby was speedily appointed a gentle
man of the privy-chamber and carver to his
majesty. The next year he was knighted : he
was sent ambassador to Spain in 1611, and again
in 1614, to treat of a marriage between prince
Henry and the infanta ; and after his second re
turn he was made vice-chamberlain of the house
hold and a privy-councillor. During these missions
it had come to the knowledge of the ambassador ,
that the counsels of his master were regularly be
trayed to the king of Spain, and on his return he
gave information of certain transactions between
the earl of Somerset and the Spanish government,

270
respecting which both the earl, then in the Tower
for his concern in Overbury's murder, and sir Ro
bert Cotton were subjected to, repeated examina
tions* But James, though sufficiently convinced,
as it seems, that his favourite had received the
pay of the most catholic king, was either unwilling
or afraid to accuse him of high treason ; especial
ly for an offence which: he shared with so many of
the courtiers and ministers, and the charge was
dropped. The fidelity of Digby, however, was rewarded
by a commission, in 1617, to treat with the court
of Spain for- the hand of the infanta; and James
was so well pleased with his exertions in this fa
vourite negotiation, and the hopes which he
brought back, that he bestowed on him the title
of lord Digby and the castle and manor of Sher
borne ; — part of the spoils of Somerset, who had
first wrested them from the injured Raleigh.
The German embassies of which lord Digby
madc a report to the parliament of 1621 have
been already mentioned; his zeal and diligence
had been conspicuously displayed in them; their
ill-success derogated in no degree from his merit
or reputation; and he was now for the fourth time
dispatched into Spain to co-operate with sir Wal
ter Aston, the ambassador in ordinary, in overcom
ing the obstacles which had so long embarrassed a
marriage-treaty already of unexampled prolixity.
For this negotiation Digby was peculiarly adapted,
both by long experience of the Spanish, court and
by his personal character. He was diligent and
patient, able and wary ; of high honour, integrity
and courage ; haughty and reserved in his temper,
and of a gravity which no Spanish grandee could
surpass. The favour of his master, who always

271
piqued himself on exercising his own choice in
ambassadors and in bishops, had supported lord
Digby's independence on Buckingham, and his con
nexions, such as no other public man, not even the
Eroud lord-keeper, had been able to assert. But
is departure for his fourth Spanish embassy, left
the indignant favourite to meditate at leisure a
scheme of which his disappointment and humilia
tion formed an essential part, and which produced,
as we shall see, the most remarkable and unex
pected results. In the mean time, the terms on
which the ambassador stood with the Villiers fami
ly may well be collected from a passage of a con
temporary private letter:
" I am told of a great falling out between my
lord-treasurer (Cranfield earl of Middlesex) and my
lord Digby, insomuch that they came to pedlar's
blood and traitor's blood. It was about some mon-
ney which my lord Digby should have had, which
my lord-treasurer thought too much for the charge
of his employment, and said himself could go
in as good a fashion for half the sum. But my
lord Digby replies that he could not peddle so well
as his lordship."*
The power of the marquis of Buckingham at
the English court seemed already to have extend
ed itself in every direction as far as the authority
of the sovereign himself could reach. Nothing
was ever denied him, and there was apparently
nothing which he scrupled to ask: The doting
king was even contented to live himself in absolute
poverty and want, that he might shower riches
with a more lavish hand on his favourite ; and sub
lime as were his speculative notions of the majesty
* See An Inquiry into the literary and political character of James I.,
London, 1816. p. 168.

272
of a king,— -of the almost divine honours attached
to the character,— he was willing in practice to sub
mit himself to the will and pleasure of an insolent
and capricious minion, who did not deign to ob
serve towards him the common decencies of out
ward respect. Still, there was something wanting
to the ambition of Buckingham ; the edifice of his
power was lofty indeed, but not stable, and he
had now to attempt the difficult task of placing it
on a broader and a surer basis^ The caprice of
the king might at any moment overthrow its own
work ; the first frown of royalty, the first hint
that the favourite was no longer inviolable, would
serve as the signal of attack to a host of foes,
some keen for private vengeance, some eager to
divide the spoil ; others zealous to bring to justice
a great public delinquent, by whom the common
interest had been in a thousand instances betray
ed, and law and equity perverted for a bribe or
trampled upon in the wantonness of insolent au
thority. The recent examples of Raleigh, of
Somerset, of. Suffolk, and especially of Bacon,
afforded appalling proof of the certainty with
which either by common law, by star-chamber
proceedings, or by the jurisdiction of the house of
lords, the ruin of a great man abandoned by the
court might be accomplished. Another danger
impended over the marquis. The king, though
considerably short of sixty years of age, had be
come infirm, and his life was regarded as precari
ous ; his son, arrived at full manhood and intro
duced into public business, was already " lord of
the ascendant ;" his marriage would add greatly
to his importance in the state ; a new court would
be formed around the prince and princess, in which
Bristol, the negotiator of their marriage, would

273
perhaps occupy the principal place; it might be
come the rallying point of the country party,
already so formidable ; and in a short time, it seem
ed probable that nothing but the shadow of au
thority would remain to a monarch generally con
temned, and a favourite as generally hated.
Against this probable loss of consequence one
remedy alone remained to the marquis ; — to con
ciliate the favour of the prince, to interpose in
the affair of the marriage in such a manner as to
procure to himself all the credit of its completion,
and, without forfeiting the affection of the pre
sent monarch, to establish his influence over his
successor. A hint said to be dropped by Olivarez, the
minister and favourite of Spain, appeared to have
suggested to the marquis the means of accomplish
ing a project which it required no small courage
and self-confidence even to conceive. About Mi
chaelmas 1622, the insincere dealing practised
upon the king of England by the governess of the
Netherlands, who, notwithstanding her amicable
professions, had suffered count Tilly to besiege
Heidelberg, then held for the palatine by an En
glish garrison, had provoked James to send Endy-
mion Porter post to Madrid, with a threatening
message, for an answer t^ which he was to wait
no more than ten days. It was the policy of
Spain to sooth the wounded feelings of James,
and to prevent the menaced rupture of the mar
riage treaty ; and amongst other complimentary
professions, the envoy on his return reported a
wish expressed by Olivarez, that the prince him
self were there, to see with his own eyes how
willing his master was to embrace his amity and
knit with him an indissoluble knot of alliance.
vol. n. 35

274
These expressions, being eagerly repeated by
Porter to the prince, awakened in his bosom some
desire to realise the idea; to put a period at
length to these tedious uncertainties; to go and
prove for himself the much-doubted sincerity of
Spain.* It is highly probable from the sequel, that the
pretended wish of Olivarez, — -a wish apparently
so little likely to be accomplished, — was nothing
more than a stratagem devised by Buckingham.
But however this might be, there is no doubt that
it was his impetuosity which, not without repeat
ed efforts, impelled at length the tardy spirit of
the prince to will the enterprise, which he offered
to share as his companion and guide ; — that it
was he who undertook to answer all objections,
to obviate all difficulties, and — not the least ardu
ous part of the undertaking — to extort the con
sent of the irresolute and timorous king. / It was in
concerting measures for the journey to Spain that
Buckingham, skilfully availing himself of the facile
and governable temper of Charles, first found
means to possess himself of his unreserved confi
dence ; and this, as we are told, " after a long time
of declared jealousy and displeasure on the prince's
part, and occasion enough ministered on the
other."t Buckingham now instructed the prince to com
mence his suit to his father by begging a promise*
— such as, it is probable, had ofteri avaifedmm-
self,-^that his majesty would decide on the matter
to be proposed to him without communicating it to
any one; — which the king unwarily conceded.
This step being gained, the prince on his knees,
* Life of Williams, p. 161.
, t Clarendon's Hist, of the Rebellion, fol. edit. p. Jl.

275
petitioned his father in the most earnest manner,
to be permitted to travel into Spain ; Buckingham
long standing by in silence-awhile the king dis
coursed the whole matter to the prince with less
heat than they had expected." V. At length, being
appealed to by the king, the favourite joined his
persuasions and entreaties to those of Charles,
urging the violent passion with which the prince
was transported, and the deep impression which,
it was to be feared, a refusal would produce upon
his spirits and peace of mind. " The prince then
took occasion to urge, that this expedient would
greatly expedite the conclusion of his marriage,
the event which the king desired before any other in
the world, and that he would also undertake that
his presence would determine the restitution of the
Palatinate, the second object of his majesty's
wishes." By arguments and persuasions thus skilfully
adapted, a hasty consent to the journey was won
from the king, who vainly imagined that so impor
tant an affair must of necessity be submitted to
the council before the plan could take effect, and
that an opportunity would thus be afforded him of
retracting, should he judge it expedient.
But no such escape was permitted him. He
was now told, that the security of such a design
depended upon its secresy, and that upon the ex
pedition used in carrying it into execution : That
considerable danger would be incurred by sending
to France for a safe conduct, and a delay which
would baffle the very intent of the journey, would
attend the equipment of a fleet fit to convoy the
prince of Wales on such an errand : That it was
therefore the design of the prince and duke, now
that his consent was obtained, to undertake the
journey immediately, in disguise, and with two ser-

276
vants only ; and that as no one had been intrusted
by them with the secret, they made no doubt of
being able to pass through France before they
Were missed at Whitehall. The king, in his sur
prise and his facility, assented to all that they
wished, and, referring the further details of the
plan to the next day's consultation, they departed,
No sooner had they quitted his presence, than a
thousand difficulties and dangers rose up in array
before the imagination of the king, which was in
exhaustible in such kind of representations ; and
terror, regret and anguish took such entire posses
sion of his mind, that on the return of the prince
and his adviser for their dispatch, " he fell into a
great passion with tears, and told them that he
was undone, and that it would break his heart if
they pursued their resolution." He then explains
ed all his fears and all his objections, ending with
the same passion and disorder with which he had
begun, and conjuring them, with sighs and tears, to
press him no longer to consent to a thing so con
trary both to his reason and his interest.
¦' The prince contented himself with reminding
his father of his promise, the violation of which, he
said, would make him give up for ever the thoughts
of marriage. Buckingham, on the contrary, who
better knew with whom he had to deal, and by
what arts the feeble-minded are governed, treated
him with rudeness; he told him that "nobody
would believe any thing he said, when he retract
ed so soon. the promise he had so solemnly made;
that he plainly discerned that it proceeded from
another breach of his word, in communicating with
some rascal, who had furnished him with those pi
tiful reasons he had 'alleged, and he doubted not
but he should hereafter know who his counsellor

277
had been ; that if he receded from what he had
promised, it would be such a disobligation to the
prince, who had set his heart now upon the journey,
after his majesty's approbation, that he could ne
ver forget it, nor forgive any man who had been
the cause of it." The chidden king, after passion
ately protesting, with many oaths, that he had
communicated the matter to no one, was obliged
to stifle his discontent, and listen again to the plan
of action. The adventurers now stated, that they
designed to begin their journey in two days ; and
named as their appointed attendants, Endymion
Porter, who had long been employed as the king's
agent in the court of Spain, and was now secretary
to the prince, and sir Francis Cottington, educated
in Madrid, who, after many years attendance on
Buckingham, had been appointed one of the gen
tlemen of the prince's bedchamber.
His majesty approved the choice ; and saying
that many things would occur to their experience
as necessary for the journey, which neither the
prince nor Buckingham would think of, desired to
have Cottington called immediately and apprized
of the design. He was brought in accordingly
from the outer room where he was waiting, while
Buckingham "whispered the prince in the ear,
that Cottington would be against the journey, and
his highness answered, he durst not."
"The king told him, that he had always been
an honest man, and therefore he was now to trust
him in an affair of the highest importance, which
he was not upon his life to disclose to any man
alive; then said to him, 'Cottington, here is baby
Charles and Stenny (an appellation he always
used of and towards the duke,) who have a great
mind to go by post to Spairi, to fetch home the in?

278
fanta, and will have but two more in their com
pany, and have chosen you for one. What think
you of the journey T (He often protested since,
that when he heard the king, he fell into such a
trembling that he could hardly speak.) But when
the king commanded him to answer him what he
thought of the journey, he replied, that he could
not think well of it, and that he believed it would
render all that had been done towards the match,
fruitless : for that Spain would no longer think
themselves obliged by those articles ; but that,
when they, had the prince in their hands, they
would make new overtures, which they believed
more advantageous to them ; amongst which they
must look for many that would concern religion,
and the exercise of it in England. Upon which
the king threw himself upon his bed, and said, ' I
told you this before ;' and fell into new passion and
lamentation, that he was undone and should lose
baby Charles.
" There appeared displeasure and anger enough
in the countenances both of the prince and duke ;
the latter saying, that, as soon as the king sent for
him, he whispered the prince in the ear, that he
would be against it ; that he knew his pride well
enough, and that, because he had not been first ad
vised with, he was resolved to dislike it; and there
fore he Reproached Cottington with all possible
bitterness of words ; told him, the king asked him
only of the journey, and which would be the best
way ; of which he might be a competent counsel
lor, having made the way so often by post ; but
that he had the presumption to give his advice in
matter of state, and against his master, without be
ing called to it, which he should repent as long as
he lived ; with a thousand new reproaches, which

279
put the poor king into a new agony, on the behalf
of a servant who, he foresaw, would suffer for an
swering him honestly. Upon which he said with
some commotion, 'Nay, by God, Stenny, you are
very much to blame to use him so; he answered
me directly to the question I asked him, and very
honestly and wisely, and yet you know he said no
more than I told you before he was called in.'
However, after all this passion on . both parts,^the
king yielded ; and the journey was at that confer
ence agreed on and all directions given accordingly
to sir Francis Cottington; the king having now
plainly discovered, that the whole intrigue was
originally contrived by the duke, and so violently
pursued by his spirit and impetuosity."*
All obstacles to this romantic enterprize being
thus removed, the prince and the marquis quitted
the court on February 17, 162.T^(the prince pre
tending to go to hunt at Theobalds, and the mar
quis, in the phrase of the day, " to take physic"
at Chelsea. They proceeded the same night to
Newhall in Essex, a seat belonging to Buckingham,
and thence the next day, — attended only by sir
Richard Graham, master of the horse to Bucking
ham, — to Dover, where they were met by Cot
tington and Porter. They disguised themselves
with false beards and full wigs, and assumed the
names of Thomas and John Smith ; and having
eluded with some difficulty the vigilance of the
mayor of Dover, who suspected that they were
gentlemen passing over in disguise to fight a duel,
and to whom, it is said, Buckingham was obliged
to announce himself as the lord admiral going to
visit the fleet, they embarked without discovery.
* Clarendon's History, pp. 11 et seq.

