JAMES I.
{1612.} This year the sudden death of Henry, prince of Wales, diffused
a universal grief throughout the nation. Though youth and royal birth,
both of them strong allurements, prepossess men mightily in favor of
the early age of princes, it is with peculiar fondness that historians
mention Henry, and, in every respect, his merit seems to have been
extraordinary. He had not reached his eighteenth year, and he already
possessed more dignity in his behavior, and commanded more respect, than
his father, with all his age, learning, and experience. Neither his high
fortune, nor his youth, had seduced him into any irregular pleasures:
business and ambition seem to have been his sole passion. His
inclinations, as well as exercises, were martial. The French ambassador,
taking leave of him, and asking his commands for France, found him
employed in the exercise of the pike: “Tell your king,” said he, “in
what occupation you left me engaged.”[*] He had conceived great affection
and esteem for the brave Sir Walter Raleigh. It was his saying, “Sure no
king but my father would keep such a bird in a cage.”[**]
* The French monarch had given particular orders to his
ministers to cultivate the prince’s friendship; who must
soon, said he, have chief authority in England, where the
king and queen are held in so little estimation. See Dep. de
la Boderie, vol. i. p. 402, 415; vol. ii p. 16, 349.
** Coke’s Detection, p. 37.
He seems indeed to have nourished too violent a contempt for the king,
on account of his pedantry and pusillanimity; and by that means struck
in with the restless and martial spirit of the English nation. Had he
lived, he had probably promoted the glory, perhaps not the felicity, of
his people. The unhappy prepossession which men commonly entertain
in favor of ambition, courage, enterprise, and other warlike virtues,
engages generous natures, who always love fame, in such pursuits all
destroy their own peace, and that of the rest of mankind.
Violent reports were propagated, as if Henry had been carried off by
poison; but the physicians, on opening his body, found no symptoms to
confirm such an opinion.[*] The bold and criminal malignity of men’s
tongues and pens spared not even the king on the occasion. But that
prince’s character seems rather to have failed in the extreme of
facility and humanity, than in that of cruelty and violence. His
indulgence to Henry was great, and perhaps imprudent, by giving him a
large and independent settlement, even in so early youth.
* Kennet, p. 690. Coke, p. 37. Welwood, p. 272
{1613.} The marriage of the princess Elizabeth with Frederic, elector
palatine, was finished some time after the death of the prince, and
served to dissipate the grief which arose on that melancholy event. But
this marriage, though celebrated with great joy and festivity, proved
itself an unhappy event to the king, as well as to his son-in-law,
and had ill consequences on the reputation and fortunes of both. The
elector, trusting to so great an alliance, engaged in enterprises
beyond his strength: and the king, not being able to support him in his
distress, lost entirely, in the end of his life, what remained of the
affections and esteem of his own subjects.
Except during sessions of parliament, the history of this reign may more
properly be called the history of the court, than that of the nation.
An interesting object had for some years engaged the attention of the
court; it was a favorite, and one beloved by James with so profuse and
unlimited an affection, as left no room for any rival or competitor.
About the end of the year 1609, Robert Carre, a youth of twenty years of
age, and of a good family in Scotland, arrived in London, after having
passed some time in his travels. All his natural accomplishments
consisted in good looks: all his acquired abilities in an easy air and
graceful demeanor. He had letters of recommendation to his countryman
Lord Hay; and that nobleman no sooner cast his eye upon him, than he
discovered talents sufficient to entitle him immediately to make a great
figure in the government. Apprised of the king’s passion for youth and
beauty, and exterior appearance, he studied how matters might be so
managed that this new object should make the strongest impression upon
him. Without mentioning him at court, he assigned him the office, at a
match of tilting, of presenting to the king his buckler and device; and
hoped that he would attract the attention of the monarch. Fortune proved
favorable to his design, by an incident which bore at first a contrary
aspect. When Carre was advancing to execute his office, his unruly horse
flung him, and broke his leg in the king’s presence. James approached
him with pity and concern: love and affection arose on the sight of his
beauty and tender years; and the prince ordered him immediately to be
lodged in the palace, and to be carefully attended. He himself, after
the tilting, paid him a visit in his chamber, and frequently returned
during his confinement. The ignorance and simplicity of the boy finished
the conquest begun by his exterior graces and accomplishments. Other
princes have been fond of choosing their favorites from among the lower
ranks of their subjects, and have reposed themselves on them with the
more unreserved confidence and affection, because the object has been
beholden to their bounty for every honor and acquisition: James was
desirous that his favorite should also derive from him all his sense,
experience, and knowledge. Highly conceited of his own wisdom, he
pleased himself with the fancy, that this raw youth, by his lessons and
instructions, would, in a little time, be equal to his sagest ministers,
and be initiated into all the profound mysteries of government, on which
he set so high a value. And as this kind of creation was more perfectly
his own work than any other, he seems to have indulged an unlimited
fondness for his minion, beyond even that which he bore to his own
children. He soon knighted him, created him Viscount Rochester, gave
him the garter, brought him into the privy council, and, though at first
without assigning him any particular office, bestowed on him the supreme
direction of all his business and political concerns. Agreeable to this
rapid advancement in confidence and honor, were the riches heaped upon
the needy favorite; and while Salisbury and all the wisest ministers
could scarcely find expedients sufficient to keep in motion the
overburdened machine of government, James, with unsparing hand, loaded
with treasures this insignificant and useless pageant.[*]
* Kennet, p. 685, 686, etc.
It is said, that the king found his pupil so ill educated as to be
ignorant even of the lowest rudiments of the Latin tongue; and that the
monarch, laying aside the sceptre, took the birch into his royal hand,
and instructed him in the principles of grammar. During the intervals
of this noble occupation, affairs of state, would be introduced; and the
stripling, by the ascendant which he had acquired, was now enabled to
repay on political, what he had received in grammatical instruction.
