DECLINE OF THE KING’S HEALTH--CASE OF LORD MIDDLESEX--PROCEEDINGS IN
BOTH HOUSES--SIR EDWARD COKE’S EXAGGERATION--BUCKINGHAM’S
PARTICIPATION IN THE AFFAIR--MIDDLESEX STEALS AWAY TO THEOBALD’S,
AND IS FOLLOWED BY CHARLES--FOUND GUILTY--CONFINED--BUCKINGHAM’S
DANGEROUS ILLNESS--ARTHUR BRETT--DEATH OF THE KING--ASCRIBED TO
BUCKINGHAM.
=CHAPTER III.=
The health of James the First had long been declining, and the vexations
which troubled his last years contributed, it has been supposed, greatly
to its decline. A mortal internal disease, however, aggravated by an
attack of tertian ague, left, in the spring of the year 1625, little
hope of his recovery. When told, during the access of this disorder, the
proverb, that “ague in the spring was health to a king,” he remarked
that the saying was meant to apply to a young king. The King was, in
truth, only fifty-eight years of age, but, independent of his originally
feeble constitution, he, like other men in those times, was old of his
age. It has been our blessing, under the improvements of science, and in
the habits of the nineteenth century, to retain, if not youth, many of
its greatest advantages, to a period of life far more advanced than that
in which James was styled the “old King,” a term to which he gave his
mournful assent.
Amongst the numerous causes which, with the Spanish treaty, vexed the
royal invalid, the case of the Lord Treasurer Middlesex was prominent.
In this minister James had rested unbounded confidence, which nothing
but the clearest evidence of the Lord Treasurer’s corruption could
undermine.
In April, 1624, Middlesex had been questioned in the House of Lords on
account of his neglect of the fortresses. He was much dejected by this
attack; but the inquiry was ascribed to the jealousy of Buckingham, Lord
Middlesex’s brother-in-law, Arthur Brett, having been put forward to
supplant the Duke in James’s favour.[140] It was thought, however, such
was the low standard of public morality, that the articles produced
against the Treasurer were not worse than “might be found in most men in
his place;” and the attempts to injure him were referred rather to his
harsh and insolent manner, his want of respect to Prince Charles, and
his inclination to the Spanish match, than to his devices for raising
money, and so impoverishing the nation, and to his opposition to the
calling a Parliament. Still he stood high in James’s favour, and boldly
declared his own innocence; James, whatever he might really feel,
“looking on” merely, and leaving his minister to his fate.[141]
Footnote 140:
State Papers, vol. clxii, No. 13.
Footnote 141:
State Papers, clxii., No. 45.
Buckingham, addressing the Peers, read a letter from the Deputy in
Ireland, who complained of neglect to his applications for repairing the
forts, which had become the more necessary as the Irish were in a state
of tumult and rebellion. Prince Charles added that a “member of the
council” had undertaken to answer these letters, and that this was the
Lord Treasurer, “who used to put such letters in his pocket, under
pretence of answering them.” Middlesex was soon after suspended from his
office, till he should clear himself; and it was even reported that his
title, given for services in the royal wardrobe, where he had been
guilty of many abuses, would be taken away; but rewards for services,
acknowledged under the Great Seal, could not, it was found, be
questioned. Even his life would have been in danger, could all have been
proved against him.
The House, desirous to finish the matter, allowed Middlesex to produce
forty witnesses, twelve of whom deposed directly against him; upon this,
Prince Charles sent him a message, ordering him not to appear in the
royal presence again until he had cleared himself. This command was the
more necessary, since, at this very moment, the mind of James had been
impressed by Inojosa with a suspicion that his son and the Duke were
plotting against him; an idea which the King, with weeping, imparted to
his son and the Duke. “The Lord Treasurer,” Sir Dudley Carleton writes,
“is suspected to be at the bottom of it.” Hitherto, James had still
appeared confident of the Lord Treasurer’s innocence,[142] and in a
speech to the Lords, whom he had summoned to Whitehall,[143] he advised
them as to their judgment. “Such a trial,” he observed, “had no
precedent before the last parliament, and then the guilty party, Lord
Bacon, had confessed, now the supposed delinquent denied the charge.”