280
Arrived at Paris, the prince ventured to linger
for a day, and after viewing the curiosities of the
city snatched a sight of the royal family at dinner,
and in the evening was courteously admitted as a
stranger to view "a masking dance," in which the
princess Henrietta Maria performed a part, sur
rounded with the most distinguished beauties of
the court. Of this circumstance Waller has made
a poet's use in his gallant and spirited lines on the
picture of Henrietta, then queen of England.
" No power achieved either by arms or birth
Equals love's empire, both in heaven and earth;
Such eyes as yours on Jove himself have thrown
As bright and fierce a lightning as his own :
Witness our Jove, prevented by their flame
In his swift passage to th' Iberian dame,
When, like a lion finding in his way
To some intended spoil a fairer prey,
The royal youth, pursuing the report
Of beauty, found it in the Gallic court :
There public care with private passion fought
A doubtful combat in his noble thought :
Should he confess his greatness and his love,
And the free faith of your great brother prove ;
With his Achates breaking through the cloud
Of that disguise which did their graces shroud ;
And, mixing with those gallants at the ball,
Dance with the ladies and outshine them all ?
Or on his journey o'er the mountains ride?
So when the fair Leucothoe he espied,
To check his steeds impatient Phoebus yearned,
Though all the world was in his course concerned."
Charles however inherited some portion of his
father's indifference to female charms. It is not
known that the brilliant Henrietta then excited
any peculiar sentiment in his bosom ; and he pur
sued his journey on the following day. The care
less profusion with which the travellers scattered
* their money around them ; — an air of distinction

281
which they could not entirely disguise, and pro
bably a deferential manner which their attendants
would find it difficult to lay aside, — seem to have
excited in most of the towns through which they
passed, a suspicion that they were of higher quality
than they thought proper to make known. At
Bourdeaux they were embarrassed by the offered
hospitality of the governor, the duke D'Epernon,
whose penetrating and experienced eye they dread
ed:, and it was not without hesitation that the
count de Grammont had just dismissed them
through his frontier garrison at Bayonne, when a
courier dispatched by the Spanish ambassador at
London to his own court, gave him the information
that the prince of Wales was on his journey
through France.
Without further difficulties they pursued their
course, and reached Madrid on March 6th; the
prince and the marquis for the greater privacy
preceding their attendants by a day. Words can
scarcely do justice to the amazement felt by the
earl of Bristol, when, in the dusk of the evening,
the marquis of Buckingham entered his house at
Madrid, carrying a portmanteau, and announcing
that the prince himself with a guide was waiting
in the dark on the opposite side of the street, till
he should learn that his lordship was alone, and
could receive him with perfect secrecy. Scarce
ly trusting his ears or eyes, the ambassador hurried
out to meet the prince, and, having conducted him
to his bedchamber, listened with astonishment to
the narrative of his journey, and assisted in settling
the plan of his future proceedings. .
In the mean time, the thoughts of king James
were anxiously bent on his absent son and favour
ite ; and the following characteristic letter, among
vol. n. 36

282
others, which he addressed to them conjointly, will
serve to show the nature of his solicitudes, and
especially the perfect equality on which it was
his pleasure to place the heir of his kingdoms and
the upstart minion whom he had, erected into his
own and his people's master.
King James to the prince, and the marquis of
Buckingham.
" My sweet boys and dear venturous knights,
worthy to be put in a new romanso. I thank you
for your comfortable letters ; but alas, think if not
possible that ye can be many hours undiscovered,
for your parting was so blown abroad that day yes
came to Dover, as the French ambassador sent a
man presently thither, who found the ports stop
ped ; but yet I dare not trust to the bare stopping
of the ports, there being so many blind creeks to
pass at, and therefore I sent Doncaster to the
French king with a short letter of my own hand,
to show him that respect that 1 may acquaint him
with my son's passing unknown through his coun
try ; and this I have done for fear that upon the
first rumor of your passing, he should take a pre
text to stop you 
" Vacandarie is come from Spain, but brings no
news, save that Sim. Digby is shortly to be here
with a list of their names that are to accompany
your mistress hither; only Bristol writes an earnest
letter to have more money allowed him for his
charges at that solemnity, otherwise he says he
cannot hasten the consummation of the marriage ;
but that ye two can best satisfy him in, when you
are there  Kirke and Gabriel will carry Georges
and garters to you both with speed, but I dare send

283
no jewels of any value to either of you by land, for
fear of robbers, but I will hasten all your company
and provision to you by sea: Noblemen ye will
have enow, and too many .... I have settled sir
Francis Crane for my Steenie's business, and I am
this day to speak with Fotherby, and by my next
Steenie shall have an account both of his business
and of Kit's preferment and supply in means ; but
sir Francis Crane desires to know if my baby will
have him to hasten the making of that suit of
tapestry that he commanded him.
" I have written three consolatory letters already
to Kate, and received one fine letter from Kate;
I have also written one to Sue, but your poor old
dad is lamer than ever he was, both of his right
knee and foot, and writes all this out of his naked
bed. God almighty bless you both, my sweet
boys, and send you a safe, happy return. But I
must command my baby to hasten Steenie home,
how soon ye can be assured of the time of your
home-coming with your mistress, for, without his
presence, things cannot be prepared here."*
The king's next letter supplies matter equally
curious. He seem? pleased with sending in his
" ship adventure" a letter to his " two boys ad
venturers, whom God ever bless." He gives notice
that he sends two of his " bady's" chaplains, " to
gether with all stuff and ornaments fit for the ser
vice of God," and adds, very characteristically, " I
have fully instructed them, so as all their behaviour
and service shall, I hope, prove decent, and agree
able to the purity of the primitive church, and
* Miscellaneous State Papers, vol. i. No. xxvi. The " Kit," the " Kate,"
and the " Sue," of whom his majesty was so observant, were the brother,
wife and sister of his favourite.

284
yet as near the Roman form as can lawfully be
done ; for it hath ever been my way to go with the
church of Rome usque ad aras." Passing then to
matters of scarcely less importance in his eyes, he
says, " I send you also your robes of the order,
which ye must not forget to wear upon St. George's
day, .and dine together in them, if they can come
in time, which I pray God they may, for it will be
a goodly sight for the Spaniards to see my two
boys dine in them : I send you also the jewels, as I
promised, some of mine and such of yours, I mean
both of you, as are worthy the sending. For my
baby's presenting his mistress I send him an old
double cross of Lorain, not so rich as ancient, and
yet not contemptible for the value ; a good look-*
ing-glass, with my picture in it, to be hung at her
girdle, which ye must tell her ye have caused it
'so to be enchanted by art magic, as whensoever
she shall be pleased to look in it, she shall see the
fairest lady that either her brother or your fath
er's dominions can afford." A tedious enumera
tion follows, of the other jewels, to be offered to
the infanta, comprising a large diamond, " to be
worn at a needle on the midst of her forehead."
"And for my baby's own wearing, ye have two
good jewels of your own  and I send you for
your wearing the three brethren, that ye know
full well, but newly set, and the mirror of France,
the fellow of the Portugal diamond, which I would
wish you to wear alone in your hat with a little
black feather ..... As for thee, my sweet gossip,
I send thee a fair table diamond, which I would
once have given thee before, if thou would have
taken it, for wearing in thy hat, or where thou
pleases; and if my baby will spare thee the two
Jong diamonds in form of an anchor, with the pen-

285
dant diamond, it were fit for an admiral to wear,
and he hath enough better jewels for his mistress,
though here's of thine own thy good old jewel thy
three pinders diamonds, the picture case I gave
Kate, and the great diamond case I gave her, who
would have sent thee the least pin she had, if I
had not stayed her. If my baby will not spare
the anchor from his mistress, he may well lend
thee his round broach to wear, and yet he shall
have jewels to wear in his hat for three great
days." . . . . " Thus you see," concludes the doting
king, " how, as long as I want the sweet comfort
of my boys' conversation, I am forced, yea and de
light, to converse with them by long letters. God
bless you both, my sweet boys, and send you, after
a successful journey, a joyful and happy return
into the arms of your dead dad."
The strain of familiarity in which Buckingham,
holding the pen for the prince and for himself,
judged it permitted to correspond With his sove
reign, is sufficiently exemplified in the first letter
written by him from Madrid, which runs thus :
" Dear dad and gossip,
" On Friday last we arrived here at five o'clock
at night, both in perfect health; the cause which
we advertise you of it no sooner was, that we knew
you would be glad to hear as well of the manner
of our reception as of our arrival. First, we re
solved to discover the wooer, because, upon the
speedy opening of the ports, we found posts mak
ing such haste after us that we knew it would be
discovered within twelve hours, and better that
we had the thanks of it than a postilion. The
next morning we sent for Gondomar, who went

286
presently to the conde of Olivares, and as speedily
got me, your dog Steenie, a private audience of
the king; when I was to return back to my lodg
ing, the conde of Olivares, himself alone, would
accompany me back again to salute the prince in
the king's name. The next day we had a private
visit of the king, the queen, the infanta, don Carlos
and the cardinal, in the sight of all the world, and
I may call it a private obligation hidden from no
body ; for there was the pope's nuncio, the empe
ror's ambassador, the French, and all the streets
filled with guards and other people : before the
king's coach went the best of the nobility, af
ter followed all the ladies of the court: we sat
in an invisible coach, because nobody was suffered
to take notice of it, though seen by all the world :
In this form they passed three times by us ; but
before we could get away, the conde of Olivares
came into our coach and conveyed us home, where
he told us the king longed and died for want of a
nearer sight of our wooer. First he took me in
his coach to go to the king ; we found him walk*
ing in the streets, with his cloak thrown over his
face and a sword and buckler by his side ; he leap
ed into the coach, and away he came to find the
wooer in another place appointed, where there
passed much kindness and compliment one to an
other. " You may judge by this how sensible this king
is of your son's journey; and if we can either
udge by outward shows or general speeches, we
lave reason to condemn your ambassadors for
rather writing too sparingly than too much. Tq
conclude, we find the conde Olivares so overvaluing
of our journey, that he is so full of real courtesy,
that we can do no less than beseech your majesty

ii

287
to write the kindest letter of thanks and acknow
ledgement you can unto him. He .... hath this
day written to the cardinal Ludovicio, the pope's
nephew, that the king of England hath put such
an obligation upon this king, in sending his son
hither, that he entreats him to make haste of the
dispensation, for he can deny him nothing that is
in his kingdom. We must hold you thus much
longer to tell you, the pope's nuncio works as ma
liciously and as actively as he can against us, but
receives such rude answers that we hope he will
be soon weary on't : We make this collection of
it, that the pope will be very loth to grant a dis
pensation, which if he will not do, then we would
gladly have your directions how far we may en
gage you in the acknowledgement of the pope's
special power, for we almost find, if you will be
contented to acknowledge the pope chief head
under Christ, that the match will be made without
him. " So, craving your blessing, we rest
" Your majesty's humble and obedient
son and servant, " Charles]
" Your humble slave and dog, " Steenie.
"Madrid the 10th of March, 1623.
" For the best of fathers and masters."*
A second joint letter thus continues the story of
the prince's entertainment by the king of Spain :
" The next day your baby desired to kiss his
hands privately in the palace, which was granted
and thus performed : First, the king would not suffer
* Miscellaneous State Papers, vol. i. p. 401.

288
him to come to his chamber, but met him at the
stair-foot, then entered into the coach and walked
into his park. The greatest matter that past be
tween them at that time was compliments and
particular questions of our journey; then, by
force, he would needs convey him half-way home ;
in doing which they were both almost overthrown
in brick pits. . . . .Yesterday, being Sunday, your
baby went to a monastery called St. Jerommo's to
dinner, which stands a little out of. the town. Af
ter dinner came all the councillors in order to wel
come your baby ; then came the king himself, with
all his nobility, and made their entry with as great
triumph as could be, where he forced your baby
to ride on his right hand, which he observes al
ways. This entry was made just, as when the
kings of Castile come to the crown: all prisoners
set at liberty, and no office nor matters of grace
falls, but is put into your baby's hands to dis
pose 
" For our many and chief business, we find them,
by outward shows, as desirous of it as ourselves ;
yet are they hankering upon a conversion; for
they say that there can be no firm friendship with
out union in religion; but put no question in be
stowing their sister, and we put the other quite
out of question, because neither our conscience
nor the time serves for it, and because we will not
implicitly rely upon them. For fear of delays,
which we account the worst denial, we intend to
send, with all speed, Mihill Andros, to come to
bring us certain word from Gage, how he finds our
business prosper there (at Rome,) according to
which we w'ill guide ourselves."  The prince
adds in his own hand, "1 beseech your majesty ad-

289
vise as little in these businesses with your council
as you can."
The following letter from Buckingham accom
panied the other :
" Dear dad and gossip,
"The chiefest advertisement of all we omitted
in our other letter, which was, to let you know how
we like your daughter, his wife, and my lady mis
tress : without flattery, I think there is not a sweeter
creature in the world. Baby Charles himself is so
touched at the heart, that he confesses all that he
ever saw is nothing, to her, and swears, that if he
want her, there shall be blows. I shall lose no
time in hastening their conjunction, in which I shall
please him, her, you, and myself most of all, in
thereby getting liberty to make the speedier
haste to lay myself at your feet; for never none
longed more to be in the arms of his mistress. So
craving your blessing I end,
" Your humble slave and dog,
" Steenie."*
It is obvious from these letters, that nothing
could exceed the honours paid by the Spariiards
to the prince of Wales, or their demonstrations of
earnestness for the completion of the match.
Neither is there any ground to suspect that at this
time they w #e practising any dissimulation : no
better match could be found, or desired, for the
infanta than the heir of Great Britain ; and it was
the more important to Spain to secure his alliance,
because, if disappointed in this quarter, it was to
* Miscellaneous State Papers, vgl. i. p. 410,
vol. n. 37

290
France that he; must look for a bride; and the
union of France and England in so strict a league
could not but be formidable to the diminished
force and energy of the Spanish monarchy. Re
ligion itself now seemed rather to enjoin than for
bid the marriage ; since the king of Great Britain
was willing to accede to stipulations which would
amply secure the faith of the infanta herself from
all assaults ; — which might afford many facilities
for attempting the conversion of her husband ; —
which would go far towards fixing her children in
the church of their mother, and which would
greatly ameliorate the condition of the distressed
catholics of the British dominions.
The principal difficulties which seemed likely
to impede the conclusion; of the treaty arose from
the impatient and injudicious earnestness for its
completion manifested on the English part. The
equally disgraceful and impolitic facility with which
James had assented to all the demands of the
Spanish court relative to religion, had already dis
posed the pope to interpose delays in granting the
dispensation, with the hope of still extorting
something more ; and the unhoped-for intelligence
that the prince had put himself into the power of
the king of Spain, had the immediate effect of
causing the pontiff to rise greatly in his terms.
Philip IV. was himself too honourable to take
advantage of the confidence reposed in him by a
brother prince ; but it soon appeared that the
Spanish clergy, acting under the orders of the
nuncio and uniting with the English and Irish fu
gitives, who were both numerous and powerful at
Madrid, were likely to devise means of trying the
complaisance of king James and the patience of
his son to the utmost.

291
In the letters just quoted we already find a bold
attempt hazarded for the conversion of Charles;
and the still bolder requisition made, that, by way
of preliminary, the king of England should acknow
ledge the pope's supremacy. James himself was
startled at this pretension: '* Ye must remember,"
he writes, " that in Spain they never put doubt of
the granting of the dispensation ; that themselves
did set down the spiritual conditions, which I fully
agreed unto, and by them were they sent to Rome,
and the consulto there concluded, that the pope
might, nay ought, for the weal of Christendom,
grant a dispensation upon those conditions ; these
things may justly be laid before them ; but I know
not what ye mean by my acknowledging the pope's
spiritual supremacy. I am sure ye would not have
me renounce my religion for all the world ; but all
that I can guess at your meaning is, that it may be
ye have an allusion to a passage in my book against
Bellarmine, where I offer, if the pope would quit
his god-head and usurping over kings, to acknow
ledge him for the chief bishop, to whom all appeals
of churchmen ought to lie en dernier resort ; the
very words I send you here inclosed, and that is
the furthest that my conscience will permit. me to go
upon this point ; for I am not a monsieur who can
shift his religion as easily as he can shift his shirt
when he cometh from tennis."*
As for his majesty's book against Bellarmine, it
is more than probable that his beloved Steenie had
never given himself the trouble to read it; and
that even the prince, though not uninstructed in
polemics, had retained neither this nor any other
particular passage engraven in his memory: bu.t
* Miscellaneous Slate Papers, vol. i. p. 411.

