CHAPTER I. introduced the kings of Scotland to the English throne. THE REIGN OF JAMES T. of Honours-Conspiracy against him-"The Main" and "The Bye"- under one crown, it was effected, but in the reverse direc- With great haste various messengers flew to Scotland to of loyalty, or, in other words, of self-interest, being, as we have seen, Sir Robert Carey, to whom the artifice of his sister, lady Scrope, had communicated the earliest news of the queen's decease. He reached Edinburgh four days before Sir Charles Percy and Thomas Somerset, who were despatched officially by the council. Meantime, on March 24th, 1603, Cecil assembled thirty-five individuals, members of council, peers, prelates, and officers of state, at Whitehall, and accompanied by the lord mayor and aldermen, proclaimed James VI. of Scotland James I. of England, first in front of the palace, and then at the High Cross, in Cheapside. There were some who were apprehensive that the accession of James might be opposed by the noblemen who had been so active in the death of his mother. But these had taken care to make their peace with the facile James, whose filial affection was not of an intensity to weigh much in the scales with the crown of England. On the contrary, his accession was hailed with apparent enthusiasm by all parties, for all parties believed that they should reap decided advantages from his government. The persecuted catholics felt certain that the son of the queen of Scots would at least tolerate their religion, as he had many a time privately assured their agents. The puritans were equally confident that a king who had been educated in the strictest faith of Calvinism, would place them in the ascendant; and the episcopal church—as it deemed, on equally good grounds rejoiced in the advent of a prince who had protested to its friends that he was heartily sick of a religion which had domineered over both his mother and himself with an iron rigidity. The populace, in the hope of a milder yoke than that of the truculent Tudors, gave vent to their joy in loud acclamations, by bonfires and ringing of bells, while Elizabeth was lying a corpse, scarcely cold, on her bier. James, who was in his thirty-seventh year, was transported at the prospect of his escape from the poverty and religious restraint of Scotland, to the affluence of so much more extensive an empire, and one only impediment checked his flight southward-the want of money for the journey. He sent a speedy message to Cecil for the necessary funds, and also added a request for the transmission of the crown jewels for the adornment of his wife. The money was forwarded, but the jewels were prudently withheld till he reached his future capital. Once in possession of the means of locomotion, James did not conceal his pleasure at escaping from the control of his presbyterian clergy, and the haughty rudeness of his nobles, to an accession of wealth and power which he imagined would make him as absolute as Henry VIII., a condition for which he had an intense yearning. Now was the time for the English ministers to have taken from him a guarantee for the maintenance of the constitution, as secured by Magna Charta, and for the redress of the gross abuses which had accumulated under the Tudor government. But Cecil and his compeers were too much concerned for their own especial aggrandisement, to take any precautions for the public benefit; and the new monarch was suffered to enter on his functions as if there were no constitutional restraints at all, a neglect which soon led him to boast of his royal right to do whatever he pleased. On the 5th of April James commenced his journey towards London, but however much he rejoiced in the prospect of his new kingdom, he was in no haste to reach the capital. The moment that he set foot in England he seemed to have realised the full luxury of his new sovereignty, and announced to those about him that they had indeed at last arrived at the Land of Promise. At Berwick he fired a piece of ordnance himself in his joy, which seemed for the moment to have raised him above his constitutional timidity; and he then sate down and wrote to Cecil, informing him of his progress, and of his intention to take York and other places on his way. As he intended to enter York and pass through other towns in state, he pressed on the obsequious minister the necessity of forwarding to him coaches, litters, horses, jewels, and all that was requisite for regal dignity, as well as a lord chamberlain; and he forthwith appointed to that office the lord Thomas Howard. He informed the minister that the jewels as well as dresses which he required were such as were necessary to enable his wife to appear as queen-consort in her new realm, which he again urged should be sent to York to await the arrival of her majesty, who did not accompany him, as she expected her confinement, but was to follow as soon as convenient. James, moreover, desired them not to delay the funeral of the late queen on his account,-it was a ceremony which he preferred being exempt from; and accordingly Elizabeth was deposited in Westminster Abbey without further procrastination. James also ordered coins of gold and silver to be struck, after the manner of former English kings, against the day of his coronation, and proceeded lazily on his way, rarely passing a gentleman's house without taking up his quarters there, with his constantly increasing retinue, and hunting, and living on his host as long as there were the means. Many families did not recover the debt into which this plunged them, for ages. At Houghton Tower, near Blackburn in Lancashire, after remaining some time, on looking out of the window one day, and not observing a fine herd of cattle in the meadow