James, indeed, long clung to the Lord Treasurer, and told the lords he
came to “sing a psalm of mercy and justice about him;” still the trial
went on, and the accused, in spite of alleged ill-health, was examined
both morning and afternoon; his illness was found, however, to be
feigned; and his answers were so audacious, and so manifestly perjured,
that, had it not been for the intercession of the Prince, he would have
been sent to the Tower. Among other speeches, Middlesex said he had been
baited by two mastiffs, Crew and the Attorney General; and he reasoned,
in his defence, “saucily” for five hours, but was found guilty, and
sentenced to pay 50,000_l._ fine, and to lose his office; never to sit
in Parliament again, nor to come within the verge of the Court. “He
would,” Mr. Chamberlain writes, “have been further degraded, but that he
had great, if not _gratis_, friends in the bedchamber. He may live to
crush his enemies, if his brother-in-law, Brett, should get into favour
and marry the Duchess of Richmond, who would do anything to be prime
courtier again.”[144]
Footnote 142:
State Papers, clxiv., No. 12.
Footnote 143:
May 5th, 1624.--State Papers.
Footnote 144:
State Papers, clxiv., No. 86.
Regarding this sentence, Lord Campbell remarks:--"The noble defendant
had done various things, as head of the Treasury, which would now be
considered very scandalous; but he had only imitated his predecessors,
and was imitated by his successors."--A melancholy commentary on the
state of public morality. It must have been galling to Lord Bacon, in
his retirement, to have known that he was coupled with a man so
dishonest, so specious, and so degraded as Middlesex.
Whilst all this was taking place, Buckingham was dangerously ill; so
that on Charles the difficult task of infusing a sense of justice into
the mind of James almost wholly devolved.[145] At length, however,
irritated by the insolent bearing of Middlesex, who conducted himself as
if he had not been expelled from Court, James, with his own hand,
scratched out the culprit’s name from the commission of subsidy for
Middlesex; and sent, through Sir Richard Weston, a message, saying that,
without regarding any other charge, he condemned him merely in his
capacity as Master of the Wardrobe, which Middlesex had “treated as a
fee-farm not to be accounted for, and would not even allow the clerk to
keep accounts, whereby great corruptions arose, and ordinary and mean
stuffs were brought in.”[146]
Footnote 145:
Parl. History, 1411, 1471.--See Lord Campbell, Article Coke.
Footnote 146:
State Papers.
Whilst all this was going on, Arthur Brett, the supposed rival of
Buckingham, was committed to the Fleet. By his examination it appears
that, on the Duke’s going into Spain, he had desired this young man to
retire to France, and he did so; but on Buckingham’s return, he could
not obtain leave to come back to England, and had therefore left France
without it. He was ordered back to France by the King; he pleaded his
right to stay in his own country, as a free-born subject. Then he was
told not to appear within forty miles of London. He had afterwards an
interview with Buckingham, who blamed him for returning; but said he was
the King’s servant, and might live where he pleased. He had therefore
staid in London, and wished to plead for a restoration of favour with
the Duke; failing in this, he went to Wanstead to petition the
King.[147]
Footnote 147:
State Papers, vol cxlii., Nos. 44, 54.
This disclosure of Brett’s, and Buckingham’s wish to keep him from the
Court, certainly throw a doubt on the genuineness of the Duke’s motives
in the prosecution of Middlesex. Brett had imprudently met the King in
Waltham Forest, and had seized hold of his Majesty’s bridle and stirrup,
a liberty which had greatly offended James, and to punish which Brett
was sent to the Fleet Prison, and, though released, was heavily fined.
In the midst of these various harassing affairs, the illness of James
began to assume a formidable appearance. The King had frequently, before
his last illness, been heard to express his belief that he should not
live long. He was a martyr to rheumatism and gout, which he increased by
gross feeding, and the continual use of sweet wines. During the whole of
the Christmas preceding his death he had kept his chambers, not even
going to chapel, or to see the plays, although his known delight in Ben
Jonson’s masques would have induced him to attend the representation of
the last of those performances played in his reign, the masque of the
“Fortunate Isles.” The sole amusement which the dying King permitted
himself was to go abroad in his litter, in fair weather, to see some
flights at the brook; but all enjoyment of his usual diversion was at an
end.