292
the whole mischief proceeded from the folly
which had interfered with the skilful management
of the earl of Bristol.
This able minister had taken care to state in the
most distinct manner, that the papal dispensation
was nothing to his master; that to him it was ut
terly indifferent whether there were any such thing
or not ; that it was to the king of Spain alone that
his religion rendered it necessary, and therefore
that it was for him to procure it ; and to this the
Spanish ministers had fully consented, by taking
the business on themselves. But James had after
wards been guilty of the weakness and inconsist
ency of sending Gage, a catholic, to Rome, to so
licit the affair on his own behalf; and on the
1 strength of this overture, as well as of the alliance
which he was desirous of contracting, the sove
reign pontiff had ventured to address a letter to
Charles, urging him to return to the faith of his
great and pious ancestors. The answer of the
prince, though conceived in very general terms,
was one which, if made public, would have lost
him the esteem and confidence of every earnest
protestant in his father's dominions, from the re
spect which it expressed for the Romish faith and
,the hopes which it affected to hold out that the
unity of the church might yet be restored : a strik
ing proof of the danger and impropriety of the situa
tion in which the prince had placed himself, and
a sufficient comment on the meaning of his request
that the privy-council might be as little as possible
consulted on these negotiations! The firm remon
strances of the earl of Bristol caused the Spanish
council to desist from some of their encroaching
demands ; but two secret articles were actually
added to the treaty<j by one of which James en-

293
gaged to use his efforts for the repeal of all penal
laws against the catholics within three years ; and
by the other consented that all the children of the
marriage should be left under their mother's tuition
two years longer than had been agreed ; that is,
to the age of twelve : — a concession which nothing
could justify !
In the further progress of the business frequent
causes of offence and altercations arose among the
negotiators, and especially between Buckingham,
to whom, for his imagined good services in this
very affair, his credulous master had just transmit
ted the patent of a duke, and Olivares. The
Spanish ministers thought themselves authorised
to inquire by what title a young man bearing no
commission from his sovereign, dared to interpose
in the treaty with the tone of a dictator ; and find
ing that he brought no credentials from the Eng
lish council, they scrupled to admit him as a party
to their consultations.
The offended favourite on his part did not fail
to aggravate to the prince all causes of dissatisfac
tion which occurred. Charles was once on the
point of quitting Spain in anger or despair, at the
kind of securities demanded for the spiritual arti
cles, but the earl of Bristol dissuaded him from a
step which would have been irretrievable ; and
Cottington was dispatched instead with a report
from the prince and the duke, which called forth
the following pitiful wailings from king James :
" My sweet boys,
" Your letter by Cottington hath strucken me
dead ; I fear it shall very much shorten my days,
and I am the more perplexed that I know not how

294
to satisfy the people's expectation here, neither
know I what to say to our council, for the fleet
that stayed upon a wind this fortnight. Rutland
and all aboard must now be stayed, and I know
not what reason I shall pretend for the doing of it ;
but as for my advice and directions that ye crave,
in case they will not alter their decree, it is in a
word, to come Speedily away, and if ye can get
leave, and give over all treaty. And this I speak.
without respect of any security they can offer you,
except ye never look to see yoUr old dad again,
whom I fear ye shall never see if ye see him not
before winter. Alas, 1 now repent me Sore that
ever I suffered you to go away. I care for match
nor nothing so 1 may once have you in my
arms again ; God grant it, God grant it, God grant
it, Amen, amen, amen ! I protest ye shall be as
heartily welcome as if ye had done all things ye
went for, so that I may once have you in my arms
again, and God bless you both, my only sweet son
and my only best sweetservant, andlet me hear from
you quickly with all speed, as ye love my life ; and
so God send you a happy and joyful meeting in the
arms of your dear dad.
" From Greenwich, the 24th of June 1623."*
The king's letter alludes in part to the provok
ing resolution taken by advice of the ecclesiastical
council at Madrid, and obstinately persisted in, to
delay the infanta's voyage to England till the fol
lowing spring ; in order to give time for the con
version of the prince during so prolonged an abode
in Spain : But Olivares promised to bring the di
vines to reason ; the treaty was resumed with
<* MiseeU&neous State Papers, vol. i. p. 421.

295
great assurances of dispatch and honourable deal
ing from the Spanish minister, and the prince now
hoped to be on his return within a month, accom
panied by his bride. As one mode of expediting
the affair, Buckingham proposed to the king to be
gin putting in execution all those stipulations for
the relief of his catholic subjects which were to
take effect upon the marriage. On this sugges*
tion, his majesty without hesitation directed Wil
liams to issue letters under the great seal to all
judges and magistrates, requiring them entirely to
forbear taking cognisance of any violations of the
laws against recusancy : but so daring and invidi
ous an exercise of the dispensing power, — in itself
an unwarrantable assumption of the crown, — justly
alarmed the lord-keeper ; who represented, that
these functionaries could not yield to the royal
pleasure without the breach of their solemn oaths
of office ; and the monarch was obliged to resort
to the expedient of grantirig to the catholics a
general pardon and dispensation ; which they could
equally plead against the laws, but which would
excite less clamour and save the consciences of
magistrates. In the next dispatches the king received the fol
lowing notification of his son's progress : — " I, your
baby, have since this conclusion been with my mis
tress, and she sits publicly with me at the plays,
and within these two or three days shall take place
of the queen, as princess of England."* Public
interviews, however, were all that the etiquette of
Spain would permit to the princely wooer till the
arrival of the dispensation. Howel the letter-
writer thus describes the formalities of the court-
* Miscellaneous State Papers, vol. i. p. 427.

296
gbip : — " There are comedians once a-week come
to the palace, where under a great canopy the
queen and the infanta sit in the middle, our prince
and don Carlos on the queen's right hand, the king
and the little cardinal on the infanta's left hand. I
have seen the prince have his eyes immoveably fixed
upon the infanta half an hour together, in a thought
ful speculative posture, which sure would needs
be tedious unless affection did sweeten it. It was
no handsome comparison of Olivares, that he
watched her as a cat doth a mouse.
" Not long since, the prince, understanding that
the infanta was used to go some mornings to the
casa de campo, a summer-house the king hath the
other side the river, to gather May-dew, he did
rise betimes and went thither, taking your brother
(Endymion Porter) with him; they were let into
the house and into the garden, but the infanta was
in the orchard, and there being a high partition
Wall between, and the door doubly bolted, the
prince got on the top of the wall and sprung down
a great height, and so made towards her ; but she,
spying him first of all the rest, gave a shriek and
ran back. The old marquis that was then her
guardian came towards the prince and fell on his
knees, conjuring his highness to retire, in regard
he hazarded his head if he admitted any to her
company ; so the door was opened, and he came
out under that wall ever which he had got in. I
cannot say that the prince did ever talk with her
privately, yet publicly often, my lord of Bristol
being interpreter ; but the king always sat by to
overhear all. Our cousin Archy hath more privi
lege than any, for he often goes with his fool's coat
where the infanta is with her meminas and ladies

297
of honour, and keeps a blowing and blustering
amongst them and flirts out what he lists."*
It is certainly a curious trait of the manners of
the time, that the prince should be followed to
Spain by a court fool, or jester, and that the privi
leges of this office should prove an exemption from
the strict ceremonial of the country.
In England, the impatience of the people for
the return of- the prince and their anxiety for his
safety had suspended all murmurs against the
match, and brought the privy-council into as com
plying a frame of mind as the king himself could
desire. The articles concerning religion were now
sent over, and their observance was solemnly
sworn to by the king and all the councillors who
could be assembled, of whom the archbishop of
Canterbury was one ; afterwards the king took
his oath to the private articles in presence of the
Spanish ambassadors ; the Spanish divines having
at length decided that these oaths should be ac
cepted as sufficient security for the religious stipu
lations, provided Philip IV. would be bound to
them as guarantee : — a character which would
have afforded him constant pretexts for a most
insulting interference between the king of Great
Britain and his Roman catholic subjects. It was
hoped by James, that when he had performed to
the letter all that this treaty required of him, and
had even gone beyond it, as he did in several
points, he should have earned the favourable re
port of the ambassadors to their own court ; but
the more he displayed his weakness in yielding,
the more of course they exhibited their boldness
in asking; and it appears that the marquis of In-
*Howel's Letters, part i. letter 71.
vol. n. 38

298
nojosa thought proper to complain, that though
the catholics were now relieved from all penalties^
and even from the obligation to take the oath of
allegiance, they still lay under a reproach in not
being declared eligible to all offices, and on an
equal footing with their fellow citizens. He was
answered, that there was now no obstruction to
their bearing offices ; and was at length pleased to
declare himself in some measure satisfied.
Nothing now appeared to oppose the conclusion
of the marriage ; the "dull diligence" of the Span
iards, as James called it, had perfected the treaty,
after a period of deliberation somewhat short of
nine years ; the pope's ratification of the articles
was sent for — was promised; the English fleet
was fitting out to receive the prince, and, it was
hoped, his bride ; and the espousals were positive
ly fixed to take place on the 29th of August. King
James could now anticipate no disappointment in
his darling scheme ; least of all could he appre
hend that it was to proceed from the man whom
he had most fondly loved and most extravagantly
favoured, and who expressed a devbtedness to his
will exceeding that of every other subject^ .pne
circumstance alone transpires, in the correspon
dence of the prince and Buckingham with the
king, from which he could conceive any doubts or
apprehensions; and this was, their request to have
under his majesty's hand an order for their imme
diate return to England, of which they might if ne
cessary avail themselves ; but the motive for this
request was carefully disguised, and no one had
ventured to acquaint the king either with the ill-
behaviour of his favourite in Spain, or the keen
sense of it manifested by the haughty Spaniards :
whilst the revenge which Buckingham meditated

299
against them was confined as yet to his own bosom.
The death of pope Gregory had rendered neces
sary a new ratification of the articles, and before
its arrival, Buckinghain instigated the prince to
make known the necessity of his immediately quit
ting Spain. This was startling; but Philip IV.
was too jealous for the honour of his sister to press
his stay, and preparations were made to grace his
departure with every possible mark of honour and
affection, since it could not yet be suspected, that
he entertained the most distant thought of break
ing the match  " The ninth of this month,"
writes the earl of Bristol to the lord-keeper in
August 1623, the prince intendeth, God willing, to
begin his journey for England; and the day before,
I conceive, the contract will be. The infanta is
to follow in the spring, and the prince hath com
manded my stay here, I know not how things
may be reconciled here before my lord duke's de
parture, but at present, they are in all extremity
ill between this king and his ministers and the duke;
and they stick not to profess, that they will rather
put the infanta headlong into a well than into his
hands,"* The contract of marriage was not however cele
brated before the prince's departure, partly for
want of the pope's ratification, partly because
Charles himself did not urge it ; but he solemnly
confirmed by oath the articles of the treaty, wit
nessed the taking of a like oath by the king of
Spain, his council and some of the great officers,
and publicly deposited in the earl of Bristol's hands
a proxy for the king of Spain, empowering him to
marry the infanta within a certain number of days
* Cabala, p. %%¦

300
after the arrival of the ratification'. Nothing in
short was omitted on either side to give mutual
satisfaction, and to manifest to the world the terms
of friendship and brotherhood on which they part
ed. The details are thus given in a contemporary
letter: " The king brought him (the prince) to the Es-
curtal, and a little before his departure the king
and he went into a close coach, and had a large
discourse together, — my lord of Bristol being in
another coach hard by, to interpret some hard
words when he was called. And so they parted,
with many tender demonstrations of love. A tro
phy of marble is erected in the place where they
parted. Many rich presents were given on both
sides. The prince bestowed upon the queen the
biggest crown pearl in the world, between two dia-f
mands. He gave the infarita a rope of pearl and
an anchor of great diamonds, with many other
jewels. He hath been very bountiful to every
one of the king's house, and all the guard. Never
prince parted with such an universal love of all.
He left every mouth filled with his coramenda-?
tions ; every one reporting him to be a truly no
ble, discreet and well deserving prince. . .
" My lord of Buckingham at first was much es
teemed, but it lasted little; his French garb, with
his stout hastiness in negotiating, and his over-fami
liarity with the prince, was not liked. Moreover,
the council of Spain took it ill, that a green head
should come with such a superintendent power to
treat of an affair of such consequence among so
many grave ministers of state, to the prejudice of
so grave and well deserviug a minister as my lord
of Bristol, who laid the first stone of this building.
Hereupon? his power was called in question, and

301
found imperfect in regard it was not confirmed by
the council. Thus the business began together ill
blood between Olivares and him, and grew so far
out of square, that unless there had been good
heads to piece them together again, all might
have fallen quite off the hinges. He did not take
his leave of the countess of Olivares, and the fare
well he took of the conde himself was harsh; for
he told him he would be an everlasting servant to
the king of Spain, the queen and the infanta, and
would endeavour to do the best offices he could
for the concluding of this business, and strengthen
ing the amity between the two kingdoms : — but
for himself, he had so far disobliged him, that he
could make no profession of friendship to him at
all. The conde turned about, and said he accep
ted of what he had spoken, and so parted."*
After these adieus the prince and his confident
turned their steps towards St. Andero, where they
were to embark. Sir Thomas Somerset and sir
John Ffnett had been sent on board the English
fleet to Spain, with orders immediately to an
nounce to the prince, wherever he should then be,
its arrival for his and the infanta's service. Six
leagues in-land from St. Andero they met the
prince on his journey thither; "when," says Finett,
" besides the joy his highness received at our en
counter and the fleet's arrival, (a news that he
said made him look upon me when I told it, as on
one that had the face of an angel,) the duke of
Buckingham, when I after met him and told him
the like, to express his content, kissed me, and,
drawing from his finger a diamond of above an
hundred pounds value, gave it me for a present."t
* Cabala, p. IB.
t Finetti Philox. p. 121.

302
No sooner was Charles safe on board an English
vessel, than he said openly to those about him,
that it was a great folly in the Spaniards to use
him so ill and then suffer him to come away. The
day after his embarkation, too, he sent one of his
attendants back to Madrid, under pretence of
fetching something left behind, for the purpose of
secretly delivering to the earl of Bristol a letter
commanding him, when the dispensation should
arrive, to forbear delivering the proxy till sufficient
security should be given against the infanta's
throwing herself into a nunnery after the espousals,
and thus frustrating himself and his country .of
the hopes of posterity. This chicane, for it was
nothing more, demonstrated the utter insincerity
of Charles in the oaths and protestations with
which he had voluntarily bound himself on quitting
Madrid, Bristol, anxious and alarmed, hastened
to apply for the securities required, and to assure
Charles that none would be denied by the king or
the infanta which could in reason or propriety be
asked. Then, craving leave to write to his high
ness " like a faithful plain servant," he proceeded
to inquire whether' it was his highness's real plea
sure that the proxies in his hands should be made
use of, or not. If not, other pretexts might be
found in the discussion of the temporal articles to
create delay. " But," he adds, " these inconveni
ences I conceive will follow. 'First, it well be of
great discomfort to the infanta, who, until the des-
posorios i are past, is not her own woman, but must
be governed by the pleasure of the junta, which I
think she is very weary of ; neither till then may
she declare herself to be yours, nor comply with
your highness in answering of your letters and
messages, and giving you those respects and com>

303
forts which 1 know she would be glad to do. But
if she should any way judge, that the delay of the
desposorios should arise from your highness's part,
I conceive she would take it most heavily. Second
ly, it will certainly raise great jealousies in this
king and his ministers, and retard the resolutions
that are fit to be taken with speed for the putting
in execution that which is capitulated . .  1 dare
ndt so much as give myself leave once to question
your highness' intentions of proceeding to the real
effecting of the match, which makes me desirous
that all things may be executed that may any way
retard or disturb it. Only I shall .... presume to
say thus much to your highness : That for divers
years I know the king your father and yourself
have held this the fittest match in the world, and
by a desire of effecting it your highness was in
duced to undertake that hazardous journey of
coming to this court in person. In the time of
your being here, admitting that their proceedings
have been in many things unworthy of you, and
that divers distastes have grown by intervenient
accidents, — now things are reduced to those terms
that the match itself is sure, the portion and the
temporal articles settled, — I hope to the king's
liking and yours, — and all other good effects that
could be hoped for by this alliarice are in a fair
way. " If to these reasons may be added, that on his
majesty's and your highness' part you have already
passed by and overcome the main difficulties, and
your highness by your journey hath satisfied your
self of the person of the infanta, God forbid that
either any personal distastes of ministers, or any
indiscreet or passionate carriage of businesses,
should hazard that which his majesty and your

304
highness have done so much to obtain, and where
by doubtless so much good and peace is to accrue
to Christendom by the effecting of it ; and, con
trariwise so much trouble and mischief by the mis
carrying of it  I shall conclude by entreating
your highness, that if you would have things go
well, that a post niay instantly be dispatched back
unto me, authorising me to deliver the said power
upon the arrival of the dispensation, and having
taken fitting security in this particular point. And
this I earnestly beseech your highness may be
done. with all possible speed and secrecy, and that
the Spanish ambassadors may not know that ever
there was any suspension made of the delivery of
the powers."*
These representations of Bristol, however sup
ported by considerations of honour and policy, pro
duced no impression on the mind of the prince,
who had submitted himself implicitly to other
guidance, and whose first wish and care it had now
become, to find pretexts for breaking off the treaty
capable of satifying his father that the disappoint
ment of his fondest wishes had become inevitable.
While Charles and- Buckingham are pursuing
their voyage homeward full of these designs, and
troubled no doubt with many anxious thoughts re
specting their execution, it will be proper to in
quire what had been the state. of men's minds
during their absence, and what reception was
awaiting their return. * Cabala, p. 24.

