Catesby, extremely alarmed by these proposals, declared that means enough

were in operation to keep those that they wished to save away; but that

rather than endanger the result, he would have all blown up, though they

were as dear to him as his own son. He and Fawkes, as the day drew near,

retired to a solitary house in Enfield Chase, called White Webbs, where,

as they were in consultation with Thomas Winter, Tresham suddenly made

his appearance. He appeared excited and embarrassed, and demanded that

he should be allowed to put Lord Monteagle, on his guard. When Catesby

and his associates protested against it, he advanced reasons for delay,

declaring that he should not be prepared with the promised advance of

money till he had sold some property. He pleaded that the explosion would

be as effectual at the end of the session as at the beginning; that in

the meantime the conspirators might live in Flanders, whither his ship

should convey them, and where he would supply them with the necessary

funds for maintenance. Catesby was confirmed in his fears of Tresham

by these proposals, but thought it best to dissemble and appear to

acquiesce. Tresham returned to town, and would seem to have warned not

only Monteagle but others, most likely including Lord Mordaunt. Digby and

others of the conspirators are supposed to have warned their own friends,

so that the danger of discovery was hourly increasing. Tresham, in his

examination, alleged that his real object at this moment was not to delay

but to put an end to the plot, as the only means he could devise to save

the lives of all concerned, and to preserve his own life, fortune, and

reputation.

The movements of Lord Monteagle warranted the belief that he had received

a warning of some kind that there was danger in town, for he removed

from his house in London to one which he had at Hoxton, and on the 26th

of October, six days before the proposed opening of Parliament, he, much

to the surprise of his own family, ordered a good supper to be prepared

there. Monteagle had formerly been engaged in the Spanish treason, and

had written to Baynham, who was the emissary at Rome, and therefore was

probably aware of some plot in agitation, but he had latterly obtained

the confidence of the king and was one of the commissioners for the late

prorogation.

As he sat at table about seven o'clock in the evening, a page handed

to him a letter, which he said he had received from a tall man whose

features he could not recognise in the dark. Monteagle opened the letter

and seeing that it had neither date nor signature, he handed it to

Thomas Ward, a gentleman of his establishment, to read aloud. It was as

follows:--"My lord out of the love i beare to some of youer frends i have

a caer of your preservacion therefor i would advyse yowe as yowe tender

youer lyfe to devyse some exscuse to shift of youer attendance at this

parleament for god and man hath concurred to punishe the wickednes of

this tyme and think not slightlye of this advertisement but retyere to

youre self into youre contri wheare you may expect the event in safeti

for thowghe theare be no apparance of anni stir yet i saye they shall

receyve a terrible blowe this parleament and yet they shall not seie who

hurts them this cowncel is not to be contemned because it may do yowe

good and can do yowe no harme for the danger is passed as soon as yowe

have burnt the letter and i hope God will give yowe the grace to mak good

use of it to whose holy protecion i comend yowe."

The astonishment of the guests at the hearing of this letter may be

imagined. Lord Monteagle immediately hastened to town, and laid the

letter before Cecil and some of the other ministers, the king being away

still at Royston, hunting. Cecil determined that nothing should be done

till the king's return. The next morning Ward, who had read the letter

publicly at the supper-table, communicated the circumstance to Thomas

Winter, and said the letter was in the possession of Cecil. Winter was

thunderstruck, but put the best face upon the matter that he could, and

pretended to laugh at the whole affair as a hoax on the credulity of Lord

Monteagle; but no sooner was Ward gone than he flew to White Webbs and

imparted the news to Catesby. Catesby at once attributed the letter to

Tresham, and the more so as he had absented himself for several days on

the pretence of having business in Northamptonshire. The question was

whether he had revealed the particulars of the plot and the names of the

conspirators. To ascertain the extent of the mischief and of the guilt

of Tresham, he sent him an imperative message to come to White Webbs.

Tresham obeyed the summons on the 30th of October, and met Catesby and

Winter at this lonely house in Enfield Chase. They had made up their

minds if they found him guilty, to shoot him on the spot. They charged

him point blank with the discovery of the plot, and kept a searching gaze

upon his countenance as he received their declaration. Had he faltered or

shown any confusion, his doom would have been instant. But he exhibited

the utmost calmness and firmness of expression, protesting most solemnly

that he was innocent of the charge.

That Tresham was the writer of the letter, and that he had entered into

a confidential understanding with Monteagle for the defeat of the plot,

there appears every reason to conclude. His own avowal on the examination

that such was his intention is borne out by all the examinations. The

delivery of the letter whilst Monteagle was at supper with his friends,

if it was done by Tresham, shows an intention that it should thus be made

irrevocably public. The instant communication of Lord Monteagle's servant

with Winter the conspirator, in order to warn them, confirms the idea

that all this was planned between Tresham and Monteagle; but there is no

reason to believe that Tresham had betrayed the names of his accomplices.

Catesby and Winter returned with Tresham to town, and Guy Fawkes was

despatched to the cellar under the Parliament House to discover whether

all was right there. Not a thing or a secret mark was disturbed. They

then first told him why they had sent him, on which Fawkes complained of

their distrust of his courage, and said he would visit the cellar every

day till the 5th of November. Had Cecil not been still more cunning than

the conspirators, had he made a stir and an inquisition, the aim of

Tresham would have been effected, the conspirators would have escaped,

and the plot have been put an end to without any catastrophe. But the

artifice of Cecil lulled their suspicions and lured them on to their doom.

On the 31st of October James returned to town, and the letter was laid

before him, with the particulars of its delivery. The king was struck

by the account, read the letter several times over, and discussed the

matter for two hours with his ministers. He boasted to Parliament on its

opening, that it was his own bright suggestion that the receiving of the

letter sent to Lord Monteagle implied that they were all to be blown up,

and that he in consequence ordered the search of the cellars under the

Parliament House. But this was a piece of consummate flattery on the part

of his ministers, to make it appear the result of his superior sagacity;

for we have direct evidence in the circular of the Earl of Salisbury,

that the ministers were in possession of the secret, but he observes,

"we all thought fit to forbear to impart it to the king until some three

or four days before the sessions." In fact, the intelligence that the

letter was in the hands of the king, and that the Council was consulting

on it, was immediately conveyed to Winter by Monteagle's servant. Upon

this Winter waited on Tresham at his house in Lincoln's Inn Walks, where

Tresham, in great agitation, assured him that the existence of the mine

was known to the ministers; that he knew certainly, but denied any

knowledge of the person by whom the discovery had been made. He declared

that they were all lost if they did not escape at once. From the moment

the affair was known, Tresham had avoided further intercourse with the

conspirators, meaning to appear ignorant of their concerns, for which

reason he went about openly, and even offered his services to the Council.

The conspirators met to decide on their plan of action. Some of them

advised instant flight to the Continent; Catesby, Winter, and others were

perfectly convinced that Tresham was in communication with Monteagle,

and perhaps with Cecil; but some of them would not believe such treason,

and the arguments of Percy finally nailed them to their fate. This

discussion took place on the 3rd of November. Percy conjured them to wait

and see what the next day would bring forth, the very last day before the

grand crisis. He represented all the labour, the anxieties, the plannings

they had gone through, the costs they had incurred, the difficulties they

had overcome, and he demanded whether, on the very point of complete

success, they were to abandon their enterprise through the fears of a

recreant colleague, who probably described what only his affrighted fancy

pictured to him. He reminded them that his vessel still lay in the Thames

at their service, and on the first positive proof of danger, they had

only to hasten on board and drop down the river out of reach of their

enemies.

These arguments prevailed, but they changed their plan of operations.

Fawkes was still to keep guard in the cellar, Percy and Winter to

superintend the necessary operations in London; but Catesby and John

Wright were to hasten to Dunchurch and put Sir Everard Digby and the

party on their guard.

On the evening of Monday the 4th of November, the Earl of Suffolk,

in prosecution of his duty as Lord Chamberlain, to see all necessary

preparations made for the opening of Parliament, went down to the House

accompanied by Lord Monteagle.

After they had been some time in the Parliament chamber, on pretence that

some necessary articles were missing, they went down to the cellars to

make a search. They entered the vault where the mine was prepared and

where Fawkes was at his post. The Lord Chamberlain, casually casting his

eyes round the place, inquired by whom it was occupied, and who Fawkes

was. The staunch traitor replied that it was occupied by Mr. Percy, whose

servant he was; on which Suffolk observed in a careless manner, "Your

master has laid in a good stock of fuel;" and he and Monteagle left the

cellar. No sooner were they off the ground, than Fawkes hastened to

inform Percy of what had occurred, but the warning was lost upon him. He

persuaded himself that all was yet undiscovered, and Fawkes returned to

the cellar to await the fatal hour.