Accounts from the Court became daily worse:--"The King," Chamberlain, on
the twelfth of March, wrote to Carleton, “has a tertian ague, but not
dangerous, if he would be governed by physicians.”[148] His Majesty’s
decline was evidently gradual; nor was he the only person in the realm
sinking under fever or ague, the “spotted fever”[149] being fearfully
prevalent. Buckingham was now on the eve of going to France as
ambassador, to marry by proxy the young Princess, Henrietta Maria; but
so late as the twenty-third of March he was detained by the continued
illness of James.
Footnote 148:
State Papers, vol. clxxxv., No. 48.
Footnote 149:
Probably typhoid, which is characterized by some spots. State Papers,
vol. clxxxv., No. 99.
"The King’s fits," Mr. Chamberlain again writes, “diminish; the Duke
will not leave him till he is perfectly recovered, of which there is
hope, but no assurance.” On the following day, we find, from the same
source, that James performed an act of mercy, almost if not quite his
last, in excusing Lord Middlesex part of his fine, and reducing it from
50,000_l._ to 20,000_l._, which sum was to be repaid to the Crown.
His sickness had now assumed a distinctly intermittent form; even so
late as the middle of the month there had been an apparent abatement; on
the sixteenth of March, he had his seventh fit of this debilitating
disease; but it was, as Mr. Secretary Conway informed the Earl of
Carlisle, “less intense hereto than the rest, and left more clearness
and cheerfulness in his looks than the former.”[150] Yet, in the same
letter, Conway speaks of the “double sadness of every face,” and alludes
to the "extreme grief suffered for the sharp and smart accesses of His
Majesty’s fever."
Footnote 150:
Hardwicke, State Papers, 562, 564.
During the last sufferings of King James, the marriage treaty with
France was still diligently carried on, through the agency of Lord
Carlisle, ambassador at Paris, and was only delayed on the ground that
"it could not be suitable with the good nature of a son, in so dangerous
a state of his father’s health, to entertain such jollity and triumph as
duly belong to so acceptable a marriage." The Duke of Buckingham, who
had entertained some notion of going in person to Paris, and of
concluding the treaty himself, directed Lord Carlisle, in a letter
written on the fifteenth of March, “to have his eyes open, and to state
any course, as much as he could, which might hinder the business of the
Palatinate and of the religion,” until he appeared in the French
capital.
But the increasing illness of his royal master delayed the Duke’s
journey from day to day; and James was not permitted to witness the
conclusion of the long-cherished hopes of the union of his son with a
Princess of birth equal to his own. “All human things,” wrote Conway,
“have something of earth and defect.” Nothing, he added in his letter to
Lord Carlisle,[151] could exceed the contentment of the “excellent
Prince and gracious Duke,” at the sure progress of the treaty, "and
there was now no speech but of the speed of the Duke’s going;"[152] but
in the next letter the journey was spoken of as conditional upon the
restoration of His Majesty to health. On the twenty-fourth of March, the
tenth night of the King’s fever arrived. The attack, as the same
correspondent informed Lord Carlisle, “exercised much violence upon a
weak body, which being so much reverenced, and loved with so much cause
as His Majesty hath given, struck much sense and fear into the hearts of
his servants that looked upon him.” The King, it appeared, nevertheless,
had that day slept well, “and taken broths.” “And more to your comfort,”
added the secretary, “did, with life and cheerfulness, receive the
sacrament in the presence of the Prince and Duke, and many others, and
admitted many to take it with him; and in the action and the
circumstances of it, did deliver himself so answerable to his writings
and his wise and pious professions, and did justly produce much tears
between comfort and grief; and now this day, and now this night, he
recovers temper and gets, in appearance to us, strength, appetite, and
digestion, which gives us great hope of his amendment, grounded not only
upon desire, but upon the method of judicious observation.”[153]
Footnote 151:
Dated March 16, from Theobald’s.
Footnote 152:
Ibid, 563.
Footnote 153:
Letter of Conway to Lord Carlisle; dated March 16, from Theobald’s,
566.