CHAPTER XXIV.
1623, 1624.
State of public opinion respecting the prince and Buckingham.— Policy
adopted by the lord-keeper, — by the lord-treasurer. — Arrival of the
prince and Buckingham in England. — Steps taken by their advice to
break off the marriage-treaty. — Recall and honourable conduct of Bris
tol. — The king compelled into the measures of Buckingham, — his regret
and melancholy. — Debates in the council concerning a war with Spain.
— Violent Behaviour of Buckingham. — His resentment against the lord-
keeper and other councillors. — He causes parliament to be assembled, —
and courts the popular party. — Death of the duke of Lenox and Rich
mond. — King's speech to parliament disclaiming toleration of the catho
lics.— Buckingham's false narration of occurrences in Spain. — The Spa
nish ambassador demands his head. — The house defends him.. — Address
of both houses in favour of war with Spain. — Temporising conduct of
the king. — Supplies' voted. — The king Overruled by Buckingham. — Letter
from him to the king. — King's speech to parliament. — Petition against
the catholics. — Buckingham accused by the Spanish ambassadors, — dis
graced by the king, — recovers himself by the counsels of the lord-keep
er. — Curious intrigues of the lord-keeper. — Impeachment of the lord-trea
surer. — Return and disgrace of Bristol. — Dissolution of Parliament.
It Would be difficult to convey an adequate idea
of the surprise, the confusion, the consternation,
which seized all minds on the first rumour that
Buckingham had carried off the prince to Spain
in disguise, at a moment's warning, and without
the knowledge of a single privy-councillor or mi
nister of state. Such an act was justly regarded
as an intolerable presumption on the part of the
favourite, and a more glaring proof than any other
of the absolute mastery which he exercised over
the spirit of the king.
It had been the current report of Madrid, as
soon as the prince's arrival there was known, that
vol. ii. 39

306
he had come to make himself a catholic, and a
suspicion of the same kind had taken possession of
the English people, to which the puritan divines
gave great encouragement. A knowledge of the
earnest persuasions on this head employed by the
Spanish court, and still more of the correspond
ence into which Charles had been seduced with
the pope, would doubtless, with a large party,
have changed these suspicions into an absolute
conviction of his apostasy, and ruined him for ever
in public .estimation. But these circumstances
were carefully concealed by the prudential policy
of James ; and the most prevalent apprehension
was, lest the Spaniards, of whose cruelty and
perfidy every thing was thought credible, might,
on some pretext of quarrel, detain the heir of the
kingdom in perpetual imprisonment. Yet, no
people could entirely withhold its admiration and
sympathy from an expedition dictated by a gal
lantry so romantic and so becoming the spirit of a
youthful prince. Had he succeeded to his hopes,
and led home with him in triumph the royal
bride, long wooed and nobly won, fears, scruples
and prejudices, would all have given way before
the enthusiasm of the moment, and the marriage
most deprecated in prospect, might have been
hailed with the loudest burst of applause on its
completion. Even as it was, the joy of receiving
back the young adventurer in safety seemed to fill
every heart ; and the merit of bringing him home
again, was thought sufficient atonement for the
rashness of Buckingham in carrying him abroad.
Courtiers and politicians surveyed the scene
with other eyes : No apprehensions were enter
tained by them for the personal safety of the
prince, — partly because it was manifestly contrary

307
to the interest of Spain that the hopes of the
English nation should be transferred from him to
the princess palatine and her family ; — and so
large a troop of the flower of the young nobility
and gentry hastened to offer their attendance to
the heir apparent and the favourite, that within a
few days the hotel of the earl of Bristol assumed
the appearance of an English court. But the great
perplexity of those who were, or who wished to
be, in public situations, was to decide what would
be the results of this adventurous journey with
regard to the duke of Buckingham: Would it
exalt him to a still higher pinnacle of power and
favour, or would it precipitate him to destruction?
By no one was this alternative weighed with
more profound attention than by the lord-keeper;
and when he had maturely reflected that the
smallest failure in deference or attention on the
part of Buckingham towards Olivarez, or of Oli
varez towards Buckingham, must produce a vio
lent quarrel between these haughty favourites,
which would very probably end in a breach of
the treaty ; — a treaty on which the king had
rested so many hopes and projects that it seemed
scarcely credible that he could Continue to love
the instrument of its failure, — he could not avoid
regarding the situation of the duke as extremely
critical ; especially as an absence of any conside
rable duration would afford many advantages to
the numerous and active enemies who were la
bouring to supplant him. In consequence of this
view of things, Williams endeavoured as much as
possible to establish himself on an independent
footing in the favour of his master ; and though
he continued to Buckingham all those professions of
'devotedness which his present greatness rendered

308
necessary, he took upon him, in his correspond
ence, to offer his advice with more freedom than
was welcome to this spoiled child of fortune, and
sometimes ventured to complain of the silence
respecting the progress of the negotiation observ
ed towards the privy-council and the most impor
tant officers of state. He also corresponded inti
mately with the earl of Bristol, who made no
scruple of communicating to him the injuries and
affronts which he received from the arrogant and
intrusive favourite ; and lastly, he was careful to
perform all that depended on him to give satis
faction to the Spanish ambassadors, and to remove
any obstacles to the completion of the alliance ;
and this, even after he had good cause to know
that the duke was resolutely bent on opposing its
accomplishment. The lord-treasurer, apprehending, probably on
similar grounds, the fall of his great patron, like
wise made some efforts to shake off his allegiance
to him, and ventured to scruple payment of some
of his exorbitant demands on an almost exhausted
exchequer. The event proved, that both these able politi
cians had taken a wrong measure of men and of
things; the audacity of Buckingham, which extort
ed submission from his masters, placed him in fact
on surer ground with them than eould have been
attained by the caution which would have respect
ed their prejudices and foibles, or the obsequious
ness which would have cherished them.
At length the time arrived which was to put to
the proof the spirit and temper of the king ; to show
whether he would dare to disgrace, when present,
one against whom he had ventured to manifest ex
treme displeasure . in his absence ; whether he

309
Would suffer his son and Buckingham to gratify
their own passions by breaking off the connexion,
or compel them to respect his wishes by renewing
an amity which had been disturbed indeed, but
not yet destroyed ; — whether, in short, the monarch
was to obey or be obeyed. Early in the morning
of October 6, the prince arrived with the duke at
York-house, and a few hours after they set out to
join the king at Royston ; their reception is thus
described by the biographer of Williams :
 " The joy at the interview was such as sur-
passeth the relation. His majesty in a short while
retired, and shut out all but his son and the duke;
with whom he held conference till it was four hours
in the night. They that attended at the door,
sometimes heard a still voice, and then a loud,"
sometimes they laughed and sometimes they chaf
ed, and noted such variety, as they could not guess
what the close might prove. But it broke out at
supper, that the king appeared to take all well
that no more was effected in the voyage, because
the proffers for the restitution of his son-in-law
were no better stated by the Spanish : And then
that sentence fell from him, which is in memory to
this hour ; That he liked not to marry his son with
a portion of his daughter's tears. His majesty,"
adds our author, "saW there was no remedy in this
case, but to go hand in hand with the prince and
his now praspotent favourite."*
The steps which followed were strongly cha-v
racteristic of the headlong violence, the unmea
sured scorn and indignity which Buckingham seems
to have esteemed it almost a virtue to manifest to
wards the objects of his hostility. The uriwel-.
* Life of Williams, p. 165.

310
come diligence of the earl of Bristol had succeed
ed in removing, almost as soon as it was raised, the
pretended fear of the infanta's embracing a mo
nastic life ; and as a new pretext for quarrel was
then rendered necessary, this minister, — before
the end of the month of October, while the dis
pensation was indeed still waited for, but all other
preparations were carrying on by the Spaniards
with great diligence and perfect good faith,— re
ceived orders to require security for the restora
tion of the palatine previously to delivering the
proxy. This was a demand quite novel, and un
warranted by any stipulation ; for James had from
the first agreed that the interests of his son-in-law
should not be made a subject of treaty till after
the completion of the marriage. Yet the king of
Spain, willing both to do honour to the negotiation
of Bristol, whom he highly esteemed, and to throw
on the English court the whole blame of the
breach of faith which he anticipated, immediate
ly delivered to the ambassador a written promise
that the Palatinate should be restored. The con
cession did but embarrass men who were resolute
not to be conciliated ; "and the unfortunate James,
who had no longer a will of his own, was compel
led to send with all speed to Bristol directions by
no means to deliver the proxy till after Christmas;
at which time the date of this power expired, and
it became useless. Before the arrival of this or
der, the dispensation had been received at Madrid ;
and Bristol, unprovided of any excuse to do other
wise, had positively engaged to deliver the proxy,
according to stipulation, within ten days; these
days were nearly expired ; it wanted little more
than a fortnight of Christmas, and every prepara-

311
tion had previously been completed for the mag
nificent ceremonial of the espousals.
The king of Spain fully comprehended the in
sult implied in such proceedings ; and disdaining
all complaint or remonstrance, he immediately
commanded his sister to lay aside the title of
f>rincess of England and the study of the English
anguage, and commenced preparations for a war;
clearly foreseeing that a declaration of hostilities
would speedily ensue. The jewels, also, presented
by the prince were returned.
Bristol, who had given unpardonable offence to
the duke, and consequently to the prince, by his
zealous efforts to prevent misunderstandings be
tween the two courts, and, if possible, to carry
through the treaty, speedily received letters of re
vocation. On his notifying the circumstance to
Olivares, in presence of sir Walter Aston the Bri
tish resident, and desiring an audience of leave,
the Spanish minister delivered to him in pompous
language a long message from his sovereign, pur-
Eorting, that the king had been informed what
ard measure the earl was likely to receive at his
return, for no other crime than his earnestness in
labouring to effect that marriage ; which his majes
ty could not but take much to heart ; that he held
himself bound to publish to the world the good
service done by his lordship to his own prince, and
to mark his sense of it ; and that count Olivares
was empowered to offer his lordship a carte
blanche in which he might set down his own terms :
No estates, no honours, no dignities in the king of
Spain's disposal should be denied him.
The British ambassador, with becoming spirit,
replied; That he was sorry to hear such language
offered to him ; — that what he had done was by
command of his master and without any intention

'312
to serve Spain, and that his catholic majesty owed
him nothing : That whatever reason he might have
to fear the power of his enemies, he trusted in his
own innocence and his master's justice ; but were
he sure to, lose his head on his arrival, he would
go to throw himself at his master's, feet; — he
would rather die on a scaffold at home than be
duke of Infantado in Spain. — And as soon as the
necessary arrangements could be completed, he
began his journey.* Before his departure a sum
of money was also offered him on the part of the
king of Spain, which he was urged to accept on
the plea that nobody would know of it. "Yes,"
he nobly replied, " one person would know of it,
who would be certain to reveal it to the king of
England, and that is the earl of Bristol."t
In themidst of all these affronts to the court of
Spain, James himself, who, it is highly probable,
was never fully apprised of all the circumstances
of the case, still clung to his hopes of a favourable
termination ; but to every one else it Was manifest
that Buckingham had irrevocably decided that the
prince should receive no bride from Spain :• Charles
adopted all his measures, and most of the privy-
council and ministers of state from various motives
followed the same course. A few, however, still
ventured to withstand the impetuosity of the fa
vourite, and openly to compassionate the sorrows
of his too indulgent master, Who mourned at once
the ruin of his darling project for his son, — the
destruction of his plan for bringing relief to the
afflictions of his daughter, — and the near prospect
of exchanging that peace which he loved above
/all earthly blessings, for the difficulties and dis-
* Cabala, p. 41. t Annals of James I. and Charkt I.

313
tresses of a war undertaken without justice, with
out necessity, without any reasonable object, and
without funds for its support. Such was the soft
ness and pusillanimity of this monarch's temper,
that instead of inflicting upon Buckingham any
outward mark of his displeasure, he continued to
wards him all his former demonstrations of confi
dence and affection, and suffered him to rule his
court and his councils with a more imperious sway
than ever. Yet the ingratitude of this creature
of his love and bounty stung him deeply ; he would
often, in his absence, vent his feelings in bitter
speeches against him, and his deep dejection was
visible to every eye. " He continued at Newmar
ket, as in an infirmary, for he forgot his recreations
of hunting and hawking ; yet could not be drawn
to keep the feasts of All-Saints and the fifth of
November at Whitehall, being wont to show his
Eresence at those solemnities. Against Christmas
e drew towards the city, and no sooner."*
The king's first care, on coming to London, was
to assemble a select council to deliberate on these
two momentous questions : Whether the king of
Spain had not been to the last, sincere with respect
to the marriage ? and whether in the treaty for the
restitution of the Palatinate he had so far violated
the league between the two kingdoms as to deserve
that open war should be declared against him?
On the first question the council was unanimous,
That though some craft appeared in the dealings
of the Spaniards, especially where religion was
concerned, and that their tediousness in the whole
business was scarcely to be endured, yet there
could be no doubt of their really intending the
* Life of Williams, pp. 165. 167.
vol. ii. 40

314
nuptials ; but as the prince was pleased to assert
that he had stipulated to be free from all his oaths
and engagements in case the Palatinate were not
delivered up to his brother-in-law, the council
would not meddle further in the matter, holding
him the best judge of his own honour.
The second question was contested with great
Vehemence : Buckingham was furiously bent on
war ; and when he found that he was not seconded,
but that the sense of the council was, that the pro
positions of the king of Spain were worthy of ap
probation and no ground for hostilities, his impa
tient and arrogant spirit broke through all re
straints, and rising up he "chafed against them
from room to room."* , The personages against
whom these marks of rage were exhibited must
be enumerated to give some idea of its indecorum
and insolence. They were, the lord-keeper, the
lord high^treasurer, the hereditary earl-marshal,
lord Carew many years president of Munster and
the greatest intimate of the earl of Salisbury; sir
Arthur Chichester lord Belfast, who had borne
the office of lord-deputy of Ireland with honour
and success during half the reign of king James ;
and his majesty's two nearest kinsmen and chosen
friends, the duke of Lenox and Richmond, who
was also lord-steward of the household, and the
marquis of Hamilton, who bore the same office in
Scotland. Nor did the violence of Buckingham's
temper admit of the ordinary excuse for the pas
sionate, that he was soon appeased; — on the con
trary, he was generally observed to fulfil with
great exactness in cool blood all the menaces which
he had uttered in his anger. The object of his
* Life of Williams, p. 169.

315
keenest resentment on this occasion was the lord-
keeper, whom he regarded as a rebellious depen
dant; and against whom he was the more provok
ed, because the king, in recompense of his attach
ment to himself, gave him about this time a writ
ten promise of the next presentation to the arch
bishopric of York. Ecclesiastical benefices could
not be forfeited ; but the custody of the seals, the
duke told himself, should not long remain with a
man who, amid his general subserviency, had dared
to act in one instance upon his own judgment and
the known wishes of his sovereign. The lord-
treasurer, for similar reasons, was doomed to fall
by the hand which had raised him ; nor was the
accomplishment of his destiny long deferred. To
lord Belfast, the next time he saw him, the duke
disdainfully applied the question, " Are you turned
too?" and flung from him; but his lordship appears
to have made his peace soon after, by communicat
ing to Buckingham the steps secretly taken by
the Spanish ambassadors to obtain a private au
dience of the king for the purpose of counteract
ing his designs.
Finding himself thus environed with dangers
open and secret, and unable as yet to overpower
the opposition in the council, which was likely also
to receive a further and most formidable accession
when the earl of Bristol should return to make
his own defence and that of the king of Spaing
before a master already prepossessed in his favour
and impatient for his appearance,-^-Buckingham
judged that his best resource was an appeal to
parliament ; and he became an earnest suitor with
the king for the speedy convocation of this assem
bly. Few arguments were necessary to this ef
fect ; the inordinate expenses attendant on the

316
prince's journey to Spain, which had not been
compensated, according to James's expectation, by
the marriage portion of the infanta, for which he
had been promised no less a sum than 800,000/.,
had left the monarch indeed a bankrupt; and no
resource was left but that of throwing himself on
the liberality, or compassion, of his people.
In the mean time Buckingham, abandoning the
arbitrary courses and high prerogative maxims in
which he had been initiated under the tuition of
his royal master, began to practise the new part
of a patriot : he paid court to lord Say, the earl
of Southampton and other popular peers ; sought
the good opinion of the leaders of the country
party in the hpuse of commons,' and flattered the
puritan divines ; and since he had failed of secur
ing the gratitude of the king by making the marr
riage, he now determined to seize the applauses of
the people for breaking it.
The parliament was summoned for February
12th, 1624; but the sudden death of the duke of
Lenox and Richmond, which was announced to
the king when he was actually robed and expect
ing his attendance to the house of lords, caused the
opening of the session to be deferred for a week.
This peer was second cousin to James, and son of
the earliest and best of his favourites, Esme Stuart
lord • d'Aubigny. Immediately after his father's
death the king had sent for him over from France,
his native country, caused him to be carefully and
liberally educated, put him in possession of the
estates and offices of his ancestors, and finally ad
vanced him to the dignities of high-chamberlain
and admiral of Scotland. On attending the king
to England, Lenox became "first gentleman of the
bed-chamber, steward of the household and knight