A little after midnight, being now actually the 5th of November, Guy

Fawkes had occasion to open the door of the vault, and he was immediately

seized by Sir Thomas Knevett a magistrate of Westminster, who, with a

party of soldiers, had silently invested the place. Fawkes was found to

be booted and spurred, ready for a precipitate flight after lighting

the train; three matches were found in his pocket, and a dark lantern

containing a light was placed behind the door. The least delay in

seizing the desperado, and he would have blown himself and the guard all

into the air together. But he was instantly pinioned, bound hand and

foot, and conveyed to Whitehall, where the Council had assembled in the

king's bed-chamber by four o'clock to interrogate him. Fast fettered

as he was, the determined look of the undaunted traitor struck terror

into the spectators. He appeared quite self-possessed, calm in aspect,

and bold, though respectful in speech. Nothing could be drawn from him

regarding the conspiracy. He said his name was Johnson, and that Percy

was his master. He avowed that his object was to annihilate King and

Parliament, as the only possible means of ridding the Catholics of their

persecutions. When asked who were his accomplices, he replied that should

never be known from him. Finding that nothing could be extracted from the

conspirator, on the morning of the 6th of November he was sent to the

Tower, accompanied by orders that the secret was to be extorted from him

by torture. The instructions of James directed that the gentle tortures

were to be tried first, with gradual resort to the severer forms if

necessary. For three or four days this man of iron nerve and will endured

the utmost agony they could put him to, without divulging a syllable,

nor did he relax till he learned for certain that the conspirators had

proclaimed themselves by appearing in arms.

[Illustration: ARREST OF GUY FAWKES. (_See p._ 427.)]

Catesby and John Wright had left on the evening of the 4th for Dunchurch

as agreed; Percy and Christopher Wright maintained their watch in London

till they heard of the arrest of Fawkes, when they mounted and rode after

Catesby and John Wright. Keyes and Rookwood still waited till morning,

when finding the whole known and all London in a state of terror, Keyes

got away after the rest. Rookwood lingered in town till near noon, as

he had a relay of vigorous horses ready, and when mounted, he rode

furiously, overtook Keyes on Finchley Common, whence they rode to Turvey

in Bedfordshire. Rookwood still pursued his gallop till he overtook first

Percy and Christopher Wright, and then Catesby and John Wright, and the

whole troop rode on together till they came to Lady Catesby's, at Ashby

St. Legers, in Northamptonshire. They arrived there at six o'clock in

the evening, Rookwood having ridden the whole eighty miles from London

in little more than six hours. A party of conspirators, with whom was

Winter, were just sitting down to supper when the fugitives came in,

covered with mud and sinking with fatigue. Yet no time was to be lost.

After a hasty refreshment, the whole company got to horse, and rode with

all speed to Dunchurch.

The strange, haggard, and dejected appearance of the conspirators, and

their eager closeting with Sir Everard Digby, awoke the suspicions of

the hunting party. Before midnight, a whisper of treason and its failure

flew amongst them, and they quickly got to horse and rode off each his

own way. In the morning there remained only Catesby, Digby, Percy, the

Wrights, Winter, and a few servants.

Catesby now advised that they should strike across Worcestershire for

Wales, where he flattered himself they might assemble the Catholic gentry

and make a formidable stand. In pursuance of this romantic plan, they

mounted and rode to Warwick, whence, after obtaining fresh horses for

their jaded ones, they made for Grant's house at Norbrook, and thence

rode on through Warwickshire and Worcestershire to Holbeach House, on the

borders of Staffordshire. All the way they had called on the Catholics

to arm and join them for the rescue of their faith, but not a man would

listen to the appeal. On this decided failure, instead of pushing for the

mountains of Wales, they resolved to make a stand at Holbeach.

Meanwhile Sir Richard Walsh the sheriff of Worcestershire, with the whole

_posse comitatus_ and a number of volunteer gentlemen, was in chase of

them. They had diverged from their original route in the hope of being

joined by the gentry, who only drove them from their doors; and now,

no sooner did Stephen Littleton, the owner of Holbeach, learn the real

facts, than, horrified at the certain destruction impending over these

desperate men, he escaped at the earliest opportunity from the house. He

was soon followed by Sir Everard Digby, on the plea of endeavouring to

muster assistance. The remaining conspirators--who, with servants, did

not amount to more than forty men--put the house in a state of defence;

but as they were drying some powder before the fire, it exploded,

scorching Catesby and some others of the bystanders.

This accident so appalled them, impressing them with the idea that their

enterprise was displeasing to God, that Robert Winter, Bates the servant

of Catesby, and others got away. About noon Sir Richard Walsh came up

with his troop, surrounded the house, and summoned them to surrender. But

preferring death in arms to the gallows, they defied their assailants,

and resolved to fight to the last. On this the sheriff ordered one part

of his followers to set fire to the house, and the other to batter in the

gates. Catesby, blackened and nearly blinded by the powder, called on the

rest to make a rush and die hand to hand with their assailants. In the

courtyard, Catesby, the two Wrights, and Percy were mortally wounded.

Catesby crawled on hands and knees into the house to a crucifix, which he

seized in his hands and expired. Rookwood, dreadfully burnt and wounded,

was seized as well as Winter, whose arm was broken. Percy died the next

day. The rest of them were soon taken. Robert Winter had overtaken

Stephen Littleton in a wood, and together they made their way to the

house of a Mrs. Littleton, near Hagley, where they were secreted, without

her knowledge, by her cousin Humphrey Littleton, but were betrayed by a

servant of Mrs. Littleton. Sir Everard Digby was pursued and taken in a

wood near Dudley. They were all captured, with Keyes and Bates Catesby's

servant, who was taken in Staffordshire. Four days after the seizure of

the captives at Holbeach, Tresham was arrested in London, notwithstanding

his affected innocence and his offers of assistance to the Council; and

thus were the authors of this conspiracy destroyed, or safe in the hands

of Government. Soon afterwards Garnet was discovered hiding at Hendip in

a secret chamber.

The trials, of course, excited intense interest, and the king, queen, and

prince were said to be present, where they could see and hear without

attracting public notice. The prisoners were eight, Sir Everard Digby,

Robert and Thomas Winter, Rookwood, Grant, Guido Fawkes, Keyes, and

Bates. Sir Everard Digby pleaded guilty, all the rest not guilty, on the

ground that many things were included in the indictments which were not

true. There were no witnesses called, but the written depositions of the

prisoners and of a servant of Sir Everard's were taken as sufficient

proof. The accused, for the most part, denied that the three Jesuits

(Garnet and two others who had been implicated) had any part in the

plot, though they might more or less be aware of it; nor was there any

proof brought forward or admission made which affected the Catholic

body generally. On the contrary, it was too notorious that the Catholics

had everywhere shrunk from the conspirators with horror; and Sir Everard

Digby, in his letters to his wife, written from the Tower, pathetically

laments that the Catholics so far from supporting the conspiracy,

shunned and condemned them, and adds that he would never have engaged

in it if he had not thought it lawful. The prisoners who pleaded not

guilty, excused their conduct by the cruelty of the persecutions which

they were enduring, the ruin and sufferings of their families, the

violated promises of the king, and their consequent despair of any other

termination of their oppressions, as well as their natural desire to

effect the restoration of what they deemed the only true church. The

Earls of Salisbury and Northampton denied, on the part of the king, the

breach of any promises; and the prisoners were condemned to the death of

traitors, which they endured, in all its revolting severity, at the west

end of St. Paul's Churchyard. Digby, Robert Winter, Grant, and Bates, on

the 31st of January, and Thomas Winter, Fawkes, Rookwood, and Keyes, next

day.

The Jesuits Garnet and Oldcorne and their two servants, Owen and

Chambers, who had been captured in Worcestershire, were lodged in the

Tower, and there underwent the strictest examination, and Oldcorne, Owen,

and Chambers were placed upon the rack. Garnet was not racked, but was

threatened with it, to which he replied, "_Minate ista pueris_"--"Threats

are only for boys." As it was probably thought that nothing was to be

hoped from Garnet through torture, a stratagem worthy of the Inquisition

was resolved on. The warder in whose custody the Jesuits lay, received

an order from the lieutenant of the Tower to assume a friendly demeanour

towards them; to express his sympathy for their sufferings, and his

respect for their undaunted maintenance of their faith. Having made a

favourable impression, he proceeded to offer them all the indulgence in

his power, consistent with their safe custody. The Jesuits fell into

the snare. The warder offered to take charge of any letters that they

wished to convey to their friends. His sincerity seemed so genuine

that the offer was accepted; a correspondence with several Catholics

was commenced, and the letters each way were regularly carried to the

commissioners, opened, and copied before delivery. Many of the letters

being found to have secret notes appended in lemon juice, which only

became visible when heated, were retained, and exact copies sent. Some

of these letters still remain in the Public Record Office. But this

correspondence, notwithstanding the sympathetic ink, was so guarded, that

it furnished no new facts and another plan was adopted. The warder, as if

growing more willing to serve them by longer acquaintance, showed them

that by leaving an intermediate door unlocked between their cells, the

two Jesuits could meet and converse at freedom. Still confiding entirely

in their apparent friend the warder, who recommended extreme caution,

Garnet and Oldcorne gladly embraced this opportunity of intercourse.

But in secret recesses in the passage were placed Lockerson the private

secretary of Cecil, and Forsett a magistrate of the Tower, who heard and

noted down the conversations of the prisoners. Five times were these

treacherous interviews permitted, and the reported conversations of four

of them are still preserved.