below, which he had seen at his coming, he demanded of the owner where they were. His host replied that they were all killed and eaten by his majesty's followers. "Then," ," said James, "it is time to be going." He staid three days at York, and did not reach Newark till the 21st of the month. Cecil had met him at York, and accompanied his progress; and as he rode forward the people crowded around to welcome their new sovereign with the most hearty acclamations. To express his satisfaction to the gentry, he made almost every man of any standing who approached him a knight; so that by the time he reached London he is said to have created two hundred and fifty, and before he had been in England three months, seven hundred knights, a profusion which took away every value from the gift. At Newark James startled the public by an act of absolutism. A pick-pocket was detected in the very act, who had accompanied the court all the way from Berwick, wearing the appearance of a gentleman, and had thus reaped a good harvest. James ordered him to instant execution without judge or jury, and when some one ventured to remark that this was not the English practice, he replied, "Do I not make the judges? do I not make the bishops? Then, God's wounds! I make what likes me, law and gospel." On the 3rd of May, having been nearly a month on the way, he arrived at Theobalds, the magnificent residence of Cecil, whither flocked to him numbers of the nobility and gentry, amongst the most zealous of whom appeared Francis Bacon, who was as thorough a courtier as he was a philosopher. He wrote to the carl of Northumberland a very flattering account of A D. 1603.1 ARRIVAL OF JAMES IN LONDON. 3 James, yet clearly indicating his faults. "Your lordship," represented these statesmen as having made overtures to says Bacon, "shall find a prince the furthest from vain-glory Spain for the support of another candidate for the throne. that may be, and rather like a prince of the ancient form Northumberland was equally the object of Cecil's dislike, but than of the latter time. His speech is swift and cursory, and Bacon was warmly in his favour, and the king received him in the fullest dialect of his nation; and in speech of business graciously. The Scotchmen who received immediate admisshort, in speech of discourse large. He affecteth popularity sion to the royal council were the duke of Lennox, the earl by gracing them that are popular, and not any fashions of of Mar, the lord Hume, Sir George Hume, Bruce of Kinloss, his own. He is thought somewhat general in his favours, and secretary Elphinstone; the Englishmen were Cecil, the and his virtue of access is rather that he is much abroad and earls of Nottingham and Cumberland, the lords Henry and in press, than that he giveth easy audience; he hasteth to a Thomas Howard, and the barons Zouch and Borough. mixture of both kingdoms and nations, faster, perhaps, than policy will bear." The truth was that James, who made himself very free and easy in his immediate circle, greatly disliked exposure to the mob, and dealt about his smiles and knighthoods to get rid of his throngers as soon as possible. By the time he had reached Berwick he had knighted three persons; at Widdrington he knighted eleven, at York thirty-one, at Worksop in Nottinghamshire eighteen, at Newark eight, on the road thence to Belvoir Castle four, at Belvoir forty-five. Yet gracious as he was and agreeable as he wanted to make himself, his new subjects did not behold his person and manner without considerable astonishment. The fright which his mother had received before his birth by the murder of Rizzio, is supposed to have had a mischievous effect on both his physical and moral constitution, and the absurd practice of swathing children in that age, from which large numbers perished, added, it is imagined, its untoward influences to his gait and carriage; for this son of the beautiful queen of Scots is described by a contemporary, "as of a middle stature, more corpulent through his clothes than in his body, his clothes being ever made large and easy; the doublets quilted for stiletto proof, his breeches in great plaits and full stuffed. He was naturally of a timorous disposition, which was the greatest reason of his quilted doublets. eyes large, ever rolling after any stranger who came into his presence, in so much as many for shame left the room, as being out of countenance. His beard was very thin; his tongue too large for his mouth, which made him drink very uncomely, as if eating his drink, which came out into the cup on each side of his mouth. His skin was as soft as taffety sarcenet, which felt so because he never washed his hands, only rubbed his fingers slightly with the wet end of a napkin. His legs were very weak, having had, as was thought, some foul play in his youth, or rather before he was born, that he was not able to stand at seven years of age; that weakness made him ever leaning on other men's shoulders." His ungainly person and his equally uncouth dialect, no little amazed the stately courtiers of Elizabeth, who, however, paid him the most devoted homage, as the dispenser of the honours and good hoped for. His At Theobalds Cecil had the opportunity of studying James's character and of ingratiating himself with him. A new council was formed, and whilst James introduced six of his own countrymen, Cecil recommended six of his partisans to balance them. Whilst he had corresponded with James he had managed to fix in his mind a deep and ineradicable aversion to the men whom he himself regarded with jealous and hostile feelings-Raleigh, Cobham, and Grey. It was in vain that they paid their court, they were treated with coldness, and Raleigh, instead of receiving the promotion