317
of the garter, and was created earl of Newcastle :
his latest honour, an English dukedom, was confer
red upon him by James to diminish the envy to
which Buckingham stood exposed as the sole peer
of that exalted rank in England. ' The situation of
the duke of Richmond gave him constant access to
his master without the envy of a favourite ; and his
mild and unassuming character conciliated general
regard ; he preserved the affection of his royal kins
man without interruption to his latest breath ; and
at this critical juncture, when the afflicted monarch
seemed to stretch out his arms to his old contempo
rary friends and servants for protection against the
youthful arrogance of a minion who ruled and des
pised him, the loss of a dear kinsman fell on his
heart with overpowering weight, and appeared to
him a presage of his own dissolution.
The tone of the king in addressing the parlia
ment was surprisingly lowered : instead of prohi
biting the house of commons from interfering with
his son's marriage, as a matter above their reach,
he now invited them to deliver their opinions on a
subject of such importance to the country: he for
bore to speak of the negotiation with Spain as
finally broken off, but referred to the prince, and
especially to Buckingham, on whose conduct he
bestowed the most unmerited commendations, for
a particular narrative of the transactions in Spain.
Of the state of religion, and the situation of his
daughter and her children, he also spoke as mat
ters fit for the deliberation of parliament ; and
after an earnest and solemn protestation that never
king had governed "with a purer, sincerer, and
more incorrupt heart" than himself, he thus pro
ceeded : — " It hath been talked of my remissness
in maintenance of religion, and suspicion of a tolera-

318
tion : but, as God shall judge me, I never thought
nor meant, nor ever in word expressed, any thing
that savored of it. It is true, that at times, for
reasons best known to myself, I did not so fully
put those laws in execution, but did wink and con
nive at some things which might have hindered
more weighty affairs ; but I never, in all my trea
ties, ever agreed to any thing to the overthrow
and disagreeing of those laws; but had in all
things a chief preservation of that truth which I
have ever professed." How far this large and ex
plicit disclaimer can be made consistent at once
with truth and with the private articles of the
marriage treaty sworn to by the king, and his pro
jects of dispensing with all the penal laws against
catholics, the reader will decide.
For a full account of the negotiations in Spain,
the king referred the parliament to Buckingham ;
and the members of both houses being soon after
convened at Whitehall, the duke gave them a
long narrative of these transactions, the prince
standing by, and occasionally assisting him with
some particulars, as well as attesting the truth of
the whole. It may be affirmed without scruple,
that this relation was partial in all respects and
absolutely false in several ; and the most earnest
advocates for the character of Charles have found
no other means of clearing him from the imputa
tion of concurring in a scandalous deception, than
supposing him incapable, at the age of three-and-
twenty, of distinguishing the truth of things of
which he was an eye and ear witness, when dis
guised by the angry and artful misrepresentations of
his attendant and guide * The duke affirmed in
* See the concessions and apologies of Hume.

319
effect that nothing was done in the treaty till he
and the prince arrived at Madrid ; that the Span
iards were insincere in the matter from first to
last ; that the prince endured much ill-treatment
from them, and returned at last hopeless of obtain
ing either the hand of the infanta or the restitution
of the Palatinate. Had the earl of Bristol been
E resent to defend his own contrary statements to
is sovereign, or had any authentic documents of
the treaty been produced, the falsehood of these
assertions, already betrayed by their many and
glaring inconsistencies, would have become mani
fest to every eye ; — but the passions of the hear
ers combined with the authority and assurance of
the speaker to render the deception triumphant.
The Spanish ambassador, justly indignant at
these authorised calumnies upon the integrity and
good faith of his master, solemnly appealed against
them and demanded the head of Buckingham by
way of satisfaction : the house of lords however,
without so much as offering the ambassador a hear
ing, justified the duke's relation ; and proposed to
signify their approbation of it to his majesty by a
committee of the whole house, in order that the
duke might be encouraged to proceed in what they
called his faithful services to the state. Similar
feelings prompted the house of commons also to
present an address to the king, declaring that noth
ing had been spoken by the duke derogatory to
the honour of the king of Spain ; and expressing
their thanks to him for the fidelity and industry
evinced in his narration. A slight sentiment of
jealousy appears in the king's reply. He tells the
house, that the nobleman in question was in no
want cf any sponsor for his fidelity, or right con
duct of the business. That in fact to send a man

320
on so great an errand whom he was not resolved
to trust with the carriage of it, would have been a
fault in his discretion scarcely compatible with the
love and trust which he bore him. He adds ; " The
greatest fault (if it be a fault) or at least-wise
the greatest error, I hope he shall ever commit
against me, was his desiring this justification from
you ; as if he should have need of any justification
from others towards me ; and that for these rea
sons : First, because, being my disciple and scho
lar, he may be assured I will trust his own relation.
Secondly, because he made the same relation
unto me which he did afterwards unto both hous
es ; so as I was formerly acquainted both with the
matter and manner thereof." In the end how
ever, his majesty is pleased to say, that he is glad
the d ke has so well satisfied the house, and that
he thanks them heartily for taking it .in so good
part. The next step was an address from both houses
to -the king, carried without a single dissenting
Voice in either, expressing their judgment that
his majesty could not in honour proceed in his trea
ties with Spain either for the marriage or the res
titution of the Palatinate. The king answered
this communication by a speech in which his still-
subsisting reluctance to plunge into a state of war
is very discernible. He represents the embarras
sed state of his own affairs, and the many and
great charges resting upon him ; the vast expense
incurred by the prince's journey to Spain ; the cost
to which he is put, by the maintenance of his chil
dren abroad, who " eat no bread" but by his
means, the burden of a great debt to the king of
Denmark, the necessity of securing Ireland, of
strengthening the navy, and of subsidising both the

321
protestant powers of Germany and the Dutch, if
any assistance is sought in these quarters for the
recovery of the Palatinate. His majesty con
cludes by professing his perfect readiness to listen
to the advice of parliament in the matter of peace
and war, provided they will supply him with the
funds necessary for carrying on hostilities ; but
remarks, that to declare war without the means
of supporting it, would be to show his teeth and
do no more.
Upon this intimation the parliament offered the
king three subsidies and three fifteenths, not for
the relief of his private wants, of which they
thought proper to take no notice, but specifically
for the purpose of making war against the Span
iards. The archbishop of Canterbury was nomi
nated by a committee of both houses to announce
to his majesty this conditional grant ; and the se
vere reflections against the conduct of Spain in
which his zeal led him on this occasion to indulge,
extorted the following remarkable protest from
the king; who now found reason to repent the
sanction which he had weakly and culpably lent to
the pernicious impostures of Buckingham. " I
have nothing to say to the preamble of my lord of
Canterbury, but that he insinuated something in it
which I cannot allow of; for whereas be said, I
have showed myself sensible of the insincerity of
those with whom I lately had to deal, and of the
indignity offered to my children; in this you must
give me leave to tell you, that I have not express
ed myself to be either sensible or insensible of the
good or bad dealing; it was Buckingham's relation
to you which touched upon it ; but it must not bar
me, nor make Jupiter speak that which Jupiter
speaks not : for when I speak any such thing, 1
vol. n. 41

322
will speak it with that reason, and back it with
that power, which becomes a king." Still strug
gling to avert the evil which his own feebleness of
conduct had now rendered inevitable, the king
proceeded to state, that much larger supplies of
money than those already voted would be requir
ed to meet the exigencies of a state of warfare;
and to name five subsidies and ten fifteenths for
the war, and one subsidy and two fifteenths yearly
for his own expenses, as the terms on which alone
he should be willing to indulge the wishes of his
people. He also hinted something respecting un
satisfied scruples of honour and conscience ;• — but
the words were hastily, and, as it seems, not very
respectfully, taken up by the prince and the duke,
who averred that the king had to them declared
himself satisfied in these respects.
Hunted thus through all the turns and doubles
of his boasted king-craft, which ill supplied the
place of manly courage and consistent wisdom, the
unhappy monarch was compelled at last to yield;
and seeing, feeling and deploring the rashness and
the guilt in which he was making himself a deep
partaker, consented to accept the insufficient sup
plies offered him, and to declare war. The head
long multitude testified their senseless and unfeel
ing joy by bonfires and bell-ringing ; the duke was
rewarded for his falseness to his trust and his in
gratitude to his sovereign and benefactor, by be
coming the idol of a deluded and fanatical people ;
and a dupe much less excusable,— sir Edward
Coke, — called him in the house of commons, the
Saviour of the nation.*
* For the passages of the king's speeches and parliamentary proceedings
cited above see Rushworth's Collections under the year 1624.

323
The tone which this new tribune of the people
now ventured to assume towards his master, will
best be learned from the following letters :
" Dear dad and gossip,
" Notwithstanding this unfavourable interpreta
tion I find made of a thankful and loyal heart, in
calling my words crude Catonic words, in obedience
to your commands I will tell the house of parlia
ment, that you having been upon the fields this af
ternoon, have taken such a fierce rheum and
cough, as not knowing how you will be this night,
you are not yet able to appoint them a day of
hearing; but I will forbear to tell them, that not
withstanding of your cold, you were able to speak
with the king of Spain's instruments, though not
with your own subjects. All I can say is, you
march slowly towards your own safety, [and] those
that depend of you. I pray God at last you may
attain to it, otherwise I shall take little pleasure in
wife or child, though now I am suspected to look
more to the rising sun than my maker.
"Sir, hitherto 1 have tied myself. to a punctual
answer of yours ; if I should give myself leave to
speak my own thoughts, they are so many, that
though the quality of them should not grieve you,
coming from one you wilfully and unjustly deject,
yet the number of them are so many, that I should
not give over till I had troubled you ; therefore I
will tie myself to that which shall be my last and
speedy refuge, to pray the almighty to increase
your joys, and qualify the sorrows of your ma
jesty."*
* Miscellaneous State Papers, vol. i. p. 468,

324
Some time afterwards we find him writing in a
more peremptory style, as follows :
" Having more business than was fit to trouble
you with in a letter, I was once resolved to have
waited on you myself, but presently came to me
the news of the Spanish ambassador's going to
you, which hath diverted this resolution at this
time, because I will not increase that in you of
which I have already found too much ; and that I
will not let the ambassador himself think that you
are distrusted, though this gives enough and too
much to your people. I have to ease your labour
writ some things to my lord of Arran, by whom I
likewise expect my answer. Only I will trouble
yourself with this, that I beseech you to send me
your plain and resolute answer, whether, if your
people sq resolve to give you a royal assistance, as
to the number of six subsidies and fifteenths, with
a promise after, in case of necessity, to assist you
with their lives and fortunes; whether you will
not accept it, and their counsel, to break the match
with the other, treaties ; and whether or no, to
bring them to this, I may not assure some of them
underhand (because it is feared that when your
turns are served, you will not call them together
again to reform abuses," grievances, and [for] the
making of laws for the good government of the
country) that you will be so far from that, that
you will rather weary them with it, desiring no
thing more than their loves and happiness, in
which your own is included. Sir, 1 beseech you
to think seriously of this, and resolve once con
stantly to run one way. For so long as you waver
between the Spaniards and your subjects, to make
your advantage of both, you are sure to do it wjth
neither.

325
" I should for my own contentment (though I am
sure I do you some service here, and would be
able, if you would deal heartily and openly with
me, to do more,) wait upon you oftener, but that
you going two ways, and myself only one, it occa
sions so many disputes, that till you be once re
solved, I think it is of more comfort and ease to
you, and safer for me, that I now abide away. For
to be of your opinion Would be flattery, and not
to speak humbly mine own would be treachery ;
therefore I will at this time, with all the industry
of my mind, serve you here, and pray for the good
success of that, and the lengthening of your days,
with all the affection of his soul that wfll live and
die a lover of you.
" Your majesty's most humble slave and dbg,
" Steenie."*
To this letter were appended some hints for a
popular speech of the king to parliament, of which
the most remarkable is, a promise that his majes
ty, to show his sincere dealing, would be content
that the parliament should choose a committee to
superintend the issuing out of the monies granted
for the conduct of the war. James found himself
compelled to adopt this suggestion, however un
precedented and however humiliating ; and we
find the proposal made in his next speech to the
parliament, qualified however by the statement,
that he must have a secret council of war, to whom
alone the knowledge of the destination of parti
cular sums could with safety be intrusted.
In the same speech the following odd expression
also occurs  -" Though I have broken the
* Miscellaneous State Papers, vol. i. p. 466.

326
necks of three parliaments one after another, I hope
that in this parliament you shall be resolved of the
sincerity of my heart, and of your duties and af
fections, that this shall be a happy parliament, and
make me greater and happier than any king of
England ever was." His concluding sentence is
marked with strong feeling and ends with a hint
which the conscience of Buckingham might apply.
Referring to the Palatinate, he says, " Assure
yourselves my delay hitherto was upon hope to
have gotten it without a war. . I held it by a hair,
hoping to have gotten it by a treaty; but since I
see no certainty that way, I hope that God who
hath put it into your hearts thus to advise me, and
into my heart to follow your advice, will so bless
it that I shall clear my reputation from obloquy ;
and in despite of the devil and all his instruments,
show that I never had but an honest heart. And
I desire that God would bless our labours for the
happy restitution of my children ; and ichosoever
did the wrong, I deserved better at his hands."*
The next offensive act of Buckingham towards
Spain and towards his master, was his zealous
promotion of a " stinging petition," as James call
ed it, of the two houses against popery ; by which
the king was prayed to put all the penal laws in
strict execution ; to banish all priests and Jesuits,
to prevent the education of the children of recu
sants in their own faith ; to enforce all the severe
restrictions under which such persons were laid ;
to connive no longer at their resort to the chapels
of ambassadors, and never in future to grant them
any indulgence at the intercession of any foreign
prince, or in consequence of any marriage treaty,
*Rushworth, vol. i. p. 140.

327
James found it expedient to give a complying an
swer to these unwelcome requisitions; he remark
ed however that the laws had already done all
that was desired ; complained a little of the suspi
cions and slanders to which his dislike of religious
persecution had exposed him, and solemnly re
peated his false protestation that he had never
designed to dispense with the penal laws.
The Spanish ambassadors had long been watch
ing for an opportunity to retaliate all these ill-
offices upon Buckingham, through the instrument
ality of the king, whose heart they were well
assured was still fixed upon the friendship and
alliance of their master. They frequently desired
private audience of his majesty for this purpose,
but were as often disappointed by the vigilance
of the prince and the duke, who never quitted
the room for a moment during these conferences.
At length the marquis Inoioso, while his colleague
don Carlo de Colonna held the prince arid Buck
ingham in earnest discourse, found means to slip
into the king's hand a paper which he made signs
to him to read alone.
It was the purpose of this alarming communi
cation to announce to James, that he was unac
quainted with what passed in parliament and in
the court ; — that the prince and Buckingham sur
rounded him with their own instruments, and shut
him up from all faithful servants who would in
form him truly ; and that he was as much a
prisoner in his own court as ever king John of
France was in England, or king Francis at Mad
rid : That there was a violent machination in
hand which had turned the prince into a course
quite contrary to his majesty's wishes and inten
tions : That a scheme had been laid at Madrid

328
the last summer, and ripened since, for restraining
his majesty from the administration of his three
kingdoms, and that the prince and duke had ap
pointed such commissioners under themselves as
should " intend great affairs and the public good."
That this was to be effected by beginning a war,
keeping troops on foot in the country, and bring
ing his majesty into straits for want of money to
pay them. That his majesty's honour, nay, his
crown and safety, depended on a speedy dissolu
tion of parliament. The duke was also charged
with many crimes and misdemeanours ; — as, bring
ing his master into contempt for addiction to an
inglorious peace and insensibility to the wrongs
of his daughter and her children, — betraying his
majesty's secrets, and especially divulging some
close designs of his in concert with the king of
Spain respecting the Hollanders ; — most corrupt
dealings with the ambassadors of different prin
ces ; — much misconduct in Spain and violent op
position to the match ; — and a courtship of the
turbulent faction in parliament, by which they
were excited to their present headlong courses.
Some still graver articles of accusation, probably
relating to counsels given to the prince, the biog
rapher of Williams, who found notes of them
among his patron's papers, tells us that he has
suppressed.* A postscript to this formidable denunciation re
quested the king to admit the secretary of the
ambassador to give him further explanations, at
some time when the prince and the duke should
be engaged at the house of lords. James's anx
iety led him to comply with this proposal ; and
* Life of Williams, pp. 195, 196.