Such scenes, and such incidents, are the more ridiculous, though the
less odious, as the passion of James seems not to have contained in it
any thing criminal or flagitious. History charges herself willingly with
a relation of the great crimes, and still more with that of the great
virtues, of mankind; but she appears to fall from her dignity, when
necessitated to dwell on such frivolous events and ignoble personages.
The favorite was not, at first, so intoxicated with advancement, as not
to be sensible of his own ignorance and inexperience. He had recourse to
the assistance and advice of a friend; and he was more fortunate in his
choice than is usual with such pampered minions. In Sir Thomas Overbury
he met with a judicious and sincere counsellor; who, building all hopes
of his own preferment on that of the young favorite, endeavored to
instil into him the principles of prudence and discretion. By zealously
serving every body, Carre was taught to abate the envy which might
attend his sudden elevation: by showing a preference for the English,
he learned to escape the prejudices which prevailed against his country.
And so long as he was content to be ruled by Overbury’s friendly
counsels, he enjoyed--what is rare--the highest favor of the prince,
without being hated by the people.
To complete the measure of courtly happiness, nought was wanting but a
kind mistress; and, where high fortune concurred with all the graces of
youth and beauty, this circumstance could not be difficult to attain.
But it was here that the favorite met with that rock on which all his
fortunes were wrecked, and which plunged him forever into an abyss of
infamy, guilt, and misery.
No sooner had James mounted the throne of England, than he remembered
his friendship for the unfortunate families of Howard and Devereux, who
had suffered for their attachment to the cause of Mary and to his own.
Having restored young Essex to his blood and dignity, and conferred
the titles of Suffolk and Northampton on two brothers of the house of
Norfolk, he sought the further pleasure of uniting these families by the
marriage of the earl of Essex with Lady Frances Howard, daughter of the
earl of Suffolk. She was only thirteen, he fourteen years of age; and it
was thought proper, till both should attain the age of puberty that he
should go abroad, and pass some time in his travels.[*] He returned into
England after four years’ absence, and was pleased to find his countess
in the full lustre of beauty, and possessed of the love and admiration
of the whole court. But, when the earl approached, and claimed the
privileges of a husband, he met with nothing but symptoms of aversion
and disgust, and a flat refusal of any further familiarities. He applied
to her parents, who constrained her to attend him into the country, and
to partake of his bed: but nothing could overcome her rigid sullenness
and obstinacy; and she still rose from his side without having shared
the nuptial pleasures. Disgusted with reiterated denials, he at last
gave over the pursuit, and separating himself from her, thenceforth
abandoned her conduct to her own will and discretion.
Such coldness and aversion in Lady Essex arose not without an attachment
to another object. The favorite had opened his addresses, and had been
too successful in making impression on the tender heart of the young
countess.[**] She imagined that, so long as she refused the embraces
of Essex, she never could be deemed his wife; and that a separation and
divorce might still open the way for a new marriage with her beloved
Rochester.[***] Though their passion was so violent, and their
opportunities of intercourse so frequent, that they had already indulged
themselves in all the gratifications of love, they still lamented
their unhappy fate, while the union between them was not entire and
indissoluble. And the lover, as well as his mistress, was impatient till
their mutual ardor should be crowned by marriage.
* Kennet, p. 686.
** Kennet, p. 687.
*** State Trials, vol. i. p. 228.
So momentous an affair could not be concluded without consulting
Overbury, with whom Rochester was accustomed to share all his secrets.
While that faithful friend had considered his patron’s attachment to the
countess of Essex merely as an affair of gallantry, he had favored
its progress; and it was partly owing to the ingenious and passionate
letters which he dictated, that Rochester had met with such success in
his addresses. Like an experienced courtier, he thought that a conquest
of this nature would throw a lustre on the young favorite, and would
tend still further to endear him to James, who was charmed to hear of
the amours of his court, and listened with attention to every tale of
gallantry. But great was Overbury’s alarm, when Rochester mentioned his
design of marrying the countess; and he used every method to dissuade
his friend from so foolish an attempt. He represented how invidious, how
difficult an enterprise to procure her a divorce from her husband: how
dangerous, how shameful, to take into his own bed a profligate woman,
who, being married to a young nobleman of the first rank, had not
scrupled to prostitute her character, and to bestow favors on the object
of a capricious and momentary passion. And in the zeal of friendship,
he went so far as to threaten Rochester, that he would separate himself
forever from him, if he could so far forget his honor and his interest
as to prosecute the intended marriage.[*]
Rochester had the weakness to reveal this conversation to the countess
of Essex; and when her rage and fury broke out against Overbury, he had
also the weakness to enter into her vindictive projects, and to swear
vengeance against his friend, for the utmost instance which he could
receive of his faithful friendship. Some contrivance was necessary for
the execution of their purpose. Rochester addressed himself to the king;
and after complaining, that his own indulgence to Overbury had begotten
in him a degree of arrogance which was extremely disagreeable, he
procured a commission for his embassy to Russia; which he represented as
a retreat for his friend, both profitable and honorable. When consulted
by Overbury, he earnestly dissuaded him from accepting this offer,
and took on himself the office of satisfying the king, if he should
be anywise displeased with the refusal.[**] To the king again, he
aggravated the insolence of Overbury’s conduct, and obtained a warrant
for committing him to the Tower, which James intended as a slight
punishment for his disobedience. The lieutenant of the Tower was a
creature of Rochester’s, and had lately been put into the office for
this very purpose: he confined Overbury so strictly, that the unhappy
prisoner was debarred the sight even of his nearest relations, and no
communication of any kind was allowed with him during near six months
which he lived in prison.
* State Trials, vol. i. p. 235, 236, 252. Franklyn, p. 14.