to which he aspired, was even deprived of the valuable office of the warden of the Stannaries. It is supposed that Cecil had On the 7th James set out for his capital, and at Stamford Hill was met by the lord mayor and aldermen of London in their scarlet robes, followed by a great crowd, and with these he entered the city, and proceeded to the CharterHouse. He immediately caused a proclamation to be made that all licences and monopolies granted by Elizabeth, and which had excited so much discontent, should be suspended till they had been examined by the council; that all protections from the crown to delay the progress of justice in the courts of law should cease, as well as the abuses of purveyance, and the oppressions of saltpetre makers and officers of the household. These announcements were calculated to inspire the hope of a reign of justice, but with the peculiar art which James possessed of neutralising his favours, they were quickly followed by an injunction against all persons whatever killing the king's deer or wild-fowl; James being passionately fond of hunting and sporting, and apprehensive that during the absence of the prince inroads would be made on his beloved game. From the Charter-House he proceeded, according to routine, to the Tower, and thence to Greenwich and back to Whitehall, at every step making more knights and creating peers. He had sent for the earl of Southampton to meet him at York, and he now restored both him and the son of his friend the earl of Essex to their honours and estates. Mountjoy and three of the Howards were raised to the rank of earls; nine new barons were created, amongst them Cecil, who was made lord Cecil, and afterwards viscount Cranbourne, and finally earl of Salisbury. Buckhurst and Egerton were promoted; and eventually, besides his seven hundred spick-and-span new knights, he added sixty-two fresh members to the peerage. So extravagant was his distribution of honours that a pasquinade was affixed to the door of St. Paul's, offering to teach weak memories the art of recollecting the titles of the nobility. The people, moreover, were disgusted to hear the new monarch, who claimed to be a man of first-rate learning, speak with contempt of the talents and character of their late queen. Elizabeth had in her last days fallen deeply in public opinion by her treatment of the earl of Essex, who had been in secret alliance with James, but they were not prepared to hear her disparaged for ability by her successor. Had he condemned her memory, which he might with justice, as the oppressor and murderess of his mother, little could be objected, though his own exertions to save that mother had not been of a very energetic kind, and he had been willing to become the pensioner of the royal assassin; but his treatment of her memory as of a weak and mediocre ruler only tended to revive the acknowedgment of her remarkable intellectual and diplomatic powers. Whilst James was receiving the welcome of his English subjects, he was not free from domestic trials, of no trivial where the king held a solemn chapter of the garter, and made prince Henry, the duke of Lennox, and other nobles, knights of that order. After this the court removed to Westminster for the coronation, which took place on the 25th. The weather had been intensely hot, and it now set in as rainy. To spoil the pleasure of the people, the plague was raging fiercely in the city, and the inhabitants were by proclamation forbidden to enter Westminster. No queen-consort had been crowned since Anne Boleyn, nor had any king and queen been crowned together since Henry VIII. and Catherine of Arragon, and therefore the restriction was the more mor kind. Ilis queen had always struggled against the rule suite, and the son of Sir Robert, a boy of twelve years, of state by which the heir-apparent of Scotland was taken leading a dog as a present to the prince, and followed by a out of the hands of his own mother, and placed in those of troop of other boys dressed as foresters. Then came a troop a state guardian. Prince Henry, now ten years old, had of hunters, and another of morris-dancers, all making suitbeen placed as a mere infant in the care of the earl of Mar, able addresses in verse. Thence the queen went to Sir in Stirling Castle, where he was educating under the learned Hatton Fermor's, where the king met her, and there was a Adam Newton; and James had himself written a book, great flocking thither of courtiers and gentry; and so they which he called "Basilicon Doron; or, His Majesty's In-progressed from house to house till they reached Windsor, structions to his Dearest Son, the Prince," for his especial guidance. But queen Anne preferred the dictates of nature to those of state policy, and never ceased to importune the king for the society of her children, of whom now she had three-Henry, Elizabeth, and Charles. Weak as was James in many respects, he was, like most weak men, excessively stubborn; and on this head he stood firm against all the entreaties of his spouse. He contended that in Scotland it had always been the policy of the nobles to possess themselves of the heir, and then destroy the reigning king, that they might hold the power through a long minority. That, owing to such causes, there had been no fewer than seven successive minorities of the kings of Scot-tifying. land, stretching from the reign of Robert III. to his own time, and that he himself had been thus set up against his own mother. That he owed his life and crown to the very plan which he was now enforcing. These were strong reasons, but nature in the mother was still stronger; and, foiled as she had been till now, no sooner was James in England, and That week there died in London and the suburbs