As might be expected, the conversations chiefly turned on the best mode

of conducting their defence. In these conversations Garnet admitted that

though he had denied it, he had still been at White Webbs, in Enfield

Chase, with the conspirators, and would still maintain that he had not

been there since Bartholomew-tide. On another occasion he let fall things

which still further betrayed his knowledge of the plot. It is possible

that he might even yet have escaped had he not, at his trial, avowed that

he considered equivocation and mental reservation on any point that might

incriminate him, perfectly justifiable. After that declaration popular

sympathy was no longer in his favour. A verdict of guilty was pronounced

against him, and he was hanged, drawn and quartered on the 3rd of May,

1606.

A Parliament was summoned for the double purpose of raising money and

of extending additional punishment over the Catholics generally. The

whole country was in that state of alarm and hostility to them, that

James found it necessary to restrain rather than encourage the mania.

Such was the public excitement, that even he was not exempt from blame

on account of this lenity. He had chosen this inauspicious moment to

make overtures to Spain for the Infanta as a wife for Prince Henry,

and the Puritans at once ascribed his moderation to this cause, and

declared that he was little better than a secret Papist himself. James

was alarmed and obliged to give way. It was in vain that Henry IV. of

France remonstrated against a bigotry which had already driven some of

the Catholics to such desperate lengths. His ambassador represented

that the king his master had learnt from experience that persecution

only stimulated zealots to a temper in which they gloried in suffering,

and that far more could be effected by kindness than by severity; that

James should, if he loved peace, make himself their protector instead

of their persecutor. But Parliament soon showed how useless at the

moment was such advice. Both Houses appeared to be carried beyond all

reason by their fears and their resentment. On the 3rd of February every

member of the Commons was ordered to stand up in his place and propound

such measures as appeared to him most desirable. The most extravagant

propositions seemed the most acceptable, and after impetuous debates upon

them, they were communicated by conferences to the other House, and in

both Lords and Commons motions of the severest description were made and

carried by triumphant majorities. Catholic recusants were now forbidden

to appear at Court, to dwell within its boundaries, or within ten miles

of the boundaries of London; or to remove on any occasion more than five

miles from their homes, under particular penalties, unless in the latter

case they had a licence from four neighbouring magistrates. They were

rendered incapable of practising in surgery, physic, or common or civil

law; of acting as judges, clerks, officers, in any court or corporation;

of presenting to church livings, schools, or hospitals in their gift;

or of exercising the functions of executors or guardians; where persons

were married by Catholic priests, the husband, if a Catholic, could

not claim the property of the wife, nor the wife, if a Catholic, that

of the husband; and if a child born was not baptised by a Protestant

minister within a month, the penalty was one hundred and fifty pounds;

and for every corpse not buried in a Protestant cemetery, the penalty

was twenty pounds. All existing penalties for absence from church were

retained, with the addition that whoever received Catholic visitors, or

kept Catholic servants, must pay for each such individual ten pounds per

lunar month. Every recusant was declared to be excommunicated; his house

might be broken open and searched at any time, his books and any articles

belonging to "his idolatrous worship" might be burnt, and his arms and

horses seized by the order of a single magistrate.

A new oath of allegiance was framed recognising absolute renunciation

of the right of the Pope to interfere in the temporal affairs of the

kingdom. The Catholics who submitted to take this oath were to be liable

_only_ to the penalties now enumerated; but they who refused were to be

imprisoned for life, and to suffer forfeiture of their personal property

and the rents of their lands.

The publication of these terrible enactments carried astonishment

and dismay through the nation; many Protestants as well as Catholics

condemned them. The French minister Villeroy declared that they were

characteristic of barbarians rather than of Christians. Many Catholics

made haste to quit their native country, and the rest prepared to

sacrifice both property and personal liberty. The Pope Paul V. despatched

a secret emissary to James, imploring him to relax the rigour of the

new laws, but without success. And the Pontiff, resenting the repulse,

then published a breve, denouncing the oath of allegiance as unlawful,

"because contrary to faith and salvation." The publication of this

imprudent breve only made matters worse. The Catholic clergy were before

its arrival divided in their opinions as to the lawfulness of taking

it; the archpriest Blackwall himself, with many of his brethren, were

prepared to take it. The authority of the Pope extinguished theirs and

decided the majority; yet Blackwall took the oath himself, and advised

the Catholics, by a circular letter, to take it.

But no submission on the part of a portion of the Catholics could

mitigate the wrath of James at the conduct of the Pope. He ordered the

bishops in their several dioceses to tender the oath, and to enforce the

penalties on all recusants. Three missionaries lying under sentence of

death for the exercise of their priestly functions, were called upon to

take it; they refused. Two of them were saved by the earnest intercession

of the Prince de Joinville and the French ambassador. The third, named

Drury, was hanged, drawn, and quartered. Blackwall the archpriest himself

was thrown into prison, though he had both taken the oath and advised the

rest of the Catholics to take it; and though James pitied him, he could

do nothing more in his behalf than prevent him from being brought to

trial and capitally condemned. The case of Blackwall was extremely hard,

for, on the other hand, he had excited the resentment of the Pope by his

concession. He was called on by letters from Cardinals Bellarmine and

Arrigoni, and the Jesuits Parsons and Holtby to retract; but as he would

not, he was superseded by Birket. He was then in his seventieth year, and

remained in prison till his death, in 1613.

A second breve from the Pope roused the spirit of James; he determined

to try whether he could not silence the clamour of the papal party

by his pen. He abandoned even the pleasures of the chase, refused to

listen to his ministers, and calling his favourite divines around him,

he shut himself up with them, and produced a tract called "An Apologie

for the Oath of Allegiance," which was immediately translated into

French and Latin. But as the royal _brochure_ did not convince the

Catholics, six priests were condemned for refusing the oath, and three of

them were executed, one at York and two at Tyburn. Moreau, Bellarmine,

and Parsons, published replies to the royal treatise; and again James

closeted himself with his divines, revised his publication, and prefaced

it with a "Premonition to all Christian Princes." It was in vain that

the kings of Denmark and France counselled him to desist from a contest

so unworthy of a great monarch, in vain that the queen urged the same

advice. He condescended to declare that the fittest answer to Parsons

would be a rope; and as for Bellarmine, who had written under a feigned

name, he dubbed him "a most obscure author, a very desperate fellow in

beginning his apprentisage, not only to refute, but to rail at a king."

The flatterers of the king applauded his "immortal labours," as they were

pleased to call them; and James continued to toil at them, revise, and

remodel his arguments till 1609. The Catholic peers, with the exception

of Lord Teynham, all took the oath on different occasions in the Upper

House.

[Illustration: POUND SOVEREIGN OF JAMES I.]

[Illustration: UNIT OR LAUREL OF JAMES I. (GOLD).]

[Illustration: SPUR RIAL OF JAMES I. (GOLD).]

[Illustration: THISTLE CROWN OF JAMES I. (GOLD).]

To dismiss for the present the religious controversies which kept the

kingdom in a ferment of bitterness, we have a little overstepped the

progress of general events. In the spring of 1606 James called together

Parliament, for he was in much distress for money. As usual, the Commons

had their list of complaints to set off against his demands and as

James showed no eagerness to redress no less than sixteen subjects of

grievance, the Commons made no haste with the supplies. At length, in the

month of May, whilst the question of the subsidy was dragging its slow

length along, and Cecil was endeavouring in vain to quicken the motion

of the House, by making promises which meant nothing beyond inducing the

members to vote, a sudden rumour ran through the court that the king was

assassinated at Oaking in Berkshire, where he was hunting along with

his favourites, the Earl of Montgomery, Sir John Ramsay, and Sir James

Hay. The mode of his death was variously reported. One version was that

he had been stabbed with a poisoned knife, and another that he had been

shot with a pistol, and a third that he was smothered in his bed. The

murderers were differently represented to be the Jesuits, Scotsmen in

women's clothes, Frenchmen, and Spaniards. There was great consternation

both in the City and the Parliament. The Lords displayed the utmost

loyalty; and the Commons suddenly closed their money debate by voting

three subsidies and six fifteenths. In the midst of the panic James

arrived safe and sound in London, and was received with proportionate

enthusiasm. As the sensation went off, many began to suspect that Cecil,

and perhaps the king himself, could have explained the origin of the

_ruse_--that it was but a spur to the tardy liberality of the Commons. At

all events, James, having obtained his supplies, prorogued Parliament to

the 18th of November.

[Illustration: SIR ROBERT CECIL, AFTERWARDS EARL OF SALISBURY. (_From the

Portrait by Zucchero._)]

The great business of Parliament now for several sessions--that is,

from 1604 to 1607--was that of discussing James's suggestion for the

union of the two kingdoms. This very suggestion, so immediately brought

forward, was a glaring proof of James's want of solid judgment. The

least reflection might have satisfied the least reflecting mind, that

two nations which had for so many ages been inflamed against each

other by wars, injustice, mutual cruelties, political jealousies, and

the taunts which embittered passions had caused them to fling at each

other, would require a long time to reconcile them to the idea of entire

amalgamation. The centuries of attempted usurpation on the part of the

English, and the determined resistance, even to death, of the Scots,

made the latter sensitively apprehensive of the union. They saw in it

only the accomplishment of the same end by different means. They were

the less disposed to it in consequence of the foolish boastings of James

of his absolute power. His high notions of prerogative appeared to have

grown wonderfully since his accession to the English throne. He compared

himself to a god upon earth, and had already given out his style and

title as king of Great Britain. The Scots were, therefore, naturally

suspicious of a union which would very largely augment his powers. Still

more, his new and excessive leaning towards Episcopacy alarmed the Scots.