** State Trials, vol. i. p. 236, 237, etc.
This obstacle being removed, the lovers pursued their purpose; and
the king himself, forgetting the dignity of his character, and his
friendship for the family of Essex, entered zealously into the project
of procuring the countess a divorce from her husband. Essex also
embraced the opportunity of separating himself from a bad woman, by whom
he was hated; and he was willing to favor their success by any honorable
expedient. The pretence for a divorce was his incapacity to fulfil the
conjugal duties; and he confessed that, with regard to the countess,
he was conscious of such an infirmity, though he was not sensible of it
with regard to any other woman. In her place, too, it is said, a young
virgin was substituted under a mask, to undergo a legal inspection by
a jury of matrons. After such a trial, seconded by court influence, and
supported by the ridiculous opinion of fascination or witchcraft, the
sentence of divorce was pronounced between the earl of Essex and his
countess.[*] And, to crown the scene, the king, solicitous lest the lady
should lose any rank by her new marriage, bestowed on his minion the
title of earl of Somerset.
Notwithstanding this success, the countess of Somerset was not satisfied
till she should further satiate her revenge on Overbury: and she engaged
her husband, as well as her uncle, the earl of Northampton, in the
atrocious design of taking him off secretly by poison. Fruitless
attempts were reiterated by weak poisons; but at last they gave him one
so sudden and violent, that the symptoms were apparent to every one
who approached him.[**] His interment was hurried on with the greatest
precipitation; and though a strong suspicion immediately prevailed in
the public, the full proof of the crime was not brought to light till
some years after.
* State Trials, vol. i. p. 223, 224, etc.
** Franklyn’s Annais. p. 2, 3, etc.
The fatal catastrophe of Overbury increased or begot the suspicion
that the prince of Wales had been carried off by poison given him
by Somerset. Men considered not that the contrary inference was much
juster. If Somerset was so great a novice in this detestable art,
that, during the course of five months, a man who was his prisoner and
attended by none but his emissaries, could not be despatched but in so
bungling a manner, how could it be imagined, that a young prince, living
in his own court, surrounded by his own friends and domestics, could be
exposed to Somerset’s attempts, and be taken off by so subtile a poison,
if such a one exist, as could elude the skill of the most experienced
physicians?
The ablest minister that James ever possessed, the earl of Salisbury,
was dead.[*] Suffolk, a man of slender capacity, had succeeded him
in his office; and it was now his task to supply, from an exhausted
treasury, the profusion of James and of his young favorite. The title
of baronet, invented by Salisbury, was sold; and two hundred patents of
that species of knighthood were disposed of for so many thousand pounds;
each rank of nobility had also its price affixed to it:[**] privy
seals were circulated to the amount of two hundred thousand pounds:
benevolences were exacted to the amount of fifty-two thousand
pounds:[***] and some monopolies, of no great value, were erected.
But all these expedients proved insufficient to supply the king’s
necessities; even though he began to enter into some schemes for
retrenching his expenses.[****] However small the hopes of success, a
new parliament must be summoned, and this dangerous expedient--for such
it was now become--once more be put to trial.
{1614.} When the commons were assembled, they discovered an
extraordinary alarm, on account of the rumor which was spread abroad
concerning “undertakers.”[v] It was reported, that several persons,
attached to the king, had entered into a confederacy; and having laid a
regular plan for the new elections, had distributed their interest all
over England, and had undertaken to secure a majority for the court. So
ignorant were the commons, that they knew not this incident to be the
first infallible symptom of any regular or established liberty. Had they
been contented to follow the maxims of their predecessors, who, as the
earl of Salisbury said to the last parliament, never, but thrice in
six hundred years, refused a supply,[v*] they needed not dread that the
crown should ever interest itself in their elections. Formerly the kings
even insisted, that none of their household should be elected members;
and though the charter was afterwards declared void, Henry VI., from his
great favor to the city of York, conferred a peculiar privilege on its
citizens, that they should be exempted from this trouble.[v**]
* 14th of May, 1612.
** Franklyn, p. 11, 33.
*** Franklyn, p. 10.
**** Franklyn, p. 49.
v Parliament. Hist. vol. v. p. 286. Kennet, p. 696. Journ.
12th April; 2d May, 1614, etc. Franklyn, p. 48.
v* Journ. 17th Feb. 1609. It appears, however, that
Salisbury was somewhat mistaken in this fact; and if the
kings were not oftener refused supply by the parliament, it
was only because they would not often expose themselves to
the hazard of being refused: but it in certain that English
parliaments did anciently carry their frugality to an
extreme, and seldom could be prevailed upon to give the
necessary support to government.
v** Coke’s Institutes, part iv. chap. I, of Charters of
Exemption.
It is well known, that, in ancient times, a seat in the house being
considered as a burden, attended neither with honor nor profit, it
was requisite for the counties and boroughs to pay fees to their
representatives. About this time, a seat began to be regarded as an
honor, and the country gentlemen contended for it; though the practice
of levying wages for the parliament men was not altogether discontinued.
It was not till long after, when liberty was thoroughly established, and
popular assemblies entered into every branch of public business, that
the members began to join profit to honor, and the crown found it
necessary to distribute among them all the considerable offices of the
kingdom.
So little skill, or so small means, had the courtiers in James’s reign
for managing elections, that this house of commons showed rather a
stronger spirit of liberty than the foregoing; and instead of entering
upon the business of supply, as urged by the king, who made them several
liberal offers of grace,[*] they immediately resumed the subject which
had been opened last parliament, and disputed his majesty’s power
of levying new customs and impositions, by the mere authority of his
prerogative. It is remarkable, that, in their debates on this subject,
the courtiers frequently pleaded, as a precedent, the example of all
the other hereditary monarchs in Europe, and particularly mentioned the
kings of France and Spain; nor was this reasoning received by the house
either with surprise or indignation.[**] The members of the opposite
party either contented themselves with denying the justness of the
inference, or they disputed the truth of the observation.[***] And a
patriot member in particular, Sir Roger Owen, even in arguing against
the impositions, frankly allowed, that the king of England was
endowed with as ample a power and prerogative as any prince in
Christendom.[****] The nations on the continent, we may observe, enjoyed
still, in that age, some small remains of liberty; and the English were
possessed of little more.