eight the earl of Mar summoned to attend him, than Anne pre-hundred and fifty-seven persons of the plague. On the 5th sented herself at Stirling, and demanded her son of the countess of Mar. That lady, however, was inexorable in the discharge of her high trust, and a great contention arose betwixt the faction of the queen and that of the king. Despatches were forwarded to James both from the countess of Mar and from the queen. For a time he refused to yield, but finding that the agitation of the queen had led to the premature birth of a son, which was dead, and to the serious illness of the queen, he gave way; and Anne, when sufficiently restored, set out with the prince Henry and the princess Elizabeth, the second son Charles being left behind at the queen's palace of Dunfermline, under the earl of Fife. The progress of Anne of Denmark was one continuous fête, as thronged as that of her husband, and certainly much more poetical. Lady Bedford and lady Harrington had voluntarily travelled to Edinburgh to pay their respects to her; and at Berwick a number of other ladies, attended by the earls of Sussex and Lincoln, and Sir George Carew, were in waiting for her, with the required dresses and jewels. From York, where silver cups heaped with gold angels were presented to her majesty and to the young prince and princess, and where, on her departure, the corporation, all in their robes, escorted her out of the city, she advanced, through Grimstone, Newark, and Nottingham, to Dingley, near Leicester, at which place the little princess Elizabeth separated from her, and was conducted to Combe Abbey, near Coventry, the seat of the Harringtons, to be educated under the care of the ladies Harrington and Kildare. At Althorpe, the seat of Sir Robert Spenser, the queen was received on the eve of Midsummer-day, with "The Masque of the Fairies," the first of the splendid series of Ben Jonson, who from that day became the queen's especial poet; and whatever were the faults of Anne of Denmark, she was the friend and advocate of genius. As the queen advanced there came before her satyrs, queen Mab with all her fairy Queen Anne went to the coronation "with her seemly hair down hanging on her princely shoulders, and on her head a coronet of gold. She so mildly saluted her new subjects, that the women, weeping, cried out with one voice, 'God bless the royal queen! Welcome to England, long to live and continue!"" of August James ordered morning and evening prayers and sermons, with bonfires all night to drive away the pestilence, not forgetting to order that all men should praise God for his Majesty's escape that day three years before, from the Gowry conspiracy; and on the 10th of August he commanded that a fast, with sermons of repentance, should he held, and repeated every week on Wednesday so long as the plague continued. James's pride was soon gratified by the flocking in of ambassadors from all the great nations of Europe, soliciting his alliance; and on the first intimation of their approach he appointed Sir Lewis Lewknor master of the ceremonies, to receive and entertain these distinguished persons. This was the first establishment of such an office in England. First arrived, from Holland and the United Provinces, prince Frederick of Nassau, son of the prince of Orange, attended by the three able diplomatists, Valck, Barnevelt, and Brederode. James, with equally high notions of the royal prerogative, had not the sympathy of Elizabeth with the struggles of protestatism abroad, and therefore regarded the revolted Netherlanders as rebels and traitors, and did not fail amongst his courtiers to pronounce them so; and more particularly as they owed the English crown large sums for their assistance, which they appeared in no hurry to pay. He, therefore, framed various excuses to defer their audiences till the arrival of the envoy of the archduke of Austria, count Aremberg, who was not long in appearing, bringing the agreeable news that the archduke had liberated all English prisoners, as the subjects of a friendly power. Two days after Aremberg's arrival, the celebrated Rhosny, afterwards still better known as the duke of Sully, reached London. Aremberg was in no condition to negotiate on any positive terms till he received instructions from Spain; and Rhosny seized time by the forelock, by distributing amongst the courtiers sixty thousand crowns, a considerable sum of which found its A.D. 1603.] THE "MAIN" AND "BYE" CONSPIRACIES. way into the queen's purse. He prevailed on James to make plotted for the overthrow of the crafty minister. Rhosny, a treaty with Henry IV., in which he engaged to send the French envoy extraordinary, had, whilst in London, money to the states in aid against the Spaniards, and join done his best to inspire James with distrust of Cecil; and France in open hostilities should Philip attempt to invade there is little doubt that this was at the suggestion, or with that country. Rhosny, delighted with his success-for the co-operation of Cobham, Northumberland, and Raleigh. Henry feared nothing more than James's making peace When Northumberland drew back, these two held commuwith Spain, and leaving him to assist Holland alone-re-nication with Aremberg, to whom they offered their services turned to France. But a little time convinced the French in promoting the objects he sought on behalf of Spain and court that nothing in reality had been secured by it, for James had no money to send to Holland had he been really so disposed, which is doubtful, and that he merely temporised with them as he had done with different states before. Meantime the court of Spain, notwithstanding the activity of France, was slow in deciding the course of policy to be adopted towards England