They saw nothing but its attempted imposition on them in the union of the

kingdoms, and they were not inclined thus easily to give up their freedom

of conscience which they had fought out at so much cost. On the other

hand, James's imprudent bestowal of posts and honours on Scotsmen in

England, offended and disgusted the English. They asked whether they were

to be overrun by a regular inundation of proud and hungry adventurers

from the North. In the Commons the expressions of contempt and aversion

to the Scottish race grew to the height of insolence and insult, and were

sure to excite the most indignant feeling in that people. Sir Christopher

Pigot, the member for Buckinghamshire, especially distinguished himself

by the vituperation of Scotsmen. He professed the utmost horror at the

idea of union between a rich and fertile country like England, and a

sterile and poor one like Scotland; between a people wealthy, frank, and

generous, and one at once haughty, beggarly, and penurious. This put the

climax to the patience of Scotland, and James declared he could no longer

tolerate language which insulted himself as a Scot.

Cecil at the command of the king took up the matter warmly, and the House

of Commons, persuaded by him, expelled Pigot, and he was committed to

the Tower. Defeated in the Commons, James betook himself to the courts

of law. He had proposed to the Commons to pass an Act naturalising all

Scots, even those born before his accession to the English throne;

but when they rejected this, he obtained a decision from the judges

sanctioning the admission of the inhabitants of each kingdom to all the

rights of subjects in both. This would in a few years have made the

Scots as much subjects of the English Crown as the English themselves,

but James was not content with this. He used very angry and impudent

language, threatening to leave London and fix his court at York or

Berwick; telling his English subjects to remember that he was a king, who

had to govern them and to answer for their errors; who was made of flesh

and blood like themselves, and might be tempted to do what they would not

like.

The Commons resented this language: they sent their Speaker to desire

that the king would receive no reports of their proceedings except

from themselves, and that they might be permitted to feel that they

were at liberty to deliver their opinions in their own House without

restraint or fear. James, who was easily alarmed, professed to have no

desire to encroach on their liberty of speech, but no sooner did they

put him to the test than he renewed his interference. A petition being

presented to the House complaining of the oppressions upon the Puritans,

and the abuses of the Church, James sent an order to the Speaker to

inform the House that they were meddling with what belonged alone to

him. The members declared this to be a violation of their privileges,

but the Speaker informed them that there were plenty of precedents for

such restraint on the House by the Crown. The House on this proposed to

appoint a committee to inquire into these precedents, and how far they

were founded in constitutional right; but here again, James, fearing he

had gone too far, sent them word that although the matter in question

properly belonged to him, he should not object to their reading the

petition.

But the Crown and the House very soon came into collision on the

subject of the powers of the Commons. A petition was presented from the

merchants, representing the injuries their ships and commerce received

from Spain, particularly on the coasts of South America, the ports of

which the Spanish were endeavouring to close against all other nations.

The Commons thought it a subject of that national character that they

should have the co-operation of the Peers with them, and therefore sent

to the Upper House proposing a conference. But the Lords demurred,

thinking it a subject which the Commons were scarcely authorised to enter

upon. The difficulty, however, was mutually obviated; the Lords agreed to

the conference. But it proved only an occasion for the Crown to deliver

a lecture to the Commons on their aspiring to deal with subjects too

high for them. James was, in fact, contemplating an alliance with Spain,

and was by no means disposed to offend its rulers. Cecil, therefore, and

Lord Henry Howard, now Earl of Northampton, read the Commons a very plain

lecture, instructing them that all matters appertaining to peace or war,

and all such topics as led to these results, belonged especially to the

Crown; which indeed occasionally consulted the Commons, not out of right

or necessity but as a matter of favour and also of policy, when it was

advisable to have the sympathy and active support of the representatives

of the people. But the declaration of war or concession of peace was the

absolute prerogative of the Crown; the business of the Commons was more

private and local, such as the furnishing of funds--and when money was

wanted, they never failed to hear of it.

The Commons allowed the petition of the merchants to stand over for the

time, but out of doors the spirit of dissatisfaction rose high, and the

leaning of James towards Spain was narrowly watched and commented upon.

While the Government and the Commons were engaged in this discussion, a

serious insurrection called the attention of the Council another way.

The lucky courtiers who had obtained amongst them the estates of the

gentlemen who had forfeited them for their share in the Gunpowder Plot,

whilst dividing and enclosing, like their predecessors who had obtained

the estates of the Church, cast greedy eyes on the adjacent common

lands, and enclosed as much as they could of them with the rest. The

people, deprived of their right of pasturage, rose in resistance, as

they had done in the reign of Edward VI. They had the statutes regarding

enclosures in their favour, and assembling in numbers from one to five

thousand, they broke down the new fences, filled up the ditches, and

restored the usurped fields to their ancient state as common. Like the

agrarian reformer, Ket of Norfolk, they confined themselves strictly to

their legitimate object. They conducted themselves with perfect order,

committed no depredations on really private property, nor perpetrated any

excesses, to which their numbers might have tempted them. They appeared

in great force at Hill Morton, in Warwickshire, an estate of Tresham's,

and in their largest force of five thousand at Coleshill. Their leaders,

whoever they were, appeared in masks, except one man of the name of

Reynolds, who was an enthusiast and set all danger at defiance; declaring

that he was sent of God to satisfy men of all degrees, and had, moreover,

authority from the king to level all the new fences. He acquired the

name of Captain Pouch, from a large pocket which he wore at his side,

and in which he boasted that he carried a charm which not only made him

invulnerable to sword or bullet, but which would protect them from all

harm.

The insurgents broke out about the middle of May, having in vain

previously presented their memorials to the Council, the members of which

were too much interested in the lands in question to pay any attention to

them. At first James and the Court were greatly alarmed, supposing it to

be a demonstration of Catholics or Puritans. The guards at Westminster

palace were doubled, and orders were issued to the Lord Mayor to watch

the movements of the apprentices in the City. A little time, however,

revealed the real nature of the rising, and the insurgents were ordered

to disperse; but they stood their ground, assuring the magistrates that

they were only executing the statutes against enclosures, and were

under orders not to violate the law in any manner, nor even to indulge

in swearing. The lieutenants then endeavoured to raise the counties,

but the yeomanry displayed no desire to interfere in such a cause; and

many gentlemen even contended that it was best to concede the matter to

the poor, advice which, if followed, would no doubt have ensured speedy

quietness without bloodshed. But this did not suit the views of the

interested Council, and the Earls of Huntingdon and Exeter and Lord Zouch

were sent with a considerable force to quell them. Sir Edward Montague

and Sir Anthony Mildmay came upon a number of them busy levelling the

enclosures at Newton, another estate forfeited by Tresham. They found

them well armed with bills and bows, pikes and stones. The officers

commanded them to disperse, but they refused, and after twice reading

the Riot Act in vain, a charge was ordered. The trained bands showed no

relish for the business; but the regular cavalry, and the servants of

Mildmay and Montague, attacked them briskly. The insurgents returned the

attack with much bravery, but at the second onset broke and fled. Forty

or fifty of them were killed, and a great number wounded. Sir Henry

Fookes, who led on the infantry against them, was severely wounded. After

this defeat "the levellers," as they were called, were pursued in all

directions and everywhere put down and dispersed. Many prisoners were

made and a commission, with Sir Edward Coke at its head, was appointed to

try them.

James, with a feeling that did him honour, instructed the Commission to

use moderation in punishing the prisoners, declaring that the Council had

been more to blame than they, for neglecting their petitions. Had they

not intercepted them, he pretended to say that they would have received

redress from him. He maintained that they had been oppressed and driven

to resistance by the rapacity of the gentry and the neglect of ministers.

Pouch and some of his associates were condemned and executed as traitors

on the 28th of June; and some of the others were hanged as felons because

they had not dispersed on the reading of the Riot Act.

[Illustration: SHILLING OF JAMES I.]

The king on the 4th of July prorogued Parliament till November, but

having got a considerable amount of money from it, and little other

satisfaction, he did not summon it again till February, 1610. Could he

have found sufficient funds any other way, it is quite certain that he

would never have called it any more. In his suit of Lincoln green, with a

little feather in his hat, and a horn by his side instead of a sword, he

followed his hounds through the forest, happy as Nimrod himself, so long

as the means lasted. But James's Court was altogether on an extravagant

scale. Like a youthful heir whose guardians have kept him close, and who

makes up for a long abstinence by tenfold profuseness on coming to his

estate, James, escaped from the poverty of his Scottish establishment

where he had mainly lived on his pension from Elizabeth, now gave rein to

extravagance as if nothing could exhaust the affluence of England. He had

a most expensive household, and he gave money to his favourites as though

he had the wishing-cap of Fortunatus.