* Journ. 11th April, 1614.
** Journ. 21st May, 1614.
*** Journ. 12th, 21st May, 1614.
**** Journ. 18th April, 1614.
The commons applied to the lords for a conference with regard to the
new impositions. A speech of Neile, bishop of Lincoln, reflecting on the
lower house, begat some altercation with the peers;[*] [53] and the
king seized the opportunity of dissolving, immediately, with great
indignation, a parliament which had shown so firm a resolution of
retrenching his prerogative, without communicating, in return, the
smallest supply to his necessities. He carried his resentment so far,
as even to throw into prison some of the members who had been the most
forward in their opposition to his measures.[**] In vain did he plead,
in excuse for this violence, the example of Elizabeth, and other
princes of the line of Tudor, as well as Plantagenet. The people and
the parliament, without abandoning forever all their liberties and
privileges, could acquiesce in none of these precedents, how ancient and
frequent soever. And were the authority of such precedents admitted, the
utmost that could be inferred is, that the constitution of England was,
at that time, an inconsistent fabric, whose jarring and discordant parts
must soon destroy each other, and from the dissolution of the old, beget
some new form of civil government, more uniform and consistent.
* See note AAA, at the end of the volume.
** Kennet, p. 696.
In the public and avowed conduct of the king and the house of commons,
throughout this whole reign, there appears sufficient cause of quarrel
and mutual disgust; yet are we not to imagine that this was the sole
foundation of that jealousy which prevailed between them. During debates
in the house, it often happened that a particular member, more ardent
and zealous than the rest, would display the highest sentiments of
liberty, which the commons contented themselves to hear with silence
and seeming approbation; and the king, informed of these harangues,
concluded the whole house to be infected with the same principles, and
to be engaged in a combination against his prerogative. The king, on
the other hand, though he valued himself extremely on his kingcraft,
and perhaps was not altogether incapable of dissimulation, seems to have
been very little endowed with the gift of secrecy; but openly at his
table, in all companies, inculcated those monarchical tenets which he
had so strongly imbibed. Before a numerous audience, he had expressed
himself with great disparagement of the common law of England, and had
given the preference, in the strongest terms, to the civil law: and for
this indiscretion he found himself obliged to apologize, in a speech to
the former parliament.[*] As a specimen of his usual liberty of talk,
we may mention a story, though it passed some time after, which we
meet with in the life of Waller, and which that poet used frequently to
repeat. When Waller was young, he had the curiosity to go to court; and
he stood in the circle, and saw James dine; where, among other company,
there sat at table two bishops, Neile and Andrews. The king proposed
aloud this question, Whether he might not take his subjects’ money, when
he needed it, without all this formality of parliament? Neile replied,
“God forbid you should not: for you are the breath of our nostrils.”
Andrews declined answering, and said he was not skilled in parliamentary
cases: but upon the king’s urging him, and saying he would admit of no
evasion, the bishop replied pleasantly, “Why, then, I think your majesty
may lawfully take my brother Neile’s money; for he offers it.”[**]
{1615.} The favorite had hitherto escaped the inquiry of justice; but he
had not escaped that still voice which can make itself be heard amidst
all the hurry and flattery of a court, and astonishes the criminal with
a just representation of his most secret enormities. Conscious of the
murder of his friend, Somerset received small consolation from the
enjoyments of love, or the utmost kindness and indulgence of his
sovereign. The graces of his youth gradually disappeared, the gayety
of his manners was obscured, his politeness and obliging behavior were
changed into sullenness and silence. And the king, whose affections had
been engaged by these superficial accomplishments, began to estrange
himself from a man who no longer contributed to his amusement.
The sagacious courtiers observed the first symptoms of this disgust:
Somerset’s enemies seized the opportunity, and offered a new minion to
the king. George Villiers, a youth of one-and-twenty, younger brother of
a good family, returned at this time from his travels, and was remarked
for the advantages of a handsome person, genteel air, and fashionable
apparel. At a comedy, he was purposely placed full in James’s eye,
and immediately engaged the attention, and, in the same instant, the
affections of that monarch.[***] Ashamed of his sudden attachment, the
king endeavored, but in vain, to conceal the partiality which he felt
for the handsome stranger; and he employed all his profound politics to
fix him in his service, without seeming to desire it.
* King James’s Works, p. 532.
** Preface to Waller’s Works.
*** Franklyn, p. 50. Kennet, vol. ii. p. 698.
He declared his resolution not to confer any office on him, unless
entreated by the queen; and he pretended, that it should only be in
complaisance to her choice he would agree to admit him near his person.
The queen was immediately applied to; but she, well knowing the extreme
to which the king carried these attachments, refused, at first, to lend
her countenance to this new passion. It was not till entreated by Abbot,
archbishop of Canterbury, a decent prelate, and one much prejudiced
against Somerset, that she would condescend to oblige her husband,
by asking this favor of him.[*] And the king, thinking now that all
appearances were fully saved, no longer constrained his affection, but
immediately bestowed the office of cup-bearer on young Villiers.
* Coke, p. 46, 47. Rush, vol. i. p. 456.
The whole court was thrown into parties between the two minions: while
some endeavored to advance the rising fortunes of Villiers, others
deemed it safer to adhere to the established credit of Somerset. The
king himself, divided between inclination and decorum, increased the
doubt and ambiguity of the courtiers; and the stern jealousy of the old
favorite, who refused every advance of friendship from his rival, begat
perpetual quarrels between their several partisans. But the discovery
of Somerset’s guilt in the murder of Overbury at last decided the
controversy, and exposed him to the ruin and infamy which he so well
merited.