It may here be remarked, before going more fully into the false and
calumnious evidence of poison, afterwards brought forward in this case
of the royal sufferer, that the state of the King, his relapses, and his
rallyings, imply anything but poison, and convey an impression of a
constitution long broken up, and suddenly depressed by the supervening
of an accidental attack of a disease then extremely prevalent in this
country. The Holy Communion was administered to James, over as before
stated, four days before he died: of the King’s professions before that
last sacrament, an account, corresponding with that of Secretary Conway,
but more distinct and instructive, is given by the Lord Keeper Williams.
The monarch, who broke the heart of Arabella Stuart by long imprisonment
and blighted hopes, and who beheaded Ralegh, and denied restitution to
his son, Carew, died well;--so self-deceived is the spirit of the “rich
man,”--so easy is it to substitute professions for practical
Christianity.
“Being asked,” said the Lord Keeper, “if he was prepared in point of
faith and charity for so great a devotion, he said he was, and gave
humble thanks to God for the same.” Being desired to declare his faith,
he repeated the articles of the creed, one by one, and said, “He
believed them all as they were received and expounded by that part of
the Catholic church which was established here in England,” adding that
whatever he had written of this faith in his life he was ready to seal
with his death. Being questioned in “point of charity,” he answered that
he forgave all men that had offended him, and wished to be forgiven by
all whom he had offended. Being told that men in holy orders in the
Church of England can challenge a power, as inherent in their function,
not in their power, to pronounce absolution on such of the penitent as
do call on the same, and that they have a form of absolution in the Book
of Common Prayer, he answered quickly:--
“I have ever believed that there was that power in you that be in orders
in the Church of England, and that, amongst others, was to me an evident
demonstration that the Church of England was the Church of Christ, and
I, therefore, a miserable sinner, desire of Almighty God to absolve me
of my sins, and that you, that are his servants in this high place, do
afford me this heavenly comfort.” And, after that the absolution had
been read, “he received the sacrament,” adds the Lord Keeper, “with that
zeal and devotion as if he had not been a frail man, but a Cherubim
clothed with flesh and blood.” He expressed to his son, and to the Duke,
the inward comfort which he felt after receiving the Communion, and
exclaimed “Oh, that my Lords would but do this when they were visited
with the like sickness! Themselves would be more comforted in their
souls, and the world less troubled with questioning their religion.”
Thus, in perfect composure, and sufficiently collected even to make his
replies to the Lord Keeper in Latin, James met death. Whilst the last
hour was approaching, he was little aware that the two beings whom he
most loved in the world, were, at that very moment, the objects of
suspicions the most cruel and groundless.
At that period, throughout Europe, and “nowhere,” says Lord Macaulay,
“more than in England, the public, both high and low, were in the habit
of ascribing the deaths of princes, and, indeed, of all persons of
importance, to poison. Thus,” he adds, “James the First had been accused
of poisoning Prince Henry. Thus Charles had been accused of poisoning
King James.”[154]
Footnote 154:
Macaulay, vol.i., p.441.
The calumnies, however, were not so distinctly directed to Charles, as
to the Duke; the calumnies circulated respecting Buckingham assumed an
importance, as they formed part of his subsequent impeachment. Those
also which attempted to implicate Charles merit a reference, since they
were repeated to his injury at a very critical period of his life, in
1642, when they were credited by many persons; for there exist those who
will, on a party question, believe, or affect to believe, any absurdity.
An act of kindness on the part of Buckingham gave rise to the rumours to
which some contemporary historians, and even an excellent writer of the
present century, have attached an almost incredible value.[155] Nothing,
perhaps, can really be more unwise, or more unkind, than to interfere in
illnesses with that profession which, admirable as are its
practitioners, is remarkable for the tenacity of its etiquette, and its
just horror of chance remedies. Yet, in other instances, even in the age
of Sydenham and of Mead, Anne of Denmark had imprudently sent to Sir
Walter Ralegh in the Tower for a remedy for her best beloved son, Henry,
in his last agonies; and thus afforded Buckingham a precedent for his
resort to unprescribed, and, therefore, often dangerous remedies.