[Illustration: CROWN OF JAMES I.]

Not only was his own household lavishly managed, but even those of Henry

and Elizabeth, two of his children, consisted of one hundred and forty

personages. In 1610, but three years after this period, that of Prince

Henry was increased to four hundred and twenty-six individuals, of whom

two hundred and ninety-seven were in receipt of salaries, besides a

number of workmen employed under Inigo Jones, the architect.

But above all the presents to his favourites would have given the idea

that his resources were interminable. At the marriage of Sir Philip

Herbert with Lady Susan Vere, he gave him an estate valued at £500 a

year. At the marriage of Ramsay, Viscount Haddington, with Lady Elizabeth

Ratcliffe, he paid his debts, amounting to £10,000, having already

endowed him with an estate of £1,000 per annum; and he presented to the

bride a gold cup containing the patent of a grant of lands worth £600 a

year. His gifts at different times to Lord Dunbar amounted to £15,262; to

the Earl of Mar, to £15,500; and to Viscount Haddington, to £31,000.

This Viscount Haddington was the Sir John Ramsay who stabbed the Earl of

Gowrie, at the time of the singular Gowrie conspiracy; and James went

on promoting him till he became Earl of Holderness, with many grants of

lands, gifts, and pensions. The second in James's regard, in the early

part of his reign, was another Scotsman, James Hay, whom he successively

created Lord Hay, Viscount Doncaster, and Earl of Carlisle. Clarendon

says that this man, in the course of a very licentious career, spent

above four hundred thousand pounds and left neither house nor child to be

remembered by. James, in England, also chose several English favourites.

The first of those was Sir Philip Herbert, brother of the Earl of

Pembroke and son of the sister of Sir Philip Sidney. He was created Earl

of Montgomery, and was especially agreeable to James because he despised

learned men--for James was jealous of all such--and took pleasure

only, like his royal master, in dogs and horses. Montgomery was in the

ascendant till the king's eye fell on one Robert Carr, destined to a

strange history; and the English and Scottish favourites, by their mutual

hatred of each other, their quarrels and duels, gave James sufficient

trouble. Haddington and Montgomery had an affray in which Montgomery

showed the white feather, and James sent Haddington for a short time to

the Tower. Douglas, the Master of the Horse, was killed in one of these

squabbles; and some years later Lord Sanquhar had an eye thrust out by a

fencing master, for which his lordship killed him, and was executed for

the deed. Such was the disgraceful condition of the court of the British

Solomon.

[Illustration: JAMES AND HIS COURTIERS SETTING OUT FOR THE HUNT. (_See

p._ 436.)]

During the years 1608 and 1609, negotiations were pending between the

United Provinces of the Netherlands and Spain. James, who had a claim

on these Provinces for above eight hundred thousand pounds on account

of advances and services by Elizabeth, for which he held the towns of

Flushing, Brell, and Rammekens, would have been glad to obtain possession

of the money. So well was this known, that there were rumours that, as

he could not obtain the sum due, he was intending to sell the towns

to Philip III. of Spain. The Archduke Albert was still in Flanders,

not having abandoned the hope of recovering the revolted States; and

Catholics from England were in the habit of volunteering to assist him

in undoing what Queen Elizabeth had done there. But much as James was

pressed for money, he was scarcely daring enough to aid Spain in its

views. The spirit of Protestantism was too strong in England tamely to

witness such an anti-Protestant policy; and, in fact, James himself was

rather afraid of an attack from Spain, than hoping for a coalition with

it. The Earl of Tyrone had fallen under suspicion of fresh rebellion,

and had fled to the Spaniards in the Netherlands for security. Cecil

apprehensive that Philip might be disposed to attempt his restoration,

instructed Sir Charles Cornwallis, at Madrid, to use bold language on the

occasion. This appears to have had effect, for Tyrone retired to Italy.

But a new danger presented itself in the rumour of negotiations for peace

between Holland and Spain. Cecil dreaded a pacification between these

Powers, as it would allow Philip more opportunity to turn his attention

to Ireland, if so disposed.

The English Government was surprised and mortified to learn that such

negotiations were actually proceeding, and that the King of France had

been invited to join in them. At length James, who had so deep a stake in

the Netherlands, received a formal notice to the same effect, soliciting

his co-operation. These negotiations were conducted at the Hague, but

it was not till March, 1609, that they were brought to a conclusion.

The result was a truce for twelve years, which was, in fact, equivalent

to a peace, acknowledging the independence of the Dutch States, after a

brave conflict for liberty of forty years. The debt of James, amounting

to eight hundred and eighteen thousand pounds, was acknowledged, and

engagements entered into for its payment by annual instalments of sixty

thousand pounds. But the first payment was not to be made till the end of

two years, and James was still to retain the cautionary towns till the

whole was discharged.

The postponement of the payment of the debt of Holland was extremely

embarrassing to Cecil. On the death of the Earl of Dorset, in 1608, he

succeeded to the office of Treasurer, and to the clamorous demands which

had been made upon Dorset. His carriage had been stopped in the streets

by the servants of the king's household, who were loud in their demands

for their long arrears of wages, and the purveyors refused to bring in

any more supplies till they were paid their advances. Cecil, on examining

the accounts, found James one million three hundred thousand pounds in

debt, and exceeding his income at the rate of upwards of eighty thousand

pounds per annum. He set to work resolutely to curtail this expenditure

and to devise means of raising money. James always claimed an authority

paramount to all laws; and Cecil ventured to put in practice the idea of

prerogative in raising the necessary funds. He called in rigorously the

unpaid remains of the last voted subsidies, and then proceeded to lay

on duties and impose monopolies of the most odious nature, without any

sanction of Parliament. His predecessor Dorset had set him the example by

levying an import duty on currants by letters patent. This illegal demand

had been resisted, and Bates, a Turkey merchant, was proceeded against

for refusal to pay, in the Court of Exchequer. This court was base

enough to decide in favour of this unconstitutional stretch of power, and

James was delighted at so auspicious a concession of the justice of his

doctrine of prerogative. Cecil pressed on in the path thus opened, and

laid on import and export duties on various articles by orders under the

Great Seal. He imposed a feudal aid towards the knighting of the Prince

Henry, of twenty shillings on each knight's fee; but this produced only

twenty-eight thousand pounds. He then extended his duties to almost every

species of imported and exported goods, at the rate of five pounds per

cent. on the value of the goods, which he calculated would produce three

hundred thousand pounds per annum; and he sold to the Dutch a right of

fishing on the coasts of England and Scotland. Cecil himself was the

farmer of these duties. They were, however, of a character to excite the

utmost dissatisfaction; trade fell off under their influence, fewer ships

came into the English ports, and there was at length no alternative but

to summon a Parliament, which met on the 24th of February, 1610.

The great topics which occupied this Parliament were, of course, the

king's want of money and his continual violations of Magna Charta. Cecil,

seeing the desperate state of the royal finances, made a bold demand that

six hundred thousand pounds should be at once voted to liquidate his

debts, and that an annual addition of two hundred thousand pounds should

be consented to as a permanent pension, to prevent him from getting into

debt again. But Cecil committed a great blunder both in routine and in

sound policy, by proposing this money measure to the Lords instead of

to the Commons, whose proper business it was. The Commons resented this

course, and were more determined than ever in demanding an abandonment of

the unconstitutional practice of imposing duties without their consent.

They declared that the imprisonment of Bates for opposing this practice,

though sanctioned by the Exchequer, was nevertheless illegal. Francis

Bacon and Sir John Davis endeavouring to justify the despotic proceeding,

only increased the exasperation of the House. It was declared that if

the taxing of merchandise by prerogative was permitted, the taxing of

their lands would soon follow. James sent them word to desist from such

discussions; but the Commons were not to be thus silenced, whereupon

James sent for both Houses to Whitehall, and delivered a most blasphemous

speech in vindication of his inflated notions of kingly authority.

"Kings," said he, "are justly called gods, for they exercise a manner

or resemblance of divine power upon earth. For if you will consider

the attributes of God, you shall see how they agree in the person of a

king. God hath power to create or destroy, to make or unmake, at His

pleasure; to give life or send death, to judge all, and to be judged of

nor accountable to none; to raise low things, and to make high things

low at His pleasure; and to God both body and soul are due. And the like

power have kings. They make and unmake their subjects; they have power

of raising and casting down, of life and of death; judges over all their

subjects, and in all cases, and yet accountable to none but God only.

They have power to exalt low things and abase high things, and make of

their subjects like men of chess--a pawn to take a bishop or a knight;

and to cry up or down any of their subjects as they do their money.

And to the king is due both the affection of the soul, and the service

of the body of his subjects." To resist the king in any of his acts or

impositions, he declared was sedition; for the king was above all law,

and laws were, in fact, but granted by kings to the people as a matter of

favour.