An apothecary’s apprentice, who had been employed in making up the
poisons, having retired to Flushing, began to talk very freely of the
whole secret; and the affair at last came to the ears of Trumbal, the
king’s envoy in the Low Countries. By his means, Sir Ralph Winwood,
secretary of state, was informed; and he immediately carried the
intelligence to James. The king, alarmed and astonished to find such
enormous guilt in a man whom he had admitted into his bosom, sent for
Sir Edward Coke, chief justice, and earnestly recommended to him the
most rigorous and unbiased scrutiny. This injunction was executed with
great industry and severity: the whole labyrinth of guilt was carefully
unravelled: the lesser criminals, Sir Jervis Elvis, lieutenant of the
Tower, Franklin, Weston, Mrs. Turner, were first tried and condemned:
Somerset and his countess were afterwards found guilty. Northampton’s
death, a little before, had saved him from a like fate.
It may not be unworthy of remark, that Coke, in the trial of Mrs.
Turner, told her that she was guilty of the seven deadly sins: she was
a whore, a bawd, a sorcerer, a witch, a Papist, a felon, and
a murderer.[*] And, what may more surprise us, Bacon, then
attorney-general, took care to observe, that poisoning was a Popish
trick.[**] Such were the bigoted prejudices which prevailed: poisoning
was not of itself sufficiently odious, if it were not represented as a
branch of Popery. Stowe tells us, that when the king came to Newcastle,
on his first entry into England, he gave liberty to all the prisoners,
except those who were confined for treason, murder, and Papistry. When
one considers these circumstances, that furious bigotry of the
Catholics which broke out in the gunpowder conspiracy, appears the less
surprising.
All the accomplices in Overbury’s murder received the punishment due to
their crime: but the king bestowed a pardon on the principals, Somerset
and the countess. It must be confessed, that James’s fortitude had been
highly laudable, had he persisted in his first intention of consigning
over to severe justice all the criminals: but let us still beware of
blaming him too harshly, if, on the approach of the fatal hour, he
scrupled to deliver into the hands of the executioner persons whom he
had once favored with his most tender affections. To soften the rigor
of their fate, after some years’ imprisonment, he restored them to their
liberty, and conferred on them a pension, with which they retired, and
languished out old age in infamy and obscurity. Their guilty loves were
turned into the most deadly hatred; and they passed many years together
in the same house, without any intercourse or correspondence with each
other.[***]
Several historians,[****] in relating these events, have insisted much
on the dissimulation of James’s behavior, when he delivered Somerset
into the hands of the chief justice; on the insolent menaces of that
criminal; on his peremptory refusal to stand a trial; and on the extreme
anxiety of the king during the whole progress of this affair.
* State Trials, vol. i. p. 230.
** State Trials, vol. i. p. 242.
*** Kennet, p. 699.
**** Coke, Weldon, etc.
Allowing all these circumstances to be true, of which some are
suspicious, if not palpably false,[*] the great remains of tenderness
which James still felt for Somerset, may, perhaps, be sufficient to
account for them. That favorite was high-spirited, and resolute rather
to perish than live under the infamy to which he was exposed. James was
sensible, that the pardoning of so great a criminal, which was of itself
invidious, would become still more unpopular, if his obstinate and
stubborn behavior on his trial should augment the public hatred against
him.[**] At least, the unreserved confidence in which the king had
indulged his favorite for several years, might render Somerset master of
so many secrets, that it is impossible, without further light, to assign
the particular reason of that superiority which, it is said, he appeared
so much to assume.
The fall of Somerset, and his banishment from court, opened the way for
Villiers to mount up at once to the full height of favor, of honors,
and of riches. Had James’s passion been governed by common rules of
prudence, the office of cup-bearer would have attached Villiers to his
person, and might well have contented one of his age and family; nor
would any one, who was not cynically austere, have much censured the
singularity of the king’s choice in his friends and favorites. But such
advancement was far inferior to the fortune which he intended for his
minion. In the course of a few years, he created him Viscount Villiers,
earl, marquis, and duke of Buckingham, knight of the garter, master of
the horse, chief justice in eyre, warden of the cinque ports, master of
the king’s bench office, steward of Westminster, constable of Windsor,
and lord high admiral of England. His mother obtained the title of
countess of Buckingham: his brother was created Viscount Purbeck; and
a numerous train of needy relations were all pushed up into credit and
authority. And thus the fond prince, while he meant to play the tutor to
his favorite, and to train him up in the rules of prudence and politics,
took an infallible method, by loading him with premature and exorbitant
honors, to render him, forever, rash, precipitate, and insolent.
* See Biog. Brit, article Coke, p. 1384.
** Bacon, vol.iv. p. 617.
*** Franklyn, p. 30. Clarendon, 8vo. edit. vol. i. p. 10
{1616.} A young minion to gratify with pleasure, a necessitous family to
supply with riches, were enterprises too great for the empty exchequer
of James. In order to obtain a little money, the cautionary towns must
be delivered up to the Dutch; a measure which has been severely blamed
by almost all historians; and I may venture to affirm, that it has been
censured much beyond its real weight and importance.
When Queen Elizabeth advanced money for the support of the infant
republic, besides the view of securing herself against the power and
ambition of Spain, she still reserved the prospect of reimbursement;
and she got consigned into her hands the three important fortresses of
Flushing, the Brille, and Rammekins, as pledges for the money due to
her. Indulgent to the necessitous condition of the states, she agreed
that the debt should bear no interest; and she stipulated, that if ever
England should make a separate peace with Spain, she should pay the
troops which garrisoned those fortresses.[*]
After the truce was concluded between Spain and the United Provinces,
the states made an agreement with the king, that the debt, which then
amounted to eight hundred thousand pounds, should be discharged by
yearly payments of forty thousand pounds; and as five years had elapsed,
the debt was now reduced to six hundred thousand pounds; and in
fifteen years more, if the truce were renewed, it would be finally
extinguished.[**]
* Rymer, tom. xvi. p. 341. Winwood, vol. ii. p. 351.