Footnote 155:
Weldon, in James’s time, which, in a writer wholly without principle,
is not surprising, attaches guilt to Buckingham in this case; but that
Brodie should credit the slanderous statement against Charles and the
Duke, seems to modern readers wonderful.
The Countess of Buckingham, like many ladies of her own time and ours,
had a specific which cured every known distemper; and which, at all
events, was believed in by her son, the Duke; and it is not improbable
that during his own frequent illnesses and attacks of ague he might have
resorted to it himself.
Six days before the King died, the Duke applied, as it is stated by
several historians, plasters to the wrists and body of the sufferer, and
also administered several drinks, although some of the King’s physicians
did, says Roger Coke, “disallow thereof, and refused to meddle further
with the King until the said plasters were removed.”[156]
Footnote 156:
Coke’s Detection, vol. i., p. 126.
The King grew worse after these remedies, and great “droughts, raving,
fainting, and an intermitting pulse followed thereupon.” Twice was the
drink given him by the Duke’s own hand; and the third time refused. The
physicians, to comfort the King, told him that the relapse was from
cold, or from some other accidental cause. Upon which James answered,
“No, no, it was that I had from Buckingham.” “I confess,” adds Coke,
“that this was but a charge upon the Duke upon the Impeachment of the
Commons” (in the next reign), “yet it was next to positive proof, for
King Charles, rather than his charge should come to an issue, dissolved
one Parliament.”[157]
Footnote 157:
Ibid, 177.
It appears, however, that the plasters to which such dire consequences
were ascribed, and which seem to have been suggested by the Countess of
Buckingham, were prepared by an able and honest physician, Dr. John
Remington, of Dunmow, in Essex;[158] and that he had often applied
similar ones with success. One error was in supposing that a remedy
suited to one case had an empirical virtue; another, in using it,
without the knowledge of the physicians in attendance on the King. Their
professional pride was, of course, justly irritated by the discovery;
and one of them, Dr. Craig, having spoken “some plain words” on the
matter, was ordered out of the Court, the Duke himself complaining to
the King of what had been uttered.[159]
Footnote 158:
Fuller’s Church History, b. x. p., 113.
Footnote 159:
Nichols.--From Harleian MSS., 389.
His Majesty, however, grew worse and worse, so that Mr. Hayes, the Court
surgeon, was called out of bed to take off the plasters; a julep was
then prepared by Mr. Baker, the Duke of Buckingham’s servant, for His
Majesty to drink, and was administered by Buckingham himself.
These particulars were all given and sworn to by the physicians, two
years afterwards, before a select committee of Parliament, when the
Duke’s act was voted “transcendant presumption,” though most people
thought that it was done without any ill intention.[160]
Footnote 160:
Ibid.
Whilst the poor King lay expiring, a strange and scandalous scene,
according to Weldon, passed near his death-bed. Buckingham was coming
into the chamber, when one of the servants greeted him with these
words:--"Ah! my lord, you have undone all us poor servants, though you
are so well provided for you need not care:" upon which the Duke kicked
him. The man, enraged, caught hold of the foot which spurned him, and
the Duke fell to the ground. On arising, he ran to the King’s bedside,
and exclaimed, “Justice, for I am an abused man.” At which James is said
to have fixed his eyes mournfully upon him, "as one who would have said,
‘not wrongfully.’"[161]
Footnote 161:
Weldon, p. 39.
Such were the unwarrantable and malignant reports which strove to impute
to Buckingham the foulest treachery and the deepest ingratitude.
The motive for such an action as that which his foes scrupled not to
fasten upon him--and the imputation followed him through life--is
difficult to be discovered. Buckingham had no reason to wish for the
death of his benefactor. Loaded with obligations, omnipotent in the
country, feared, if not respected, abroad, for what purpose he should
destroy the source of all his superabundant blessings, it were
impossible to divine. The sole reason that could be given was a fear
lest the King should promote the Earl of Bristol, and grow weary of the
Duke. Yet Bristol was even then in retirement and disfavour, and had
only recently been in a sort of imprisonment. The charge, cruel and
groundless, tends to justify Buckingham from many minor imputations,
since those who could fabricate such an accusation were not likely to be
fair interpreters of his ordinary conduct. Roger Coke, for instance, as
we have seen, specifies the charge against Buckingham, but gives him no
credit for the actual acquittal of Parliament, and is silent regarding
the general opinion.