The Commons would not listen to such insane language. They told the king

that in extolling the power of kings, he forgot the existence of Magna

Charta, which set eternal and impassable bounds to that power; and they

appointed a committee to search for the legality or illegality of all the

practices complained of. The Crown lawyers in committee argued that "the

reverence of past ages, and the possession of present times," sanctioned

the king's doctrine; and that the right of imposing duties had been

exercised by the three first Edwards by their own will, and independent

of Parliament; and that if it had been interrupted from Richard II. to

Mary, yet that princess had reassumed the royal privilege, and that it

was continued by Elizabeth. But the Commons replied that in all these

cases the monarchs had violated Magna Charta, the Statute _de tallagio

non concedendo_, and twelve other Parliamentary enactments; that no time

or practice could establish a right against those great bulwarks of

popular liberty. And the Commons therefore demanded that a law should

be made during this Session, declaring that all such impositions of

duties or taxes, without consent of Parliament, should be pronounced for

ever void. And they accordingly passed such a Bill, which, however, was

rejected by the more subservient Lords.

James writhed under this plain and direct denial of his assumed

authority, and refused to surrender the question. He found in the bishops

a body, on the whole, ready to co-operate with him in his attempt to

destroy the Constitution; and Bancroft, the Primate, led the way with

unblushing baseness. Under his leadership the whole High Church party

echoed the king's most absolute dogmas, and claimed for him all the

divinity which he professed to possess. The king, according to their

creed, being divine, so were the bishops who were appointed by him,

and therefore this divine Crown and Church were above all law. The

ecclesiastical courts carried this theory into daily practice, and

encroached on the temporal courts as pertinaciously as the king did on

Parliament. There was a grand struggle between the common and the civil

law. The judges, who saw this arrogance of the clergy with jealousy and

disgust, began to relax their enmity against the Puritans and to regard

them as the natural allies of law against absolutism.

On the other hand, the king and bishops sought out fresh means in support

of their doctrine, and one of these was to bring forward Dr. Cowell who,

in his "Interpreter, or Law Dictionary," broached unmitigated maxims of

despotism. He declared that the king inherited all the powers which had

been exercised by the Emperors of Rome; as if the empire of the Romans

had never ceased in England, or as if the civil law being still used by

the Church, it became in all its forms imperative on the nation. This

work was dedicated to Bancroft, and he and the king eulogised it as

maintaining all the rampant maxims of absolutism which James had ever

uttered. The king, Cowell declared, was "_solutus à legibus_," "freed

from all restraint of laws;" and though he took an oath at his coronation

to maintain all the laws unchanged, yet he was at full liberty to quash

any laws that he pleased; and, in a word, he contended "that the King of

England is an absolute king."

The Commons called upon the Lords to unite with them in punishing this

apologist, who, not content with selling his own birthright for a mess of

pottage, was endeavouring to sell that of the nation too. The case was

so flagrant that the Lords could not decline the challenge. And Bacon,

who had shortly before been the advocate of the royal prerogative, now

conducted the case for the Commons in the conference against Cowell, who

was sent to prison for a time; his book was suppressed by the king's

proclamation, poor James himself being obliged to condemn his own

champion.

Having triumphed in this particular, the Commons proceeded to much older

grievances. They demanded the abolition of that den of injustice and

extortion, the Court of High Commission, in which the king exercised that

unrestrained despotism which he claimed over the whole kingdom; where

men were sentenced and fined at the arbitrary will of the king and its

council, without jury or evidence admitted in their defence: but this

was an institution so dear to James's heart, that he would not listen to

any abatement of its power. They next complained of the growing abuse

of substituting royal proclamations for established law, "by reason of

which," said the Commons, "there is a general fear conceived and spread

amongst your majesty's people, that proclamations will, by degrees, grow

up and increase to the strength and nature of laws." To this James simply

replied that his proclamations should not exceed the warranty of law.

They further complained of the delay of the courts in granting writs of

_habeas corpus_ and prohibition, and of the encroachment of the Council

of Wales, which extended its jurisdiction over neighbouring counties

where it had no real authority; as well as of various monopolies, taxes

on public-houses and on sea-coal.

The licenses to public-houses he agreed to revoke, but he demanded a

perpetual revenue in lieu of the income thence derived. This the Commons

refused, alleging that he had no right to impose that tax in the first

instance; and they further demanded that the feudal burthens of tenure

by knights' service, wardships, and purveyance, should cease. As to the

first, James absolutely refused compliance, on the plea that he would not

reduce all his subjects, "rich and poor, noble and base, to hold their

lands in the same ignoble manner;" but as to wardships, the marriages of

infants and widows, and other odious services, including purveyance, he

was willing to barter them for a sum of money. The sum which he demanded

was three hundred thousand pounds per annum. The Commons only offered

one hundred thousand pounds, but after a long course of haggling, like

chapmen in a fair, the king descended to two hundred and twenty thousand

pounds, and the Commons rose to one hundred and eighty thousand pounds.

Here the matter paused till James moved a dissolution, when the Commons

advanced to two hundred thousand pounds, and the king accepted the sum.

But here again the king and his advocates had boasted so much of his

being above the law, and of his power to quash, of his own will, any

statute to which he had consented, that the Commons were cautious in

their proceedings, and they had moreover to determine out of what funds

this revenue should be raised. These discussions had now driven on the

Session to the middle of July, and it was agreed that they should vote

one subsidy, and one tenth and fifteenth for the present Session, and

defer the final settlement of the other grant till the next.

The interval was utilised by James and his ministers in attempts to

corrupt some of the members of the Opposition, and thus to enable him

to concede less and obtain more; but the Commons had employed the time

in weighing the slippery nature of the man with whom they had to deal.

His continual boasts of his superiority to all laws, and of an actually

divine power of dispensing with his most solemn obligations, made them

doubtful of the possibility of binding him to any terms; and the growing

extravagance and rapacity of both king and courtiers deepened their fears.

When they met they were in a far less compliant humour than when they

separated. They insisted on seeing the promised reforms before they voted

the two hundred thousand pounds. James was growing desperate for money;

his coffers were empty, and the officers of the Crown were clamorous

for their arrears of salary. He therefore sent for them to Whitehall,

and a deputation of about thirty members attended. The king demanded

of them whether they thought that he was really in want of money, as

his Treasurer and the Chancellor of the Exchequer had informed them?

"Whereto," says Winwood, "when Sir Francis Bacon had begun to answer

in a more extravagant style than his majesty did delight to hear, he

picked out Sir Henry Neville, commanding him to answer according to his

conscience. Thereupon Sir Henry Neville did directly answer that he

thought his majesty was in want. 'Then,' said the king, 'tell me whether

it belongeth to you, that are my subjects, to relieve me or not?' 'To

this,' quoth Sir Henry, 'I must answer with a distinction: where your

majesty's expense groweth by the commonwealth, we are bound to maintain

it, otherwise not.'" Sir Henry reminded the king that in this one

Parliament they had already given four subsidies and seven fifteenths,

which was more than any Parliament at any time had given, and yet they

had no relief of their grievances. James demanded what these grievances

were--as though he had not heard them enumerated often enough before--and

desired Sir Henry to give him a catalogue of them. Sir Henry adverted to

the difficulties of obtaining justice in courts of law, to the usurped

jurisdiction in the marches of Wales, and would have gone through the

whole list had not Sir Herbert Croft interrupted him.

[Illustration: THE STAR CHAMBER.]

Finding that nothing was to be drawn from the resolute House, James again

prorogued them for nine weeks, in order to try every means of drawing

over to him individual members. But these efforts were as abortive as the

former: the Commons were determined not to part with their money till

they had a guarantee for the redress of their grievances, and James about

this time lost his two right-hand men, Bancroft and Cecil. Bancroft, had

died in November, 1610, staunch to the last in his exhortations to James

not to give up the High Court of Commission; assuring him that though

the Lords had thrown out the Bill, the Commons would bring it in again,

and that nothing but unflinching firmness would defeat them. Cecil died

on the 24th of May, 1612. He was grievously chagrined at the failure of

his favourite scheme for setting the king above all his difficulties.

In default of that, the old expedient of the sale of Crown lands was

resorted to for the raising of money, and privy seals for loans of money

were despatched into different counties. Meanwhile James was subsisting

on a subsidy of six shillings in the pound granted by the clergy, and

both king and ministers were in terror lest the privy seals should be

"refused by the desperate hardness of the people." They raised, however,

one hundred and eleven thousand pounds.

The end of Cecil has been supposed to have been hastened by these

anxieties; but probably he was worn out by the incessant cares which

have pulled down other ministers besides him; for in his last moments he

said to Sir Walter Cope, "Ease and pleasures quake to hear of death; but

my life, full of cares and miseries, desireth to be dissolved." He had

sought benefit at Bath, but without effect, and died at Marlborough on

his return. Like his father, he had great talents, applied in a cold and

ungenerous manner; but with all his faults he was a great minister.