** Sir Dudley Carleton’s Letters, p. 27, 28.
But of this sum, twenty-six thousand pounds a year were expended on the
pay of the garrisons: the remainder alone accrued to the king: and the
states, weighing these circumstances, thought that they made James a
very advantageous offer, when they expressed their willingness, on the
surrender of the cautionary towns to pay him immediately two hundred and
fifty thousand pounds, and to incorporate the English garrisons in their
army. It occurred also to the king, that even the payment of the forty
thousand pounds a year was precarious, and depended on the accident that
the truce should be renewed between Spain and the republic: if war broke
out, the maintenance of the garrisons lay upon England alone; a burden
very useless, and too heavy for the slender revenues of that kingdom:
that even during the truce, the Dutch, straitened by other expenses,
were far from being regular in their payments; and the garrisons were at
present in danger of mutinying for want of subsistence: that the annual
sum of fourteen thousand pounds, the whole saving on the Dutch payments,
amounted, in fifteen years, to no more than two hundred and ten thousand
pounds; whereas two hundred and fifty thousand pounds were offered
immediately, a larger sum; and if money be computed at ten per cent.,
the current interest more than double the sum to which England was
entitled:[*] that if James waited till the whole debt were discharged,
the troops which composed the garrisons remained a burden upon him, and
could not be broken, without receiving some consideration for their past
services: that the cautionary towns were only a temporary restraint
upon the Hollanders; and, in the present emergence, the conjunction of
interest between England and the republic was so intimate as to render
all other ties superfluous; and no reasonable measures for mutual
support would be wanting from the Dutch, even though freed from the
dependence of these garrisons: that the exchequer of the republic was at
present very low, insomuch that they found difficulty, now that the
aids of France were withdrawn, to maintain themselves in that posture
of defence which was requisite during the truce with Spain: and that the
Spaniards were perpetually insisting with the king on the restitution of
these towns, as belonging to their crown; and no cordial alliance could
ever be made with that nation, while they remained in the hands of the
English.[**] These reasons, together with his urgent wants, induced the
king to accept of Caron’s offer; and he evacuated the cautionary towns,
which held the states in a degree of subjection, and which an ambitious
and enterprising prince would have regarded as his most valuable
possessions. This is the date of the full liberty of the Dutch
commonwealth.
* An annuity of fourteen thousand pounds during fifteen
years, money being at ten per cent., is worth, on
computation, only one hundred and six thousand five hundred
pounds; whereas the king received two hundred and fifty
thousand pounds. Yet the bargain was good for the Dutch, as
well as the king; because they were both of them freed from
the maintenance of useless garrisons.
** Rushworth, vol. i. p. 3.
{1617.} When the crown of England devolved on James, it might have been
foreseen by the Scottish nation, that the independence of their kingdom,
the object for which their ancestors had shed so much blood, would now
be lost; and that, if both states persevered in maintaining separate
laws and parliaments, the weaker would more sensibly feel the
subjection, than if it had been totally subdued by force of arms.
But these views did not generally occur. The glory of having given a
sovereign to their powerful enemy, the advantages of present peace and
tranquillity, the riches acquired from the munificence of their master;
these considerations secured their dutiful obedience to a prince who
daily gave such sensible proofs of his friendship and partiality towards
them. Never had the authority of any king who resided among them, been
so firmly established as was that of James, even when absent; and as
the administration had been hitherto conducted with great order and
tranquillity, there had happened no occurrence to draw thither our
attention. But this summer the king was resolved to pay a visit to
his native country, in order to renew his ancient friendships and
connections, and to introduce that change of ecclesiastical discipline
and government on which he was extremely intent. The three chief points
of this kind, which James proposed to accomplish by his journey to
Scotland, were the enlarging of episcopal authority, the establishing of
a few ceremonies in public worship, and the fixing of a superiority in
the civil above the ecclesiastical jurisdiction.
But it is an observation suggested by all history, and by none more than
by that of James and his successor, that the religious spirit, when
it mingles with faction, contains in it something supernatural and
unaccountable; and that, in its operations upon society, effects
correspond less to their known causes than is found in any other
circumstance of government; a reflection which may at once afford
a source of blame against such sovereigns as lightly innovate in so
dangerous an article, and of apology for such as, being engaged in an
enterprise of that nature, are disappointed of the expected event, and
fail in their undertakings.
When the Scottish nation was first seized with that zeal for
reformation, which, though it caused such disturbance during the time,
has proved so salutary in the consequences, the preachers, assuming a
character little inferior to the prophetic or apostolical, disdained
all subjection to the spiritual rulers of the church, by whom their
innovations were punished and opposed. The revenues of the dignified
clergy, no longer considered as sacred, were either appropriated by
the present possessors, or seized by the more powerful barons; and what
remained, after mighty dilapidations, was, by act of parliament, annexed
to the crown. The prelates, however, and abbots, maintained their
temporal jurisdictions and their seats in parliament; and though
laymen were sometimes endowed with ecclesiastical titles, the church,
notwithstanding its frequent protestations to the contrary, was still
supposed to be represented by those spiritual lords in the states of the
kingdom. After many struggles, the king, even before his accession
to the throne of England, had acquired sufficient influence over
the Scottish clergy, to extort from them an acknowledgment of the
parliamentary jurisdiction of bishops; though attended with many
precautions, in order to secure themselves against the spiritual
encroachments of that order.[*] When king of England, he engaged them,
though still with great reluctance on their part, to advance a
step further, and to receive the bishops as perpetual presidents
or moderators in their ecclesiastical synods; reiterating their
protestations against all spiritual jurisdiction of the prelates, and
all controlling power over the presbyters.[**] And by such gradual
innovations, the king flattered himself that he should quietly introduce
episcopal authority: but as his final scope was fully seen from the
beginning, every new advance gave fresh occasion of discontent, and
aggravated, instead of softening, the abhorrence entertained against the
prelacy.