329
the secretary, and afterwards a Jesuit, were se
cretly brought to his presence by his old servant
the earl of Kelly. The terror and perplexity of
the king after these conferences was extreme ;
and, incapable of any manly and decided part, he
resorted to the dangerous half-measure of" throw
ing out mysterious and broken speeches to his son
and Buckingham, which, by putting them upon
making inquiries, led them to the discovery of his
private interviews with the Spanish agents.
In the midst of his agitation on this occasion,
James had determined to remove from London to
Windsor; the prince had followed him into his
carriage, and Buckingham was just stepping in
also, when the king, on some slight pretence, or
dered him to stay behind. The duke, with ready
tears, besought his master to tell him how he
had offended : he could obtain however no ex
planation ; but the king wept much, and complain
ed that he was the unhappiest man alive to be for
saken of them who were dearest to him; at which
the prince and Buckingham thought proper to
weep also, but, in the end, the royal carriage drove
off without the duke.
The lord-keeper, who had his scouts every
where, was instantly informed of the disgrace of
the favourite ; and no sooner had he heard it than,
fortunately for the duke, he resolved to gain to
himself the credit of restoring him. He arose,
hastened to him at Wallingford house, was admit
ted with some difficulty, and found him stretched
on his couch in an attitude of despair. After a
deep protestation that he came to do him service,
the lordkeeper urged the duke to lose no time in
following the king, "to deport himself with all
amiable addresses, and not to stir from his person
vol. ii. 42

330
night nor day." The danger, he told him, was,
that some persons should get access to his majesty
who would push him to break utterly with the
parliament ; their next attempt would be, to send
the duke to the Tower, after which no one could
foresee the event. He enjoined him secrecy and
dispatch in the prevention of the threatened dan
ger. The duke took the counsel^ hurried to
Windsor, and waited on the king like his shadow.
Early the next morning the prince was waiting for
the lord-keeper at the house of lords, and taking
him aside, thanked him heartily for his faithful
warning to the duke, adding, that he would oblige
them further, by opening, the whole of that black
contrivance which had lost Buckingham, and almost
himself, his father's favour. Williams answered
that he only knew in general, that four days since
something pernicious had been infused into his ma
jesty by some one belonging to the household of
the Spanish ambassador. The prince wondered
that one who had such intimate acquaintance and
good intelligence in that household could not in
form him of the particulars. Williams answered,
that his highness and the duke "had made it a
crime to send to that house, that they were afraid to
do it who were commanded by his majesty," and that
for a month past he had forbidden the servants
of the embassy to come to him. The prince pro
mised to make that passage open to him again with
out offence ; but in the mean time desired to know
the source of his present intelligence., Thus
urged, the right-reverend politician, premising that
another would perhaps blush to tell with " what
heifer" he ploughed, acknowledged that he had
discovered the beauty most admired by his good
friend Carondelet the ambassador's secretary ;

331
and that all this information came out of her
chamber; adding; "TrUly, sir, this is my dark
lanthorn ; and I am not ashamed to inquire of a
Dalilah to resolve a riddle ; for in my studies of
divinity I have gleaned up this maxim, licet uti
alieno peccato" — It is lawful to avail ourselves of
the sins of another. In the meantime, the prelate
well knew that Carondelet himself was not im
penetrable, and that if he could entice him to his
house without putting him upon his guard, he
might sift out what yet remained of the secret on
which the prince laid so much stress. According
ly, after a little pondering, he sent for his pur
suivant, and gave him orders to arrest a certain
catholic priest whom he described. This priest
was the dearest frien€ of the Spanish secretary ;
and, as the lord-keeper expected, the news of his
apprehension soon produced a most earnest request
from this functionary to be admitted to his lord
ship that day, though he should never see his face
again. After a discreet show of reluctance, the
favour was granted. The secretary begged the
discharge of his friend, obtained it, after much im
portunity, and in return betrayed to the artful
questions of the lord-keeper the whole story of the
plot against Buckingham, and the particulars of
what had been communicated to the king.
Williams spent the rest of the night in commit
ting to paper these charges against the duke, con
fronted by the best answers he was able to
devise ; and such was his readiness, that by seven
in the morning " he had trimmed up a fair copy,
which he presented to the prince in St. James's,
and told him he had the viper and her brood in a
box." Thus prepared, the prince and Buckingham
desired a private audience of the king, and gave

332
the paper into his hand : " he read all deliberate
ly, and at many stops said, 'twas well, very well, and
an enlivening spirit danced in his eye. Then he
drew his son and Buckingham near to him, and
embraced them, protesting that it sorrowed him
much that he had aggrieved them with a jealousy
fomented by no better than traitors; assured
them the exhalations were dispersed, and their
innocency shined as bright as at noon-day."*
The results of this complicated intrigue were
important : the Spanish ambassador, after receiv
ing a severe reprimand from the privy-council,
quitted the kingdom in haste and anger; the king
dropped all further negotiation, open or secret,
with the agents of Spain, clearly perceiving that
the breach had become irreparable ; and the duke,
having triumphed over the suspicions and disgusts
of the easy king, and firmly established his in
fluence over the prince and his credit with the
parliament, carried every thing before him and
revenged himself on all his enemies. The lord-
keeper alone, by this timely piece of service, ob
tained some suspension at least of the sentence
which the duke had secretly passed upon him.
It was at this time that the prince and Bucking
ham undertook the ruin of the lord-treasurer,
whom they procured to be impeached by the
house of commons for corruption in his office : the
king was very averse to this step; and his reasons
against it, as preserved by lord Clarendon, were
replete with a prophetic sagacity worthy of a
Cecil or a Bacon: — "When this prosecution was
entered upon," says the noble historian, " and that
the king clearly discerned it was contrived by the
* Life of Williams, P- 195 e? se<j,

333
duke, and that he had likewise prevailed with the
prince to be well-pleased with it ; his majesty sent
for them, and with much warmth and passion dis
suaded them from appearing further in it ; and
conjured them ' to use all their interest and au
thority to restrain it, as such a wound to the crown
that would not easily be healed.' And when he
found the duke unmoved by all the considerations
and arguments and commands he had offered, he
said in greater choler, ' By God, Stenny, you are
a fool, and will shortly repent this folly, and will
find that, in a fit of popularity, you are making a
rod with which you will be scourged yourself:'
and turning in some anger to the prince, told him,
'That he would live to have his bellyful of parlia
ment impeachments; and, when I shall be dead,
you will have too much cause to remember how
much you have contributed to the weakening of
the crown, by the two precedents you are now so
fond of ;' intending as well the engaging the par
liament in the war, as the prosecution of the earl of
Middlesex."* Finding all his warnings thrown away upon his
son and that son's favourite,- — he* was no longer his
own, — the king condescended to intercede with
several of the peirs in behalf of the unfortunate
lord-treasurer ; but with small success ; the prince
made it a personal favour to himself to vote against
him ; the treasurer was little loved, and his master
less feared. The acts of bribery charged upon
him were few and slight, and even these were ap
parently not very clearly proved; yet lord Hollis
alone had the courage and the equity to speak in
his behalf. Besides the loss of his place, he was
* History of the rebellion, vol. i. p. 20,

334
sentenced to pay a fine of 50,000/., declared inca
pable of sitting in the house of lords, and commit-
to the Tower during the pleasure of the king,
who liberated him immediately, — the only act of
lenity which he was alio wed to perform.
The earl of Bristol's turn came next. The duke
dreaded nothing so much as that this upright and
injured nobleman, with whose courage and ability
he was well acquainted, should obtain an audience
of the king, who, on his part, longed exceedingly
for his return, and seemed to expect that his pre
sence would impart to him the courage to shake
off the ignominious yoke of an encroaching minion.
Several successive intimations where conveyed by
the duke to Bristol of the dangers which awaited
his return, and he was distinctly told, that if he
did not remain in Spain and embrace the offers
there made him, it should be worse for him. But
the spirit of the earl was above intimidation; he
pursued his journey through France, and when
arrived at Boulogne he sent . to desire that a
king's ship might be ordered out for his convey
ance : this customary honour was promised ; but
finding no prospect of performance, the earl, after
waiting a week, threw himself into an open boat
and was thus landed at Dover. Aackingham exert
ed all his influence to cause him to be immedi
ately committed to the Tower; but on this point
the king was inflexible ; he consented however to
send an order to Bristol not to appear at court, or
quit his own house, till he should have answered
certain interrogatories which would be ministered
to him by some members of the privy-council.
Buckingham and his friends, pretended that no
mischief was meant to the earl by these proceed
ings, and that he was only restrained to prevent

335
a more violent attack upon him by the parliament:
but an effectual contradiction was given to these
assertions by the conduct of Bristol, who, after
returning an answer to the interrogatories, and
addressing a letter of justification to the king, so
clear and forcible that no impartial person can
peruse them without receiving a strong impression
of the goodness of his cause, continued openly and
vehemently to charge the duke with falsehood and
imposture in his narrative to the two houses, and
to demand a public trial of their differences. Such
justice, however, he could not at this time obtain ;
and Buckingham insisted much with the king that
he should be brought to submission and required
to acknowledge himself in fault : James, to his
honour, steadily refused, saying, " I were to be ac
counted a tyrant to engage an innbcent man to con
fess faults of which he was not guilty."* The
matter was thus spun out till the prorogation of
parliament, after which the earl was permitted to
come to London on his private affairs ; but the
interdict of Buckingham was still of force to ex
clude him from the presence of his master.
Some public benefit accrued from the popular
counsels which James had been constrained equal
ly against his principles and his inclination to adopt.
The parliament was suffered to carry a declara
tory act against monopolies, and against dispensa
tions from the penal statutes ; — a strong bulwark
against a most odious species of oppression and
exaction, — and an act was passed for the relief of
persons exposed to vexatious prosecutions for
neglects in complying with the forms of wardship.
Many more grievances remained to be discussed1;
* Coke's Detection, pp. 139, 140.

336
but the house had no sooner commenced some
inquiries into these matters than the king, rallying
his spirits, gave them to undertand that though
they were to apply redress to some known griev
ances, they were not to go on seeking after more ;
and seeing no probability of their voting any fur
ther supplies for the relief of his private necessi
ties, he prorogued them, on May 29, to the month
of October; when the parliament was dissolved. ^

CHAPTER XXV,
1624, 1625.
General rejoicing on the change of measures.— Disappointment. — Marri*
age treaty with France. — Feeble preparations for war. — Troops sent
to serve with the Dutch. — Expedition fitted out under Mansfeldt.— Its
complete failure. — Sickness and death of king James. — His works and
Character. — Anecdotes of him. — His funeral sermon by Williams.— ¦
Translation of the bible under his auspices. — Conclusion.
The signal change of measures which had en
sued upon the return of the prince and Bucking
ham had been received with applause as general
as sincere and cordial ; and it was less the voice of
a party than of the English people which had
. hailed the breach of the Spanish treaty as a great
national deliverance, triumphed in the declaration
of war as an important assertion of the protestant
cause, and elevated the arrogant and unprincipled
favourite by whose ungovernable will these acts
had been forced upon his reluctant sovereign, into
a patriot, a hero, a saviour of his country. A
short lapse of time was sufficient to evince the
folly of such premature exultation and ill-placed
enthusiasm. The dissolution of parliament, which had put a
stop to any further investigation of domestic griev
ances, was also the signal for a relapse, on the part
of the government, into all that was most offensive
and unpopular in the spirit of its former policy.
Buckingham hastened to throw off the mask of
patriotism and protestant zeal which it had suited
him for a time to assume ; and it soon appeared,
that one catholic match had only been abandoned
vol. u. 43

338
in favour of another, negotiated on terms equally
dangerous in a religious point of view, and recom
mended by fewer temporal advantages ; and that
an inglorious peace was only exchanged for a war,
with all its inseparable evils, which the want of
energy and of practical wisdom inherent in the
character of the monarch and his government,
must render not merely inglorious, but disgraceful
and calamitous.
No sooner had the prince returned from his un
successful journey to Spain than his views were
directed towards the princess Henrietta Maria of
France, daughter of Henry IV. and sister of the
reigning monarch Louis XIII., as the only bride
worthy of him; and before the Spanish treaty
was actually broken off, Henry Rich lord Kensing
ton, brother to the earl of Warwick, was sent to
Paris to sound the dispositions of the French court.
That situation of the negotiation with Spain which
prevented his being furnished with credentials to
Louis did not at all diminish the cordiality of his
reception; and such was the encouragement which
his overtures received from the king, and especi
ally from the queen-mother, that he was soon en
abled to assure his patron the duke of Buckingham
of the certainty of the prince's success whenever
he should find himself at liberty to make his pro
posals in form. He added, that none of those re
quisitions would be made by the court of France
in behalf of the catholics in England, which had
thrown so many difficulties in the way of the
Spanish alliance.
In consequence of so favourable a report, lord
Kensington, created earl of Holland on the 'occa
sion, was joined in commission with the earl of
Carlisle to negotiate the marriage, and it was hoped

339
that a very short time would suffice to bring the
matter to effect; but it soon appeared, that even
French promptitude and French address, seconded
by the most hearty good will in the cause, were
unable to overcome, without considerable delay
and difficulty, the obstacles which the difference of
religion opposed to the connection. James had
just been compelled by the remonstrances pf his
parliament to put in strict execution the penal laws,
and to enforce all the restrictions upon recusants;
and the catholics no sooner felt the yoke than they
carried their grievances to the king of France,
loudly complaining, that whilst the negotiation with
Spain had procured them entire impunity and al
most a toleration, the present treaty appeared ra
ther to aggravate their afflictions. These repre
sentations produced their effect, and Louis was at
length induced to send the archbishop of Ambrun
to England to intercede in their behalf. This
emissary was highly favoured by Buckingham,
and received important assistance from his mother,
from his father-in-law the duke of Rutland, and
from other leading catholics, who furnished him
with all the knowledge of persons and things es
sential to the success of his negotiation,
James according to his usual policy, received the
archbishop very graciously, talked to him in a style
calculated to lead him to the opinion that he re
garded the points of difference between the
churches as of little or.no consequence, expressed
much respect for the pope, liberated several recu
sants who had been imprisoned since the petition
of the house of commons, and even gave his per
mission to the archbishop to administer the rite of
confirmation, at the hotel of the French ambassa
dor, to all persons who should apply. The pre-

340
late affirms, in his own memoirs, that their number1
amounted to ten thousand.
Meantime as the negotiation proceeded, the
French ministers began to advance in their de
mands ; and refusing to accept as a basis the treaty
formerly commenced between prince Henry and
the princess Christine, insisted on taking for their
model the articles of religion conceded in behalf
of the infanta. On the other hand, the portion
promised to the French princess was no more than
100,000/., an eighth only of that promised with
the daughter of Spain. While this part of the
business was settling, the pope was applied to for
a dispensation ; and as his political views led him
to disapprove the match, he evinced a determina
tion to raise as many difficulties, to stickle for as
many advantages to his church, and to interpose as
many needless delays as possible. At the same
time, the nuncio did not fail to represent to cardi
nal Richelieu, who on a change of ministry had
succeeded to the management of the treaty, that
his own honour, no less than that of his holiness,
was concerned in abating nothing of the stipula
tions obtained by Spain ; and that the dispensation
would assuredly be granted on no other terms.
These terms were in fact conceded by the English
ministers, after some show of reluctance, with lit
tle change or diminution on any point, and with the
fatal addition, that the mother should conduct the
education of the children to the age of thirteen.
But the pope was not yet satisfied ; and he would
still have protracted the affair, perhaps for years,
had not Richelieu, who, cardinal as he was, felt
little inclination to sacrifice any political advantage
to an extreme deference to the head of the church,
cut the matter, short by an intelligible hint that a