We must now introduce the story of a lady whose fate was very

hard--Arabella Stuart. Lady Arabella (born in 1577) was descended from

Henry VII.'s eldest daughter Margaret, like James himself, and therefore

was to him an object of suspicion. Her proximity to the Crown had drawn

upon her the attention of both princes and conspirators at various

times. When she was only about ten years of age, Elizabeth used to show

her at Court as the person she meant to make her heir. This she did to

provoke James, whose pretensions were nearly as odious to her as those

of his mother. But in after years Elizabeth treated her with extreme

severity. James, indeed, contributed to this, by asking her in marriage

for his favourite, Esmé Stuart, Duke of Lennox, who was Arabella's

cousin, also of the same royal descent. Elizabeth was extremely chagrined

at such a proposal, reprimanded James sharply, forbade the marriage,

and imprisoned the unoffending maiden. Again, Raleigh and Cobham were

accused on their trial of having designed to depose James and place her

on the throne in his stead. Lady Arabella did not wait to be questioned

on the subject, but on receiving a letter of such purport from Cobham,

immediately sent it to the king, and only laughed at the proposal. Again

her name was mentioned in the Gunpowder Plot. James does not seem to

have had any fear of her on these occasions. But he was more afraid of

aspirants to her hand than of conspirators; and had, no doubt, settled

in his mind that she should never marry. Like Elizabeth, he repulsed

all offers of the kind, both from subjects and foreign princes, lest

from the marriage should issue claimants to his throne. Cecil took care,

on the death of Elizabeth, to secure the person of Arabella till James

had been proclaimed and had taken possession of the throne. The king

himself appeared disposed to act liberally towards her, except in not

permitting her to marry. He settled a pension upon her, allowed her

apartments in the palace, and she was recognised while the Princess

Elizabeth was in her tutelage as first lady of the Court. The year after

James's accession, the King of Poland sent an ambassador to demand her in

marriage; but even Poland was not distant enough for royal fears. Next

came a proposal from Count Maurice, titular Duke of Guelders, but James

would not listen to it; and Lady Arabella, who was a clever woman, made

it her policy--both under Elizabeth and James--to appear averse from any

marriage whatever. She devoted herself to literature, poetry, and even

theology, which became fashionable at Court from the predilections of

James.

Queen Anne appears to have had a great regard for the Lady Arabella, who

was handsome, of a lively and affectionate disposition, and ready to

enter into all the taste for masques and pageants which distinguished

her royal mistress. She was, in fact, the great ornament of the Court of

James; but her attractions were only the more dangerous to her safety,

considering her descent. The feeling that she excited increased James's

alarm, and she was kept under the close surveillance of Elizabeth

Cavendish the Countess of Shrewsbury, who was her aunt. The countess

appears to have treated her with much harshness, and James to have

paid her salary very badly. On the whole, no situation, with all its

splendour, could be more miserable than that of Lady Arabella. No wonder,

then, that she sought to escape from it. In her childhood she had been

acquainted with Sir William Seymour, the son of Lord Beauchamp. They met

again at Court, and their early attachment was renewed and rapidly grew

into love. The Lady Arabella was now watched and harassed more than ever

by her shrewish guardian Lady Shrewsbury, and matters came to such a pass

between them that James was obliged to interfere. He paid up the arrears

of her pension to enable her to discharge her debts, and to soothe her

made her a present of a cupboard of plate, worth two hundred pounds. The

chief cause of Lady Arabella's discontent was supposed to arise from

her pressing necessities; but there was a deeper cause--the restraint

upon her affections; and it was not long before some officious Court spy

conveyed to James the alarming intelligence that there was an engagement

of marriage plighted between Seymour and Lady Arabella. Seymour was also

descended from Henry VII., and such a marriage in prospect was enough

to terrify James beyond conception. He instantly summoned the offenders

before his Council, where they were severely snubbed and forbidden to

marry without the king's permission. They both promised to abandon the

idea, but this was only to disarm suspicion till they could effect

their marriage. In July, 1610, it was discovered that they were already

wedded, and James issued an immediate order for their arrest. Seymour was

committed to the Tower, and Arabella to the keeping of Sir Thomas Parry

at Lambeth.

The youthful couple were so much pitied that they did not find it

difficult to meet. Seymour bribed his keeper so effectually that he

suffered him frequently to go out of the Tower, and he met Lady Arabella

in the garden at Lambeth, and even in the house, unknown to Sir Thomas

Parry. Meanwhile the friends of the young people were not inactive. They

used all the means they could imagine to soften the mind of the king

towards them; and the queen, who loved Arabella and received the most

eloquent letters from her, praying her to exert her influence in her

behalf, did her utmost to procure the liberation of her and her husband.

Unfortunately, whispers of their stolen interviews reached James, and

he sent instant orders to guard Seymour better, and to remove Lady

Arabella to Durham, where she was to be in the keeping of the bishop.

When the order reached Lady Arabella, she positively refused to go; but

the officers carried her forcibly out in her bed, placed her in a boat,

and rowed her up the river. In spite of her resistance, her keepers set

forward on their journey; but by the time that they reached Barnet, her

agitation of mind had thrown her into a fever, and the doctor declared

that nothing but the discontinuance of the journey could save her life.

He waited on the king himself and assured him of this. But though James

confessed that carrying her away in her bed was enough to make her ill

if she had been well, he was peremptory in his commands that she should

proceed. To Durham she should go, he said, if he were king. To this the

physician replied that the lady would obey if the king required it.

"Obedience!" repeated James; "is that required?" But when his first anger

was over he relented, and allowed her to remain for a month at Highgate

in the house of the Earl of Essex. There she was closely watched; but on

the 3rd of June, 1611, the very day that the Bishop of Durham set out

northward to prepare for her reception, she effected her escape.

The plan of flight to the Continent had been carefully concerted between

herself and her husband in the Tower, through the medium of two of

Seymour's friends. It was arranged that Arabella should get away in

male attire, and Seymour in the garb of a physician. A French vessel

was engaged to lie off Gravesend to receive the fugitives, and carry

them to the Continent. All was in readiness, and Arabella, says Winwood,

"disguising herselfe by drawing a great pair of French-fashioned hose

over her petticoats, putting on a man's doublet, a man-lyke peruque,

with long locks over her hair, a black hat, black cloake, russet bootes

with red tops, and a rapier by her syde, walked forth between three and

four o'clock with Mr. Markham. After they had gone on foot a mile and

a halfe to a sorry inne, where Crompton attended with their horses,

she grew very sicke and fainte; so as the ostler that held the styrrup

said that gentleman would hardly hold out to London. Yet being set on a

good gelding a-stryde in an unwonted fashion, the stirring of the horse

brought blood enough into her face, and so she rode on towards Blackwall."

Lady Arabella found boats and attendants ready to row her down to

Gravesend, where she expected to find her husband. But Seymour had not

been quite so expeditious in making his way out of the Tower. He had

indeed effected it, and was on his way, but Lady Arabella, on getting

on board, found that he had not arrived; and the French captain, aware

of the serious nature of his commission, grew afraid, and in spite of

Arabella's entreaties dropped down the river towards its mouth. Seymour,

on finding that the vessel had sailed without him, engaged the captain of

a collier for forty pounds to land him in Flanders.

No sooner was the news of Arabella's flight from Highgate conveyed

to Court, than the utmost consternation prevailed. A messenger was

despatched to the Tower to order the strictest surveillance of Seymour,

but the man brought back the appalling tidings that he also had escaped.

The terrors of a new conspiracy seized James and the courtiers. It was

soon asserted that it was a design of the King of Spain and the Papists;

that the fugitives were to be received in the Netherlands by the Spanish

commander, and were to be brought to London at the head of a Catholic

host.

Couriers were hurried off in all likely directions to intercept the

culprits, and the Thames was astir with ships and boats to discover them

on board any vessel there. In spite of this sharp pursuit, the collier

put Seymour safe on shore in Flanders; but Lady Arabella was not so

fortunate. The French vessel was chased and brought to in mid-channel.

After some resistance it was boarded, and the unhappy princess seized,

brought back, and secured in the Tower. Meanwhile James had written very

angry letters to the archduke of Austria and the authorities of the

Netherlands, as well as to the king and queen-regent of France, accusing

them roundly of being accessory to the plot, and demanding them to send

the fugitives back.

For a time Lady Arabella bore imprisonment better than could have been

expected. She declared that she did not mind captivity for herself, so

that her husband had escaped. Yet not the less did she appeal to the

generosity of James for her liberty, nor relax her efforts to that end

through the kind offices of the queen. But all such endeavours were

useless: James had had too great a fright to risk anything more. He sent

the lady word that as she had eaten of the forbidden fruit, she must now

pay the penalty of it. All hope of moving the relentless soul of the

royal pedant gradually forsook her, and then her splendidly sensitive

mind gave way. She became a pitiable lunatic, and died in her prison on

the 27th of September, 1615. James had thrown the Countess of Shrewsbury

into the Tower at the same time with the Lady Arabella, on suspicion of

being a party to the scheme; but that high-spirited lady refused to give

an answer to any interrogatories put to her, notwithstanding menaces of

the Star Chamber and heavy fines. On the death of Lady Arabella she was

set at liberty.

[Illustration: FLIGHT OF THE LADY ARABELLA STUART. (_See p._ 443.)]