* 1598.
** 1606.
What rendered the king’s aim more apparent, were the endeavors which, at
the same time, he used to introduce into Scotland some of the ceremonies
of the church of England: the rest, it was easily foreseen, would
soon follow. The fire of devotion, excited by novelty, and inflamed by
opposition, had so possessed the minds of the Scottish reformers, that
all rites and ornaments, and even order of worship, were disdainfully
rejected as useless burdens; retarding the imagination in its rapturous
ecstasies, and cramping the operations of that divine spirit by
which they supposed themselves to be animated. A mode of worship
was established, the most naked and most simple imaginable; one that
borrowed nothing from the senses, but reposed itself entirely on the
contemplation of that divine essence which discovers itself to the
understanding only. This species of devotion, so worthy of the Supreme
Being, but so little suitable to human frailty, was observed to occasion
great disturbances in the breast, and in many respects to confound all
rational principles of conduct and behavior. The mind, straining for
these extraordinary raptures, reaching them by short glances, sinking
again under its own weakness, rejecting all exterior aid of pomp and
ceremony, was so occupied in this inward life, that It fled from every
intercourse of society, and from every cheerful amusement which could
soften or humanize the character. It was obvious to all discerning eyes,
and had not escaped the king’s, that, by the prevalence of fanaticism,
a gloomy and sullen disposition established itself among the people;
a spirit obstinate and dangerous; independent and disorderly; animated
equally with a contempt of authority, and a hatred to every other mode
of religion, particularly to the Catholic. In order to mellow these
humors, James endeavored to infuse a small tincture of ceremony into the
national worship, and to introduce such rites as might, in some degree,
occupy the mind, and please the senses, without departing too far from
that simplicity by which the reformation was distinguished. The finer
arts too, though still rude in these northern kingdoms, were employed
to adorn the churches; and the king’s chapel, in which an organ was
erected, and some pictures and statues displayed, was proposed as a
model to the rest of the nation. But music was grating to the
prejudiced ears of the Scottish; clergy; sculpture and painting appeared
instruments of idolatry the surplice was a rag of Popery; and every
motion or gesture prescribed by the liturgy, was a step towards that
spiritual Babylon, so much the object of their horror and aversion.
Every thing was deemed impious but their own mystical comments on the
Scriptures, which they idolized, and whose Eastern prophetic style they
employed in every common occurrence.
It will not be necessary to give a particular account of the ceremonies
which the king was so intent to establish. Such institutions, for a
time, are esteemed either too divine to have proceeded from any other
being than the Supreme Creator of the universe, or too diabolical to
have been derived from any but an infernal demon. But no sooner is the
mode of the controversy past, than they are universally discovered to be
of so little importance, as scarcely to be mentioned with decency amidst
the ordinary course of human transactions. It suffices here to remark,
that the rites introduced by James regarded the kneeling at the
sacrament, private communion, private baptism, confirmation of children,
and the observance of Christmas and other festivals.[*]
* Franklyn, p. 25. Spotswood.
The acts establishing these ceremonies were afterwards known by the name
of the Articles of Perth, from the place where they were ratified by the
assembly.
A conformity of discipline and worship between the churches of England
and Scotland, which was James’s aim, he never could hope to establish,
but by first procuring an acknowledgment of his own authority in all
spiritual causes; and nothing could be more contrary to the practice as
well as principles of the Presbyterian clergy. The ecclesiastical courts
possessed the power of pronouncing excommunication; and that sentence,
besides the spiritual consequences supposed to follow from it, was
attended with immediate effects of the most important nature. The person
excommunicated was shunned by every one as profane and impious; and his
whole estate, during his lifetime, and all his movables, forever, were
forfeited to the crown. Nor were the previous steps requisite before
pronouncing this sentence, formal or regular, in proportion to the
weight of it. Without accuser, without summons, without trial, any
ecclesiastical court, however inferior, sometimes pretended, in a
summary manner, to denounce excommunication, for any cause, and
against any person, even though he lived not within the bounds of
their jurisdiction.[*] And, by this means, the whole tyranny of the
inquisition, though without its order, was introduced into the kingdom.
But the clergy were not content with the unlimited jurisdiction which
they exercised in ecclesiastical matters: they assumed a censorial power
over every part of administration; and, in all their sermons, and even
prayers, mingling politics with religion, they inculcated the most
seditious and most turbulent principles. Black, minister of St.
Andrew’s, went so far,[**] in a sermon, as to pronounce all kings
the devil’s children; he gave the queen of England the appellation of
atheist; he said, that the treachery of the king’s heart was now fully
discovered; and in his prayers for the queen he used these words: “We
must pray for her for the fashion’s sake, but we have no cause: she
will never do us any good.” When summoned before the privy council,
he refused to answer to a civil court for any thing delivered from the
pulpit, even though the crime of which he was accused was of a civil
nature. The church adopted his cause. They raised a sedition in
Edinburgh.[***]
* Spotswood.
** 1596.
*** 17th Dec. 1596.
The king, during some time, was in the hands of the enraged populace;
and it was not without courage, as well as dexterity, that he was able
to extricate himself.[*] A few days after, a minister, preaching in the
principal church of that capital, said, that the king was possessed with
a devil; and that, one devil being expelled, seven worse had entered in
his place.[**] To which he added, that the subjects might lawfully rise,
and take the sword out of his hand. Scarcely, even during the darkest
night of Papal superstition, are there found such instances of priestly
encroachments, as the annals of Scotland present to us during that
period.