The confidence reposed by Charles in Buckingham affords another source
of vindication. Charles had ever been a dutiful son; indulged, indeed,
to excess, yet not spoiled by kindness. On the Friday before the King
died, he had three hours private conversation with his son. Had James
then entertained any suspicion of the Duke, he would, assuredly, have
imparted it as a matter which lay most heavily on his mind, and, as a
precaution to his son, James could not have controlled a grief so
pungent as the suspicion that his favourite, the being, perhaps, the
best beloved in the world, had dealt out to him the potion of death.
Wilson, indeed, relates the circumstance of this last interview thus.
The King, according to his account, sent for the Prince out of his bed.
Charles appeared before him; when James, arousing all his strength and
energy, strove to address him; “but nature being exhausted, he had not
strength to express his intentions.” That a conversation did, however,
take place, rests on the testimony of a private letter addressed by Mr.
Mead to Sir Martin Stuteville, and written shortly after the King’s
death.[162]
Footnote 162:
Brodie’s Con. Hist., vol. ii., p. 128, note.
There was among the Court physicians, one named Eglesham, who had acted
in that capacity for ten years; and this long attendance, in a
responsible post, has been thought a sufficient guarantee for his
character. Upon his evidence, chiefly, the charge against Buckingham
rested; Eglesham was obliged, in consequence of his allegations against
the Duke, to abscond, and remain some years absent from the country. In
the pamphlet which he published, he stated that the plaster was applied
to the King’s heart and chest whilst the physicians in attendance were
absent at dinner: the King, after this application, which was suggested
and carried into execution by the Countess of Buckingham, became faint,
and was in great agony. Some of the physicians, returning after dinner,
and perceiving an offensive smell from the plaster, exclaimed that the
King was poisoned, and then Buckingham, entering, commanded the
physicians to leave the room, sent one of them a prisoner to his own
chamber, and ordered another out of the Court; whilst his mother,
kneeling down, cried out to the King, with a brazen face, “Justice,
sire, I demand justice!” His Majesty asked her “Justice for what?” “For
that which their lives are nowise sufficient to satisfy; for having said
that I have poisoned your Majesty.” “Poisoned me!” cried James, and,
turning round, fainted away. On the following Sunday, Buckingham
entreated two physicians who attended the King to sign a document,
declaring that the powder he had given to the King was a safe and good
remedy; this they refused to do.
After the King’s death, the physician who had been commanded to keep
within his own apartment was set at liberty, with a caution “to hold his
peace,” and the others were threatened, if they kept not “good tongues
in their heads.”[163] The public were also horrified at hearing that the
King’s body and head had swelled beyond measure; but that is by no means
an unusual symptom after death.
Footnote 163:
Brodie’s Con. Hist., vol. ii., p. 128, note.
Now the value of Eglesham’s evidence rests wholly upon his personal
credit. It was stated, by Sanderson the historian, that he afterwards
offered to write a recantation of his pamphlet for four hundred
guineas;[164] but although Brodie does not consider the assertion of
Sanderson, who had the statement direct from Sir Balthazar Gerbier, to
be a good authority, the impression which it conveys against Eglesham is
confirmed from another source. There is a letter in the State Paper
Office, from one Andrew Herriott to Secretary Nicholas, in which "he
marvels that Nicholas and Sir James Bagg should take into their
protection Edward Yeates, who was a pirate with one Captain Herriott, a
poor man’s son in Kent, a mere mountebank, only companion with Dr.
Eglesham, at bed and board for many years together, insomuch as they
coined many double pistolets, and yet unhanged."[165] This letter was
written in 1627, two years after the King’s death; when Eglesham,
probably from a fear of justice, had fled from Court, after he had lost
the protection of the King, who was by no means scrupulous as to the
character of those around him.
Footnote 164:
Ibid, 119.
Footnote 165:
Letter from Andrew Herriott to Nicholas, State Papers. Calendar, by
Mr. Bruce, vol. xliv., No. 27, dated May 27, 1627.