341
dispensation would not be regarded as essential to
the completion of jhe nuptials. To this argument
the pope yielded; and the marriage articles were
signed at Paris on November 10th 1624. The
preparations for the celebration were probably
begun immediately, but they were not concluded
in time to allow king James the satisfaction of wit
nessing the nuptials of his son; — that darling ob
ject of his parental solicitude on which he had be
stowed so many costly embassies, so many years of
diplomatic diligence.
The prince and Buckingham had been impa
tient to open their treaty with France chiefly in the
hope of engaging that power in a league with Eng
land against the house of Austria, and thus securing
an important co-operation in the attempts for the
recovery of the Palatinate. But the duke of Ba
varia, who had received from the emperor a grant
of this conquered territory and of the dignity of
elector, possessed much stronger influence at the
court of France than the ruined and exiled palatine;
and when the earl of Carlisle opened this part
of his commission, it was coolly observed, that
the league would most conveniently be treated se
parately from the marriage, and after its conclu
sion. Buckingham and his creatures were guilty
of the negligence and credulity of suffering this
palpable evasion to pass in silence, trusting to ge
neral assurances of friendship and promises of as
sistance, — the fallacy of which was perceived and
deplored too late.
In the mean time, all the preparations for war
were conducted with a remissness and inefficiency
which contrasted strangely with the rash and vio
lent spirit in which hostilities had been declared.
It had been calculated that the supplies granted

342
by parliament were enough to levy and support an
army of 25,000 men ; yet it was judged a sufficient
effort to send a body of 6000 men, during the
summer of 1624, to act under the orders of the
prince of Orange in Holland. This force consist
ed of four regiments, commanded by the earls of
Oxford, Southampton and Essex, and lord Wil-
loughby, all gallant men, who sought nothing so
earnestly as an occasion of redeeming the mili
tary character of the nation. But the caution of
prince Maurice, who felt himself overmatched by
that great general Spinola, allowed them no op
portunities, excepting a few skirmishes, of exhibit
ing their valour. Breda was taken before the eyes
of Maurice, who, having failed on his part in an
attempt upon the castle of Antwerp, left the ar
my sick with chagrin, and died at the Hague soon
after. Towards winter, Count Mansfeldt, whose acti
vity and fertility of resource as a partisan had
been the sole means of keeping on foot a force in
behalf of the unhappy palatine, came to England,
and it was agreed to place 12,000 men under his
command, with whom he was to penetrate into
the Palatinate. The administration rashly took
for granted that the French, who had made some
vague professions of their good will to the cause,
would receive these forces with open arms and
join them with a considerable body of horse ; but,
pn arriving off the French coast they were en
countered by a prohibition to land till the French
court should have resolved further in the affair.
After a troublesome delay, Mansfeldt found him
self compelled to make sail for the coast of Hoh
land ; but here the same want pf previous ar
rangement produced similar difficulties: provisions

343
were said to be scarce ; it was feared that the
unexpected arrival of these troops miejht cause a
famine in some of the Dutch towns ; and the feel
ings of this cold and cruel people, whose commer
cial jealousy of the English had lately prompted
the atrocities perpetrated upon a few defenceless
strangers at Amboyna, were little moved by the
sight of their distress, cooped up on board foul
and crowded transports calculated only for the
passage from Dover to Calais. A pestilence
broke out on board these vessels, and, while the
Dutch were deliberating, swept off more than
half the men ; the remainder, sick, feeble, disspi-
rited and too few for the enterprise, were reland-
ed on their own coasts, where most of them took
the first opportunity of deserting.* Such was the
event of the only military expedition by which the
reign of James I. was distinguished !
That long and peaceful reign was now drawing
fast to its close. The health of the king had
been shaken by repeated attacks of the gout,
produced or aggravated by his habitual intempe
rance in the use of strong and sweet wines : hi3
lameness and his increasing corpulency had pre
cluded him from the use of his customary exer
cises of hunting and hawking ; and the chagrin
and disquiet to which he had been a prey from
the first proposal of the ill-fated Spanish journey,
had increased his bodily indolence and exasperated
his constitutional maladies. Under these circum
stances he was seized, early in the spring of 1625,
with a tertian ague ; and, notwithstanding the
encouraging assurances of those around him, he
soon became sensible that his end was approach
ing. Even on his death-bed the wilfulness and
* Rapin's History, under the year 1624.

344
presumption of Buckingham continued to afford
him fresh proofs how much his extravagant favour
and fondness had been misapplied. The duke,
and that rapacious and intriguing woman his mo
ther, were distinguished patrons of empirics ; who
in those days commonly professed alchemy and
fortune-telling also, and thus fastened by a treble
hold on the weakness of human nature. One of
these quacks furnished the countess with a .plaister
and a drink, which he affirmed to be sovereign
remedies for the ague ; and in the absence of the
physicians she and her son importuned the sick
monarch to make trial of them. The application
appeared rather to aggravate than soothe the
sufferings of the patient, and the physicians, on
their return, removed the plaister, and very pro
perly refused to take upon themselves any re
sponsibility if such interference were again per
mitted. Notwithstanding this -declaration, the
medical attendants had no sooner quitted the
chamber, than the duke returned to the charge ;
the remedies were again applied, although the
king, as it is said, expressed reluctance, and per
haps suspicion; and soon after he expired. This
ill-advised and unjustifiable perseverance so speed
ily followed by a fatal event, was more than suffi
cient in that age, to give rise to a suspicion of
poison ; and the next parliament, without directly
countenancing the" popular rumour, included it
among the articles of impeachment drawn up
against the duke, as an act of high presumption.
The king died with great decency and compo
sure", and notwithstanding the displeasure which
he had often entertained against Abbot on politi
cal grounds, it was by this primate that he chose
to be attended in his last hours.

345
James expired at his palace of Theobalds on
March 27, 1625, in the fifty-ninth year of his age,
after a reign in England of twenty-two years.
It is agreed by all writers, that a monarch has
seldom quitted the world less deplored by his
subjects than James I. ; his detractors ascribe this
insensibility to his demerits, his panegyrists to the
ingratitude of human nature ; more impartial esti
mators may be inclined to compromise the differ
ence, by saying that the intentions of this prince
were better than his performance ; and that the
people, who suffered- by his errors of judgment,
were little inclined to accept, in so important a
concern as the good government of the country,
the will for the deed.
The praise of wisdom so profusely lavished
upon this sovereign during his lifetime, appears,
to those who study only the public history of his
reign, peculiarly and eminently inapplicable. In
England, he never succeeded in a single favourite
object of his policy ; and both his objects them
selves, and his modes of pursuing them were so
repugnant to the feelings and judgments of his sub
jects, that he lost in the vain pursuit of them that
for which no success could have indemnified him,
— the general esteem and attachment. Yet to
speculative wisdom the monarch might advance
some plausible pretensions: It is true that in his
writings and speeches there is much bad logic,
and that he sometimes avails himself of arguments
which might with more effect be turned against
him; they are also blemished by many levities, in
discretions and even decorums of expression, and by
the quaintness and pedantry which were the. vices
of the age ; but they still exhibit marks of acute-
ness, of reflection, and of a kind of talent. No
vol. ii. 44

346
one was more skilful in starting objections and
foreseeing dangers and difficulties ; and the event
gave, in some instances, a character of prophetic
truth to his warnings which must have been the
result of genuine sagacity. In the arguments
which he loved to hold with the scholars and di
vines who attended him at his meals, he often ex
cited unaffected admiration; for his learning on
the favourite topics of the time was considerable,
his memory ready, his expression fluent ; his re
plies were often happy, and his doubts and ques
tions pertinent and well urged.
The " Apophthegms of king James," collected
and published either during his life or soon after
his death, are for the most part only of a mode
rate degree of merit ; but some of his bon-mots
are entitled to higher praise : the most favourable
specimen of them is perhaps his exhortation to
some insignificarit person on whom he was confer
ring the honour of knighthood, while his sheepish
looks proclaimed his own sense of his unworthiness
to sustain this dignity : — " Hold up thy head, man,
I have more cause to be ashamed than thou !"
In his youth, the monarch paid homage to the
muses ; he ventured to indite a love sonnet to
queen Elizabeth, — of which however she did not
dejgn even to acknowledge the receipt, — and he
published at Edinburgh a poem called the Furies
translated from Du Bartas, — a French writer of
temporary celebrity ; a heroic poem on the battle
of Lepanto, and several other pieces. The style
of the royal poet strongly resembles that of the
noted Sternhold, nor was his imagination more
brilliant than his diction.
One of the offices which James was most fond
of assuming, was that of an examiner of delin-

347
quents ; and in this capacity, where his real skill
and ingenuity were aided by the awe which royal
ty inspires, and by his contempt for the maxim of
English law which protects suspected criminals
from answering questions dangerous to themselves,
his success was sometimes remarkable. In the af
fair of Overbury, he contrived to extract from sir
Gervase Elways confessions which cost him his
life ; he drove the sleeping preacher to a full avowal
of his ridiculous imposture, and by his unwearied
exertions detected several pretended demoniacs,
and brought them to ask pardon on their knees.
These counterfeits, whose appearance was frequent
during the reign of James, were usually the pup
pets either of a catholic priest or a puritan minis
ter, who sought by this means one of two ends, —
to cast upon his opponents the imputation of hav
ing bewitched innocent persons, — or to acquire for
himself the reputation of successful exorcism ; a
gift which all parties believed to be distinctive of
professors of the true religion. That such impo
sitions were in fact connected with the designs of
religious parties, is the only circumstance capable
of palliating the ridicule attached to a king of
England gravely occupying himself, and sometimes
his privy-council, in watching the contortions, and
making minutes of the ravings, of a set of misera
ble wretches, either pure impostors or the real
subjects of epilepsy, who might with so much less
ceremony have been consigned to the remedial
methods of an hospital or a bridewell.
One advantage however accrued to the sove
reign himself from these investigations ; they dis
closed to him such examples of knavery, delusion
and imposture in these matters, that he is said to
have heartily repented the support which he had

348
lent to popular superstition by the publication of
his Demonologia, and, in his latter years, to have
nearly renounced his faith in witchcraft.
Vanity was a leading foible in the character of
James, and one source of some of the principal
mistakes of his reign. It was an overweening
opinion of his own eloquence and polemical skill
which tempted him to hold the conference at
Hampton court, where, under the notion of con
futing the refractory puritans, he insulted them by
menaces and revilings, and thus Converted this for?
midable party from mere dissatisfied sectaries, into
determined political enemies. The same principle,
exalting his idea of the surpassing majesty of the
kingly character, prompted him to indulge in those
arrogant and even blasphemous representations of
his own prerogative and dignity which filled all
true Englishmen with indignation and disgust, and
implanted in the bosoms of his parliaments jealou
sies which he found it impossible to eradicate. It
was in a great measure also his vanity which
prompted him to seek, on behalf of his heir,
those alliances with the great catholic sovereigns
which became the source of so much offence to
his people, and finally of irreparable ruin to his
posterity. On his propensity to favouritism it is needless to
expatiate ; every page in his history is an exem
plification of this weakness, and of the endless
mischiefs which it is calculated to produce. The
only excuse for his blind indulgence to the objects
of his affection, must be derived from his boundless
good-nature ; which overflowed upon all who ap-
{>roached hipi, and rendered it a moral impossibi-
ity for him to refuse any request urged with im
portunity, His profuse liberality, which sprung

349
from the same source, was the chief if not the
sole cause of his constant want of money ; for his
personal habits were simple and uniform in a re
markable degree; he cared for few objects of
magnificence, and indulged in no expensive plea
sures, unless the sports of the field deserve to be
accounted such when pursued by a monarch. Of
these sports, in which James consumed so large a
portion of his time, it was the worst effect, that
they contributed to foster that irascibility on small
provocations which so1 frequently transported him
beyond the bounds of dignity and even of common
decency, and on some occasions exposed him to the
contempt of the meanest of his people. An anec
dote to this effect, related by sir Thomas Went
worth, afterwards earl of Strafford, belongs to the
last year of James's life, and may here find a
place. " I will  write you news from the court at
Rufford, where the loss of a stag, and the hounds
hunting foxes instead of deer, put the king your
master into a marvellous chafe, accompanied with
those ordinary symptoms better known to you
courtiers, I conceive, than to us country swains ;
in the height whereof comes a clown galloping in,
and staring full in his face ; ' 'Sblood,' quoth he,
' am I come forty miles to see a fellow?' and pre
sently in a great rage turns about his horse, and
away he goes faster than he came. The address
whereof caused his majesty and all the company
to burst out into a vehement laughter : and so the
fume, for the time, was happily dispersed."*
Another story, for which we are indebted to
Wilson, is equally illustrative of the faults and ex-
* Earl of Strafford's Letters and Dispatches, vol. i. p. 23.

350
cellencies of the monarch's disposition. In the
midsts of the negotiations for the Spanish match,
the king, who was at Theobalds, was much dis
composed by missing some important papers which
he had received respecting it On recollection, he
was persuaded that he had intrusted them to his
old servant Gib, a Scotchman and gentleman of
the bedchamber. Gib, on being called, declared,
humbly but firmly, that no such papers had ever
been given to his care ; on which the king, trans
ported with rage, after much reviling, kicked him
as he kneeled before him. " Sir," exclaimed Gib,
instantly rising, " I have served you from my
youth, and you never found me unfaithful; I have
not deserved this from you, nor can I live longer
with you under this disgrace : Fare ye well, sir, I
will never see your face more :" And he instantly
took horse for London. No sooner was the cir
cumstance known in the palace, than the papers .
were brought to the king by Endymion Porter, to
whom he had given them. He asked for Gib, and
being told that he was gone, ordered them to post
after him and bring him back ; vowing that he
would neither eat, drink nor sleep till he saw him.
And when he at length beheld him entering his
chamber, he kneeled down and very earnestly
begged his pardon ; nor would he rise from this
humble posture till he had in a manner compelled
the confused and astonished Gib to pronounce the
words of absolution.*
King James was interred with great solemnity in
Westminster Abbey, and the funeral sermon was
preached by his favourite divine and politician
Williams, in a style so congenial in every respect
* History of Great Britain, p. 219. f

351
to the tastes and sentiments of the deceased mo
narch, that the audience might be tempted to re
gret that he could not enjoy the satisfaction of
hearing it. Some passages appear worthy of being
transcribed for the amusement and information, if
not the admiration, of the modern reader. ' " And
Solomon slept with his fathers and was buried in the
city of David his father, and his son Rehoboam
reigned in his stead. It is not I, but this woful
accident, that chooseth this text. . . .No book will
serve this turn but the book of kings, no king but
one of the best kings, but one that reigned over all
Israel, which must be either Saul, as yet good, or
David, or Solomon ; no king of all Israel but one
of the wisest kings, which cannot be Saul, but
either David or Solomon ; none of the wisest kings
neither unless he be a king of peace, which can
not be David, a man of war, but only Solomon ;
no king of peace neither, the more is our grief^
alive and in his throne; and therefore it must of
necessity be the funerals and obits of king Solo
mon." After this exordium follows an elaborate
commentary on the life, actions and writings of So
lomon, respecting whose choice of the gift of wis
dom, it is gravely observed, that "although kings
be anointed on the arms, the instruments of ac
tion, yet are they crowned only on "the head, the
seat of wisdom. Whether," proceeds the erudite
divine, "this wisdom' of Solomon's was universal,
and embraced all sciences, as Pineda, or a prudence
reaching to the practique only  also whether
Solomon did sUrmount, as Tostatus, or fall short of
Adam in the pitch of his wisdom, as Gregory de
Valentia thinks, are such doughty frays as I have
no leisure to part at this time."