By these extravagant stretches of power, and by the patient conduct of
James, the church began to lose ground, even before the king’s accession
to the throne of England; but no sooner had that event taken place, than
he made the Scottish clergy sensible that he was become the sovereign
of a great kingdom, which he governed with great, authority. Though
formerly he would have thought himself happy to have made a fair
partition with them of the civil and ecclesiastical authority, he was
now resolved to exert a supreme jurisdiction in church as well as state,
and to put an end to their seditious practices. An assembly had been
summoned at Aberdeen;[***] but, on account of his journey to London, he
prorogued it to the year following. Some of the clergy, disavowing
his ecclesiastical supremacy, met at the time first appointed,
notwithstanding his prohibition. He threw them into prison. Such of them
as submitted, and acknowledged their error, were pardoned. The rest were
brought to their trial. They were condemned for high treason. The
king gave them their lives, but banished them the kingdom. Six of them
suffered this penalty.[****]
The general assembly was afterwards induced[v] to acknowledge the king’s
authority in summoning ecclesiastical courts, and to submit to the
jurisdiction and visitation of the bishops Even their favorite sentence
of excommunication was declared invalid, unless confirmed by the
ordinary. The king recommended to the inferior courts the members whom
they should elect to this assembly; and every thing was conducted in it
with little appearance of choice and liberty.[v*]
* Spotswood.
** Spotswood.
*** July, 1604.
**** Spotswood.
V 6th June, 1610.
v* Spotswood.
By his own prerogative, likewise, which he seems to have stretched
on this occasion, the king erected a court of high commission,[*] in
imitation of that which was established in England. The bishops and a
few of the clergy, who had been summoned, willingly acknowledged this
court; and it proceeded immediately upon business, as if its authority
had been grounded on the full consent of the whole legislature.
But James reserved the final blow for the time when he should himself
pay a visit to Scotland. He proposed to the parliament, which was then
assembled, that they should enact, that “whatever his majesty should
determine in the external government of the church, with the consent of
the archbishops, bishops, and a competent number of the ministry, should
have the force of law.”[**] What number should be deemed competent was
not determined; and their nomination was left entirely to the king: so
that his ecclesiastical authority, had this bill passed, would have
been established in its full extent. Some of the clergy protested. They
apprehended, they said, that the purity of their church would, by means
of this new authority, be polluted with all the rites and liturgy of
the church of England. James, dreading clamor and opposition dropped the
bill, which had already passed the lords of articles; and asserted,
that the inherent prerogative of the crown contained more power than was
recognized by it. Some time after, he called, at St. Andrew’s, a meeting
of the bishops and thirty-six of the most eminent clergy. He
there declared his resolution of exerting his prerogative, and of
establishing, by his own authority, the few ceremonies which he had
recommended to them. They entreated him rather to summon a general
assembly, and to gain their assent. An assembly was accordingly summoned
to meet on the twenty-fifth of November ensuing.
* 15th Feb. 1610.
** Spotswood. Franklyn, p. 29.
Yet this assembly, which met after the king’s departure from Scotland,
eluded all his applications; and it was not till the subsequent year,
that he was able to procure a vote for receiving his ceremonies. And
through every step in this affair, in the parliament as well as in all
the general assemblies, the nation betrayed the utmost reluctance to all
these innovations, and nothing but James’s importunity and authority had
extorted a seeming consent, which was belied by the inward sentiments
of all ranks of people. Even the few over whom religious prejudices were
not prevalent, thought national honor sacrificed by a servile imitation
of the modes worship practised in England. And every prudent man agreed
in condemning the measures of the king, who, by an ill-timed zeal for
insignificant ceremonies, had betrayed, though in an opposite manner,
equal narrowness of mind with the persons whom he treated with such
contempt. It was judged that, had not these dangerous humors been
irritated by opposition; had they been allowed peaceably to evaporate;
they would at last have subsided within the limits of law and civil
authority; and that, as all fanatical religions naturally circumscribe
to very narrow bounds the numbers and riches of the ecclesiastics, no
sooner is their first fire spent, than they lose their credit over the
people, and leave them under the natural and beneficent influence of
their civil and moral obligations.
At the same time that James shocked, in so violent a manner, the
religious principles of his Scottish subjects, he acted in opposition to
those of his English. He had observed, in his progress through England,
that a Judaical observance of the Sunday, chiefly by means of the
Puritans, was every day gaining ground throughout the kingdom; and that
the people, under color of religion, were, contrary to former practice
debarred such sports, and recreations as contributed both to their
health and their amusement.[*] Festivals, which, in other nations
and ages, are partly dedicated to public worship, partly to mirth and
society, were here totally appropriated to the offices of religion, and
served to nourish those sullen and gloomy contemplations to which the
people were, of themselves, so unfortunately subject. The king imagined,
that it would be easy to infuse cheerfulness into this dark spirit of
devotion. He issued a proclamation to allow and encourage, after divine
service, all kinds of lawful games and exercises; and, by his authority,
he endeavored to give sanction to a practice which his subjects regarded
as the utmost instance of profaneness and impiety.[**]
* Kennet, p. 709.
** Franklyn, p. 31.
To show how rigid the English, chiefly the Puritans, were become in
this particular, a bill was introduced into the house of commons, in the
eighteenth of the king, for the more strict observance of the Sunday,
which they affected to the Sabbath. One Shepherd opposed this bill,
objected to the appellation of Sabbath as Puritanical, defended dancing
by the example of David, and seems even to have justified sports on that
day. For this profaneness he was expelled the house, by the suggestion
of Mr. Pym the house of lords opposed so far this Puritanical spirit of
the commons that they proposed that the appellation of Sabbath should
be changed into that of the Lord’s day.[*]
* Journ. 15th, 16th, Feb. 1620. 28th May, 1621. In
Shepherd’s sentence, his offence is said by the house to be
great, exorbitant, unparalleled.