On Eglesham, it appears, it devolved to examine the corpse, and he did
not hesitate to point to Buckingham as the King’s murderer.[166]
Footnote 166:
Oldmixon, 70.
He afterwards presented petitions both to the King and the Parliament,
praying for vengeance on the Duke. These petitions were published in the
form of a pamphlet in Latin, in 1626; and in 1640 the English
translation was printed.[167] In this pamphlet, Eglesham stated that his
motives for the publication were these: that having been patronized from
his youth by the Marquis of Hamilton, the probability there was of that
nobleman’s being poisoned was mentioned to him; he then stated that
about the time of the Duke of Richmond’s death, a list of persons who
were to be poisoned was found in King’s Street, Westminster, and brought
to the Marquis of Hamilton by a relation, a daughter of Lord Oldbarre;
in this list was not only Hamilton’s name specified, but also that of
Dr. Eglesham “to embalm him.” Other titles were contained in the list;
those of the Duke of Lennox and his brother, and the Earl of
Southampton, who died at this time of a fever, being particularized.
These accusations of Eglesham’s, who was doubtless only a tool in the
hands of a party, were, according to Arthur Wilson, hushed up, but they
served the purpose of those by whom they were originated. According to
the account of those historians who have delighted to blacken
Buckingham, James foresaw his doom, and hinted at the probability of
treachery, when, on hearing of the Marquis of Hamilton’s death, he
said--"If the branches are thus cut off, the stock cannot continue
long;" and often was he heard, according to Sir Anthony Weldon, to say,
in his last illness, to the Earl of Montgomery, "For God’s sake, see
that I have fair play."[168]
Footnote 167:
Harleian MSS., 405. It was revived by the disaffected in 1642, with
some alteration of language.--Nichols, 41033.
Footnote 168:
Oldmixon, 70.--From Wilson and Weldon.
Of this improbable story, there is not a hint in any of the
correspondence of the day, although the circumstances of the King’s
death are carefully detailed by Chamberlain and other news-writers.
After his last interview with Charles, the King declined rapidly; and
his tongue was so swollen, that he could either not speak at all, or not
be understood. An hour before the King’s death, the Dean of Hereford,
Dr. Daniel Price, preached before the Prince and Court at Theobald’s; he
prayed earnestly for the King before the sermon, and wept as he prayed
and preached.[169]
Footnote 169:
Nichols, 1032.
James expired on Sunday, the 27th of March, between the hours of eleven
and twelve, aged fifty-seven years and three months. Upon the
examination of his remains, much internal disease was found, but no
appearance of poison. His heart was unusually large, which accounted, in
the opinion of Sir Symonds D’Ewes, for his being “so very considerate,
so extraordinary fearful, which hindered him from attempting any great
action.”[170]
Footnote 170:
Nichols, 1054.
During the Monarch’s last hours, prayers were multiplied more and more
for the benefit of his soul, and certain English and Latin short
sentences of devotion, to elevate his spirit to heaven “before it came
thither,” were recited. James, whose consciousness and memory continued
unimpaired, was so “ravished and solaced” by these religious
ejaculations, that his groans of agony were stilled whilst they were
uttered. “To one of these,” says the Lord Keeper Williams, “Mecum eris
in Paradiso,” he replied presently, “Vox Christi”--that it was the voice
and promise of Christ. Another, “Veni, Domine Jesu, veni cito,” he twice
or thrice articulated. And as his end drew near, that prayer usually
said at the hour of death was repeated. And no sooner had that prayer
been uttered, “In manus tuas, Domine, commendo spiritum meum,” than,
without any convulsion or pangs, he expired,--his son and servants
kneeling on one side the bed, his archbishops, bishops, and all his
chaplains on the other.
Thus closed the responsible career of the first of the Stuart Kings that
had ascended the throne of England.
Immediately after the King’s last sigh was breathed, a letter, not
official, was written by one of his household, without a name, to the
Queen of Bohemia. It is among the foreign inedited papers in the State
Paper Office; and contains, which is remarkable, since it appears to be
written in strict confidence, no allusion whatever to the suspicion of
poisoning.[171]
Footnote 171:
See Inedited State Papers. Foreign, for 1625.