In pursuing the fate of this ill-used lady to its close, we have passed

over another tragedy, that of the popular but dissipated King Henry IV.

of France. Notwithstanding his adoption of Catholicism, from motives of

policy, it was believed that his heart was still with the Protestant

cause, and the death of John, Duke of Cleves, Juliers, and Berg, which

occurred in 1609, gave him an opportunity of serving that interest

under the plea of political necessity. The Duke of Cleves had died

without issue, and the Emperor of Germany seized it as a fief of the

imperial crown. The Electors of Brandenburg and Saxony, and the Duke of

Neuburg, also laid claim to it. Jealousy of the already too powerful and

ambitious house of Austria combined against it the Protestant princes

of Germany and Holland, and they were joined by Henry of France on the

same political ground, whilst the King of Spain, the archduke, and other

Catholic and kindred princes, supported the claims of Austria. James of

England engaged to furnish four thousand infantry, and the King of France

the same. The Protestant princes of Germany and Holland were to supply

nine thousand foot and two thousand horse, and it was agreed that the

Elector of Brandenburg should be acknowledged as the real heir.

[Illustration: NOTRE DAME, CAUDEBEC.]

Meanwhile Henry IV. did not confine himself to his quota of four

thousand infantry. The moment appeared to him favourable for extending

his own territory and power, and he appeared at the head of a splendid

army of thirty thousand men, with a great train of artillery and camp

supplies. Rumour was very busy on the appearance of this great force,

that Henry was for apostatising a second time, or rather now going back

to his original faith; and the priests diligently propagated the belief

that he meant to make war on the Pope and restore Protestantism. These

representations seem to have excited the brain of a mad young friar, of

the name of Francis Ravaillac, who stabbed him in the streets of Paris,

three days before his intended departure for the campaign (May 14, 1610).

The murderer was put to the torture to force from him the names of his

accomplices or instigators; but he persisted to the last in denying that

he had any. Three times before had the life of Henry IV. been attacked

by assassins: in 1593 by Pierre Barrière, in 1597 by Pierre Ouen, and

in 1605 by Jean de l'Isle. Ravaillac succeeded, and suffered the reward

of his deed in a terrible death. This horrible tragedy renewed the

terror of the Catholics in England, and both the Parliament of England

and the Council of Scotland called on James to secure himself by fresh

persecution of them. The Scottish Council saw in the French assassins the

frogs foretold in the Revelation, to be sent out by the devil against the

head of the Church, and prayed the king to protect his precious life by

fresh guards while he indulged himself in hunting.

Whilst James was earnestly engaged in suppressing any rival claims to

the Crown by persecuting to death the Lady Arabella, he was equally busy

in endeavouring to secure a succession in his own family. Though he

persecuted the Catholics as a dangerous, sinful, and abominable body,

he had no objection whatever to marry his children to Catholic princes,

because they were by far the most considerable in Europe. Accordingly

he made overtures for the marriage of his son Henry, and his daughter

Elizabeth, both to France and Spain. Queen Anne was most bent on the

Spanish matches for both son and daughter, and was therefore vehemently

suspected of Popery, though her motives were the same as those of her

husband--the rank and prestige of the alliance.

Prince Henry was the darling of his mother and of the nation. In

appearance, temper, and aspirations the very opposite of his father. All

persons, and especially all princes, who die young, are remembered with

a peculiar affection; their virtues are exaggerated and live in memory

as the roots of brilliant hopes cut off by fate. Time has not allowed

the adverse influences of life and of royal power to corrupt them. Had

Henry VIII. died young, he would have left a regretted name as a model of

chivalric spirit and generous enthusiasm; yet we have no right to infer

that Henry Prince of Wales, the eldest son of James, would have developed

into such a character as the eighth Henry. He was a handsome, brave,

and right-minded youth of eighteen, possessed of none of the timidity

or the bookishness of his father, and very fond of all sorts of martial

exercises--pitching the bar, handling the pike, riding, and shooting with

the bow. Though extremely fond of horses, he was not, like his father,

addicted to the chase, revolting from its cruelty. He seemed to have set

before him as models Henry V. and the Black Prince; models which might

have led him to inflict serious evils on his country had he lived, by

the spirit of conquest. Young as he was, he displayed all the tastes of

such a hero. He fired off cannon with his own hands, and had new pieces

cast on improved models. He conversed with unceasing pleasure with

engineers and men who had seen distinguished service, and he imported the

finest horses from the Continent that could be procured. In his private

character he was serious, modest, and devout. He attended the best

preachers, and listened with a quiet sobriety in striking contrast to his

father, who was always excited when listening to a preacher and wanting

to preach himself. Henry abhorred profanity and swearing, and had a box

in each of his houses at Richmond, Nonsuch, and St. James's to receive

the fines for swearing from his household, which were rigorously levied,

the money being given to the poor.

As these traits became known, the people flocked after the prince in a

manner which much piqued his father, who could not help exclaiming--"Will

he bury me alive!" The Reformers conceived great hopes of him, and there

was a prophecy regarding him in every one's mouth:--

"Henry the Eighth pulled down abbeys and cells,

But Henry the Ninth shall pull down bishops and bells."

Had James succeeded in obtaining the Spanish Infanta for Henry, he would

have effectually neutralised this popularity. But though Henry did not

stubbornly oppose his father's plans, he is said to have declared amongst

his own friends that he had made up his mind never to marry a Popish

princess, and the Puritans had the firmest faith that he never would.

It was regarded as a good sign that the young prince was extremely

averse from his father's favourites, and especially from Carr, who

was rapidly rising, and had now been created Viscount Rochester. The

queen, who shared this aversion, strengthened him in it with all her

influence. But he was not destined to wear the crown of England: he was

now attacked with symptoms of premature decay. It was supposed that he

had grown too fast for his strength, having reached the stature of six

feet at seventeen, and his chivalrous exercises had been too violent

and imprudent for such rapid growth. He was accustomed to take his

exercises in the greatest heat of summer, to expose himself to all sorts

of weather, and to bathe for a long time together after supper. While

James was planning marriages for him, the prince was fast hastening

out of the world. The Spanish match still lingering, after years of

negotiation, James listened to a proposal of Mary de Medici, the widow of

Henry IV., and now Queen-Regent of France, for a wedding between Prince

Henry and the Princess Christine, the second daughter of France, on the

understanding that she should be educated as a Protestant. About the same

time James agreed to a marriage between his daughter Elizabeth and the

Protestant Elector Palatine. These marriages had been in accordance with

the policy of Cecil, who wished to make them the basis of a Protestant

alliance against the Catholic Powers. But the first of them was never

to take place. In the spring of 1612 the health of Prince Henry began

to fail. In the October of that year the Elector Palatine arrived in

England to complete his marriage with Elizabeth, who was still only

sixteen. Henry roused himself to receive his proposed brother-in-law; he

rode to town from Richmond, and most imprudently, in his infirm state of

health, engaged in the sports and pastimes of the occasion. On the 24th

of October he played a great match at tennis with the Count Henry of

Nassau in his shirt. He had been suffering from typhus already, and this

brought it to a crisis. He was seized in the night with a violent pain in

his head, and an oppressive languor; yet the next day, being Sunday, he

would rise and attend two services, one in his own chapel at St. James's,

and another at the king's in Whitehall. The text of the preacher at St.

James's was remarkable:--"Man, that is born of a woman, is of short

continuance and full of trouble." In the afternoon, after dinner, he was

compelled to yield to the complaint, and hastened home to bed. By the

29th he was so ill that there was great dismay amongst the people, and

this was immensely aggravated by a lunar rainbow, which appeared to span

that part of the Palace of St. James's where the sick prince lay. The

most fatal auguries were drawn from this phenomenon.

The fever now assumed a putrid form, and was declared by the medical men

highly infectious; and his parents and sister were debarred from entering

his room. He grew daily worse, was highly delirious, calling for his

clothes and his arms, and saying he must be gone. On the 5th of November,

the anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot, James was informed that all hope

was extinct. Unable to bear his feelings so near the scene of sorrow,

the king hastened away to Theobalds; but the queen would only retire to

Somerset House, whence she sent continual messengers to inquire after

her son's symptoms. The prince had entertained a romantic admiration of

Sir Walter Raleigh, declaring that no prince but his father would keep

such a bird in a cage, and he had joined with his mother in entreating

for his liberty. To Sir Walter the life or death of the prince was life

or death to himself. The agonised mother was now seized with a desperate

desire to obtain from Raleigh a nostrum which he possessed, and which she

had herself formerly taken in a fit of ague. Sir Walter sent it, with

the assurance that it would cure any mortal malady except poison. After

taking Raleigh's nostrum he seemed to revive for a time, but again became

worse, and expired at eight o'clock on Friday night, the 6th of November.

Perhaps a more extraordinary 5th of November was never passed than the

one preceding Henry's death. The people were assembled in dense crowds

around the palace, eagerly listening for news of the prince's condition,

while all around them were the noises--the firing, and the bonfires--of

the celebration of the Gunpowder Plot. They were still remaining there

the following day, and when the cry of the prince's servants was heard in

the palace on beholding him dead, the people groaned and wept in agony.

The Catholics, on their part, regarded the death of the first-born of the

royal house as a manifest judgment for the persecution of their Church.