under the new king. After the decided hostility towards it under Elizabeth, and the signal defeats experienced, pride forbade Philip to solicit a peace, lest it should look like weakness. And, indeed, Spain had never recovered from the severe blow received in the loss of its Armade, and the other ravages of its ports and colonies by the English, added to the loss of a great portion of the Low Countries; and this consciousness made it more tardy in its proceedings. But whilst engaged in prolonged discussions on this head, two Englishmen arrived at the court of Spain, whose mission was of a nature to bring it to a decision. These were Wright and Fawkes, who were soon to assume a conspicuous position in the strife betwixt the catholics and protestants of England. Previous to the death of Elizabeth, Thomas Winter had negotiated with the Spanish court a plan for the invasion of this country, which had been abandoned on her decease. Now, however, the scheme was revived, and these two emissaries were despatched to sound the present disposition of the court of Madrid. This direct appeal from the conspirators seems to have startled the Spanish government from its wavering policy. It was not prepared for anything so desperate, and replied that it had no cause of complaint against James, but, on the contrary, regarded him as a friend and ally, and had appointed the Conde de Villa Mediana as ambassador to his court. This was decisive, and the way now seemed open towards a more friendly tone betwixt Spain and England; but there appears at the same moment a secret and mysterious correspondence to have been going on betwixt Aremberg, the agent of the archduke of Austria, and a discontented party in England. Northumberland, Cobham, and Raleigh were ill at ease under the disappointment which they had met with in their hopes of favour at James's court. Northumberland had been to a certain degree graciously received, and even entertained with promises by James; but he felt that whilst Cecil was so completely in the ascendant there was little hope of a cordial feeling towards him in the monarch's heart. Cobham and Raleigh were undisguisedly in disgrace, and were shunned by the courtiers as fallen men. The three friends, therefore, entered into intrigues with the court of France through the resident minister Beaumont, and Rhosny, the envoy extraordinary. For a time their suggestions were listened to, but the apparent success of Rhosny with James put an end to all further overtures, and there Northumberland was prudent enough to desist. But Cobham and Raleigh, disappointed of court favour, and burning with resentment against Cecil, whom they felt to be the cause of their disgrace, went on, and the Netherlands. Aremberg, who did not know what was going on at the Spanish court, communicated the proposal to the archduke, who instructed him to give a favourable answer. What the scheme proposed by Cobham and Raleigh precisely was seems never to have been known; but we may suppose that in return for aid from the archduke, these ambitious men were to attempt the removal of Cecil by some means, and on their succeeding to power, the exertion of their influence with the king on behalf of Spain. This was designated by those in the secret as "The Main" conspiracy; but there were also another going on simultaneously, of which these gentlemen are supposed to have been cognisant, but not mixed up with. This was called "The Bye" conspiracy, and was composed of an extraordinary medley of the discontented, the most determined of whom aimed at nothing less than the seizure of the king, and the government of the country in his name, for their own party purposes. The grand cause of discontent was the disappointment of both catholics and puritans in James. Before his coming to the English crown he had held out the most flattering expectations to the catholics that he would grant them toleration, whilst the puritans calculated on his presbyterian education for a decided adhesion to their views. But no sooner did he reach England than he threw himself into the arms of the high church party, declaring that it was the only religion fit for a king. To the catholics he declared he would grant no toleration—rather would he fight to the death against it; and he took no pains to conceal his disgust at the presbyterian clergy amongst whom he had spent his youth. The antagonism of catholic and puritan was forgotten in the resentment against this disclosure of the king's disposition. Instantly plans were cogitated to avenge themselves of the royal perfidy, as it was termed, and to secure themselves against the threatened storm. Sir Griffin Markham, a catholic gentleman, of no great property or influence, concerted with two priests, Watson and Clarke, the means of raising the catholics against the government. Watson had been sent into Scotland, to James, on behalf of the catholics, before the death of Elizabeth, and he represented now indignantly, that James had given them, through him, the most solemn promises of toleration, which he had now broken. He, therefore, threw himself with the greatest heat into the conspiracy: he drew up an awful oath of secresy, and he and Clarke travelled far and wide amongst the catholic families, calling upon them to come forward in the name of their religion and their property. But their success was trivial; few or none of the catholics of weight and station would engage in the enterprise. Failing there, Watson turned his attention to the puritans; and with them he was more successful, by artfully concealing from them the paucity of the catholics who had joined the conspiracy, and the full extent of his own intentions. Lord Grey of Wilton, who was a leading puritan, and had his |