352
A parallel is drawn between the two kings in
these terms: "Solomon is said to be the only son
of his mother ; so was king James; Solomon was
of complexion white and ruddy ; so was king
James. Solomon was an infant king; so was king
James a king at the age of thirteen months. So
lomon began his reign in the life of his predeces
sor ; so, by the force and compulsion of that state,
did our late sovereign king James. Solomon was
twice crowned and anointed a king ; so was king
Jame;. Solomon's minority was rough through
the quarrels of the former sovereign ; so was that
of king James. Solomon was learned above all
the princes of the east ; so was king James aboVe
all princes in the universal world. Solomon was
a writer in prose and verse ; so, in a very pure
and exquisite fashion, was our sweet sovereign
king James. Solomon was the greatest patron
•we ever read of to church and churchmen ; and
yet no greater, let the house of Aaron now con
fess, than king James. Solomon was honoured
with ambassadors from all the kings of earth;
and so you know was king James. Solomon
was a main improver of his home commodities,
as you may see in his trading with Hiram ;
and God knows, it was the daily study of king
James. Solomon was a great improver of ship
ping and navigation ; a most proper attribute to
king James. Solomon beautified very much his
imperial city with buildings and waterworks; so
did king James. Every man lived at peace under
his vine and his figtree in the days of king Solo
mon; and so they did in the blessed days of king
James. And yet, towards the end, king Solomon
had secret enemies  and prepared for a war
upon his going to the grave; so had and so did

353
king James. Lastly, before any hostile act we
read of in the history, king Solomon died in peace,
when he had lived about sixty years, as Lyra and
Tostatus were of opinion. And so you know did
king James."
The latter part of this extraordinary discourse,
where the bishop drops at length the absurd task
of comparing point by point " the two Solomons,"
is less unworthy of the reputation of Williams as
a statesman and a man of sense ; but nothing can
be more scandalous than the spirit in which the
following eulogy on the king's justice is conceived :
" If we look at home in his own dominions, never
were the benches so gravely furnished, never the
courts se willingly frequented, never rich and poor
so equally righted, never the balance so evenly
poized as in the reign of our late sovereign; I
could tell you that that will never be believed in
later times, of a lord (lord Sanquar) that died for
a vile varlet, of a peer condemned for a sorry gen
tleman ; nay, of a dear son (the palatine) left un
relieved for a time against a stranger for fear of
swerving the breadth of a hair from the line of
justice." The king's zeal for religion, and more particular
ly for episcopacy, receives the warmest commen
dations from the bishop, who concludes this head
of his panegyric with the following statements :
" He was as great a patron of the maintenance of
the church as ever I read of in any history. For,
beside his refusal of sede vacantes and that law he
enacted at his first entrance for the preservation
of the revenue of our churches in England, he
might well say with David for his other kingdoms,
' The zeal of thy house hath eaten me up ;' that the
endowing of bishoprics, the erecting of colleges, the
vol. u. 45

354
buying out pf impropriations, the assigning of
glebes, the repairing of old and the erecting of new
churches, hath consumed and taken up all, or the
far greater part, of his revenues in Scotland and
Ireland." The wisdom of the king is extolled in terms of
the grossest adulation ; but from the following enu
meration of the advancement of the various in
terests of the three kingdoms during his reign, the
impartial historian will find little to substract : 
" The Scotish feuds quite abolished, the schools of
the prophets new adorned, all kind of learning
highly improved, manufactures at home daily in
vented, trading abroad exceedingly multiplied, the
borders of Scotland peaceably governed, the north
of Ireland religiously planted, the East India well
traded, Persia, China and the Mogor visited, lastly,
all the ports of Europe, Asia, Africa and America
to our red crossed freed and opened. And they
are all the actions and true born children of king
James his peace."*
It is somewhat singular that, in the enumeration
of king James's merits with respect to religion,
the bishop should have omitted 'all mention of his
care for the completion of a new version of the
bible. This great work was undertaken in per
formance of a promise made by the king at the'
Hampton-court conference, and Dr. Reynolds, the
great champion of the puritans, by whom it was
there suggested, was one of the divines engaged
in its execution. The translators were in number
forty-seven ; they were divided into six companies,
to each of which a portion of the scriptures was
assigned. Rules for their proceeding were drawn
* Seiners' Tracts, vol. ii. p. 33. 3rd edit.

355
up by his majesty himself, with great attention and
apparently with much prudence. Nearly three
years were occupied in the task; and it was not
till 1611 that the book appeared in print with a
well-merited dedication to the king. This is the
authorised version of the present day; and, with
some allowances for the subsequent advancement
of the science of biblical criticism, it has constant
ly been regarded by the best judges as a very
honourable monument of the learning, skill and
diligence of the translators.
The appearance of king James's bible forms
also one of the most important events in the his
tory of the English language ; it had the immediate
effect of recommending to common use a very con
siderable number of words derived from the learn
ed languages, for which the translators had been
unable to find equivalents in the current English
of the time. At present it performs a service of
an opposite nature, and keeps in use, or at least
in remembrance, many valuable words and expres
sive idioms which would otherwise have been re
jected with disdain by the fastidiousness of modern
taste, as homely and familiar.
Some attempts have been made by the eulogists
of James I. to affix to his name the title of The
Just; but impartial posterity has refused to con
firm an addition so glorious : Justice is the virtue
of great minds, and the praise of general good in
tention is the utmost that can be conceded to a
prince so habitually swayed by fear, by prejudice
and by private affections.

INDEX.

Abbot, archbishop, 304, ii. 5. — Counsels
respecting Bohemian affairs, 120. — In*
voluntary homicide, 214
Allegiance, oath of. 265, — persons pu
nished for refusing it, 298
Andrews, Lancelot, bishop of Winches
ter, ii. 226, 7, and 8
Anne, of Denmark, queen, 18, 21, 37,
113, ii. 97
Arundel, earl of, ii. 212. See Howard.

B

Bacon, Francis, recommends himself to
James, 90. — A commissioner for the
union, 157, — his parliamentary conduct
and speech against purveyance, 159. —
Advancement of learning, 161. — Soli
citor-general, 162. — Rivalry with
Coke and arbitrary counsels, ii. 26 et
seq. — Intrigues, 55 to 63. — Prepares
for a parliament,165 et seq. — His pros
perity, 169. — His fall — remarks on his
case — His after life and death, 176 to
191
Bancroft, archbishop, 150, 300
Baronets, institution of, 322
Bedford, Lucy, countess of, 175
Bentivoglio, cardinal, his description of
England, 275
Bohemia, affair* of, ii. 122, 146
Book of sports, ii. 65
Bristol, earl of. See Digby, John lord
Brook, George, a conspirator, 121, 122,
123, 135, 140
Buchanan, George, 3, 4, 7
Buckingham, duke of. See Villiers,
George

Catholic petition, how received-by James,
84
Catholics compared with puritans, 57, —
harshly treated, 194 — laws against, 228
Cecil, sir Robert, enters into correspon
dence with James, 41, — how received
by him, 82, — entertains him at Theo
balds, 92, — made a baron, 94. — His
letter to sir J: Harringtou, 103. — Cre
ated earl of Salisbury, 192.— Chal-
leoges lord Hertford 186. — Finds out
the powder-plot, 200 —His policy to
Catholics, 228. — Is made lord-treasurer,
257. — Threatens the Spaniards, 261 
His speech on opening parliament, 288.
— Death and character, 327. — Letters
to his son, 332.
Charles, prince, 37, 180,— created prince
of Wales, ii. 40, — refused a French prin
cess in marriage, ibid. — Spanish jour
ney, 304 to 318. — Dissimulation, 217
Clifford, lady Anne, 242
Cobham, lord, negotiates with Aremberg,
122, — is apprehended and accuses Ra
leigh, 123, 124, — tried and convicted,
139. —Behaviour afterwards, 141, 143.
— Reprieve and fate, 145
Coke, sir Edward — conduct to Raleigh,
136. — Respecting powder-plot, 216. —
Defends the common law, 290. — His
disgrace, ii. 26 to 40. — intrigues res
pecting him, 54, 63. — Attempts against
him. 254
Compton, lady, ber letter to her husband,
294.
Cornwallis, sir Charles, his dispatches
from Madrid, 259, 267
Courtier, ballad of the old and new, 69
Cranfield, Lionel, ii. 214, 271, 332, & 3
Cromwell, sir Oliver, 87

Carlisle, earl of. See Hay, James
Carr, Robert, 270, 321, 359, 363, ii. 4,
6, 8. — The king's parting with him, 9.
— His trial, 15 te 19.— Liberation, 218
Cary, sir Robert, his journey to Scotland
and memoirs, 72
Catesby, Robert, 196, 198, 201, 202
46

Davies, sir John, 77
Denmark, king of, in England, 230, 233,
369
Derby, countess of, 177
Devon, earl of. See Mon^joy
Digby, sir Everard, 206. 219
Digby, John lord, ii. 237, 263, 333

358

Donne, John, 345
Dorset, earl of. See Sackvil

I

Inclosdkbs, grievance of, 86, 88.

Effingham, viscountess, 179
Egerton, sir Thomas, lord Ellesmere, 89,
ii. 48
Elizabeth, princess, 335, and 6, 354
Ellesmere, lord-chancellor. See Eger
ton
English court — its state on James's ac
cession, 52 et seq.
Essex, counter of, 360, 363, ii. 15, 18, 94
Essex, Robert earl of, ii. 158, 205, 260

Fiennes, William, lord Say and Sele, ii.
209

G

Gahnet, father. 195, 1S6, 198, 205, 220
Gotidomar, count, ii. 80
Gowrie conspiracy, 32 et seq. — Proclama
tion for its commemoration, 130
Grey, lord of Wilton, enters into a plot,
122— is apprehended, 123. — His trial.
139 —Behaviour afterwards, 141, 143.
Reprieve, 144. — Death, 145
Gunpowder-plot, 195, 216 et seq.
H
Habington family, 200, 203, 204, 223
Haddington, viscount. S>-e Ramsey
Hampton court conference, 146
Harrington, sir John, 100. — Letters of,
115, 230.— Interview with James, 237
Hav, Janies, earl of Carlisle, ii. 41
Henry, prince of Wales, 113, 282, 296,
321, 335 and 6, 339
Herbert, lady Ann, 179
Herbert, Edward, baron of Chirbury,
307, ii. 16!
Herbert, Philip, earl of Montgomery,
168, 245, 324
Herbert, lady Susan, 177
Hertford, earl of, 185
Howard, lady Elizabeth, 178
¦  , lord Henry, 93, 94, 164, 25T,
365. ii. 13
Howard, Thomas, earl of Arundel, 246,
ii. 163
Howard lord Thomas, earl of Suffolk — a
privy-councillor, 93— further promoted,
94— Bribed by Spain, 163.— Lord-
treasurer, 339. — Chancellor of Cam
bridge, ii. 2, 4B, 93

James 1.— Birth, 2— accession to the
Scolish throne, ibid. — education by
Buchanan, 3. — He assumes the power,
8 — chooses two favourites, ibid. — is
controlled by the nobles, 10 — liberat
ed, 1 1— humbles the church. 13— capi
tulates to the nobles and allies himself
with queen Elizabeth, 14— writes on
the Apocalypse, ibid. — His conduct on
his mother's death, 15 — conduct to the
catholic nobles, 16, 21, 22— voyage to
Denmark, 16— professions respecting
presbytery. 18— is endangered by
Bothwell, 19, 20. 22, 23 —His transac
tions with the Scotch church. 24 to 26.
—Writes to the pope, 27.— His Basili-
con Doron, 28 — conduct respecting
Gowrie conspiracy, 33 etseq: — tran
sactions with the earl of Essex, 39—
character at the close of his reign in
Scotland, 49. — Accession and title to
the English crown, 71. — He takes
leave of his Scotch subjects. 79. — Des
cription of his person and manners, 80.
--He hangs a thief without trial, 85. —
How described by Bacon, 92. — Con
duct to Raleigh conspirators, 141. 144.
— Speeches at Hampton-court confer
ence, 147, 148. — Proclamation repect-
ing choice of members of parliament,
151 — Unpopular manners, ibid. — First
speech in parliament, 152. — Letter re.
specting the union of the kingdoms,
1 56. — Blasphemy and profarieness, 157.
Love of wit, 189. — Examination of
sleeping preacher, 191. — Conduct re
specting poirder-plot, 211, — respecting
catholics. 228 — Speech on the union,
235. — Conversation with Harrington,
237. — Conduct respecting oath of alle
giance. 265. — Disparages the common
law, 289. — Makes an arrogant speech
to parliament, 291, — Confers with sir
H. Neville and other memhers, 312. —
Attacks Vorstins, 317.— Burns two he
retics, 320. — Visits Cambridge, ii. ].—
His parting with Somerset, 9. — Ap
proves d'Ancre's murder, 44. — Con
duct to the Scotch church, 50. — Re
specting Sabbath-keepine, 65.  Ap
pears in Star-chamber, 199.— Publishes
his works, 103. — Sends delegates (o
the synod of Dort, 104.— Ill-treats
Selden, 107. — Conduct in Bohemian

359

affairs, 123. 125  Speech against
flocking to Loudon, 127 — against the
common law, 130. — Attempts a bene
volence. 160 — His conduct to Usher.
193 — Speech against monopolies, 195.
Tries in vain to sooth the commons. 202.
— Adjourns them in anger, 204. — His
letter to the speaker. 243. — Rejoinder
to pariament, 246 — Caricatures of
him, 263. — Liberates recusants 264. —
Letters to Bucks and the prince, 282,
291, 293— Sickuess — death— ch rac-
ter — works and funeral sermon, 344 et
seq.
Jesuits, female, ii. 121.
Jonson, Benjamin, 125. — His masks, 173

Lake, sir Thomas, ii. 100
Laud, archbishop, ii. 195. 220,226 and 7
Lenox, duke of. See Stuart
Literature, its sta-te in England, 61
Lyttleton family, 202 and 3
M
Manners, state of, 66
Markham, sir Griffin, his plots, 122, 123,
124.— Convicted of high treason, 135.
— Behaviour, 141, 142. — Reprieved,
144. — After fortunes, 145
Masks, described, 171. — Mask of Black
ness, 173 — of Beauty, 242 — of Queens,
297
Middlesex, earl of. See Cranfield, Lionel
Montgomery, earl of. See Herbert,
Philip
Montjoy, Charles Blount lord, 93, 114,
241
Morton, earl of, 8, 9 -
Murray, earl of, 20 «
Music, state of, 66 N
Northampton, earl of. See Howard,
lord Henry
Northumberland, earl of, 42, 43, 225. ii.
217
Nottingham, earl of, 183. ii. 118

Overbury, sir Thomas, 358, 361. — Pro
ceedings against his murderers, ii. 8
Oxford, Henry, earl of, ii. 158, 205

Protestation, 253
Parsous, father Robert, 299
Pembroke, earl of, 246
Percy, Thomas, 197, 198,201, 202
Plague in London, 125 — In the court,
132
Poetry, character of that addressed to
James from Cambridge, 88
Pound, Thomas, punished by the Star-
chamber, 167
Purveyance, 158, 168
Puritans, 166, 192, 193, 251

Raleigh, sir Walter, 116, 124, 136, 141,
144, 146. ii 73 to 92
Ramsey, sir John, 244, 324
Religion, its state in England, 54
Rich, lady.,,178
Russian embassy, ii. 68

Sackvil, Thomas, earl of Dorset, 252
Sanquar, )ord, 325
Sa\ile, sir John, ii. 257 ,
Say and Sele, lord. See Fiennes
Shakespeare,, William, ii. 19
Selden, John, ii. 108, 254, 258
Sleeping preacher, 191
Somerset, countess of. See Essex, coun
tess of
Somerset, earl of. See Carr, Robert
Southampton, earl of, ii, 205
Spencer, sir John, 293
 , Robert, lord, ii. 211
Stuart, Arabella, 119, 121.— Letter of,
133, 314
Stuart, Esme duke of Lenox, 8, 9, 10
Stuart, James earl of Arran, 8 to 13
Suffolk, cotintess of, 178
¦  , earl of. See Howard, lord
Thomas
Sully, duke de, his embassy and account
of the English court, 105

Tities, their venality, 192
Torture, use of, 222, 223. ii. 133 et seq.
Tresham, Francis, 196
Tyrone, earl of, 241,261 IJ
Usher, archbishop, ii. 194

Palatine, elector, 337. ii. 124
Parliament, petition and remonstrance
of, ii. 238— Reply to the king, Z44 —

Villiers, George, his introduction
at court, ii. 4 to 8. — Made earl of
Buckingham and master of the horse,

360

48. — His conduct in his brother's mar
riage, 54 er "»q. — Haughty treatment
of Bacon, 61. — Dignities held by him
and his family 117. — His guilt con
cerning monopolies, 175. — Follows the
advice of Willi.ims, 179 — His conduct
to Bacon. 184. — Plans to take the
prince to Spam, 271 — Gives offence
there. 293, 300.— Conduct on his re
turn, 308. 314  Takes popular courses,
315, 323. 324, 326.— Is accused to the
king, 327 —Restored to favour, 332 
Attacks Bristol, 333. — Conduct to
James on his death-bed, 343
Vorstius, Conrad, 317

W

Whitgift. archbishop, 150
Williams, John, lord keeper and arch
bishop, origia. of, ii. 112. — Advice to
Buckingham. 177. — Keeper of the
seals, 214.— Bishop of Lincoln, 219.—
Anecdotes of, 266.— Restores Bucking
ham to favour, 329
Witchcraft, trials for, ii. 141
Winwood, sir Ralph, ii. 70
Wotton, Edward lord, 94
 , sir Henry, 96, ii. 147
Wroth, lady, 180

Warwick, Robert, earl of, ii. 211

Yelverton, sir Henry, attorney-general,
ii. 198.

THE END.