1612.]

DISPUTES OF KING AND COMMONS.

293

inasmuch as he suffered for a great and noble cause." Of the truth of this, however, we are rather dubious; fear alone would, we apprehend, prevent her from giving utterance to such expressions.

The English catholics, it is well known, were divided into two almost hostile parties, the jesuited and that of the secular priests. The conspirators were all of the former party, and the latter, who had been utterly ignorant of the plot, were unanimous, loud, and we have no doubt, sincere in the abhorrence which they expressed at it. Digby, in a letter to his lady, laments to find that the cause for which he had sacrificed everything was disapproved of by catholics and priests, and that that which brought him to his death was considered by them to be a great sin. But these innocent catholics had their share in the penalty, for a new and more severe penal code was enacted. The lords Montague, Mordaunt, and Stourton were imprisoned and fined for their suspicious absence from parliament. The earl of Northumberland was fined 30,000l., deprived of his offices, and adjudged to remain for life a prisoner in the Tower.

A favourite object of the king, ever since his accession, had been the effecting of a union (a legislative one it would appear) between his two kingdoms. The measure was submitted to the parliaments of both countries, but national prejudices and jealousies were too strong to permit so desirable a measure to be then effected; and all that could be obtained was the abolition of the laws in which each treated the other as strangers and enemies, and a decision of the English judges, declaring the postnati, or Scots born since the king's accession, to be natural subjects of the king of England.

During the six succeeding years of James's reign (16071612) little occurred to disturb the national tranquillity, though the king and the house of commons still went on bickering; he straining every nerve to obtain money unconditionally,—they struggling to secure in return an abolition of purveyance, wardship, and other feudal oppręs

sions. The king meantime chiefly attended to his hunting and his writing; the task of supplying his lavish expenditure fell to Salisbury, now lord treasurer, like his father, but with a very different sovereign, and a far more refractory parliament to manage. His health appears to have given way under his mental anxiety, and he died at Marlborough, (May 24, 1612,) as he was returning from Bath, where he had been to try the waters. His character was that of a sagacious, prudent statesman; but he wanted the high principle and honourable feeling of his great father. "He was," says Bacon, "a more fit man to keep things from getting worse, but no very fit man to reduce things to be better."

Toward the close of the year 1612 the king and country were deprived of the heir-apparent, prince Henry. His death caused little grief to James, who looked on him rather as a rival than as a son; and the prince made no secret of the contempt in which he held his father, whose character was the opposite of his own in every respect. Henry was zealous in his attachment to the reformed faith*; he abstained from costly and immoral pleasures and excesses; his delight was in athletic and martial exercises. When one time the French ambassador came to take leave of him, he found him handling the pike. "Tell your king," said the prince," how you left me engaged." He greatly admired sir Walter Raleigh. "Sure no king but my father," he used to say, "would keep such a bird in a cage." .He died (Nov. 6) in the 18th year of his age, of a fever, the consequence of excessive and injudicious exercise. His death was of course imputed by the people to poison: the earl of Rochester, the royal favourite, was the person charged, and some even suspected the king himself, how unjustly we need not say†.

*The puritan zealots had great hopes from this prince; the following rhymes were current among the people :

Henry the eighth pull'd down abbeys and cells,

But Henry the ninth shall pull down bishops and bells.

+ Of the real cause of his death there cannot be the slightest doubt; yet

1613.]

FATE OF ARABELLA STUART.

295

The death of prince Henry was a subject of general regret, and it is a curious question how far it was a misfortune or otherwise to the nation. It has sometimes struck us, that had he come to the throne, animated as he was by a martial spirit, he would have entered vigorously into the defence of the Elector Palatine and the prosecution of a war with Spain; and that to obtain supplies from parliament he would, like the great Edwards, have made the needful concessions in favour of liberty, and that thus the civil war might have been averted. But it was not in this manner that the liberties of England were to be secured; they were to pass through the fire of civil discord.

James, with his habitual aversion to gloom, forbade any one to approach him in mourning; he would not allow the preparations for the Christmas revels to be interrupted; and in the following February (1613) he celebrated with extraordinary splendour the nuptials of his only daughter, Elizabeth, with Frederick the count palatine of the Rhine. The princess was only in her sixteenth year.

A lady of high rank was at this time paying the penalty of her proximity to the throne. Arabella Stuart had, though expressly forbidden by the king, given her hand in secret to sir William Seymour, son of lord Beauchamp*. As both were descended from Henry VII., the king's jealousy took alarm, and he was committed to the Tower, she to the house of sir Thomas Parry, at Lambeth. They were however permitted by their keepers to have secret interviews, and the king then ordered that Arabella should be removed to Durham. She refused to leave her chamber, but she was taken out of it by force. James however allowed her to remain a month at Highgate for her health. While there she disguised herself in man's attire,

Dr. Vaughan tries to insinuate the guilt of the favourite, and as it would appear even of the king.

* Lord Beauchamp was the son of lord Hertford and lady Catherine Grey (see above, page 162). Alliance with the blood-royal was fatal to this family.

and rode to Blackwall, and then went down the river to where a French bark lay ready, and got aboard. Seymour meantime, disguised as a physician, made his way out of the Tower, and entered a boat which was to convey him to the bark; but the French captain, fearing to wait, had set sail in spite of Arabella's entreaties. Seymour got over to Flanders in a collier; the bark was taken off the Nore, and Arabella was immured in the Tower. To her petitions for liberty James replied, that "as she had tasted of the forbidden fruit she must pay the forfeit of her disobedience." The harsh treatment which she experienced deprived her of reason, and she died in the fourth year of her confinement, the victim of that odious policy of state, which, on the plea of self-preservation, tramples on all the principles of nature and justice. It is remarkable that Arabella's husband was afterwards, as marquess of Hertford, one of the most devoted adherents of the son of her persecutor.

CHAPTER II.

JAMES I. (CONTINUED).

1613-1625.

Somerset and lady Essex.-Sir Walter Raleigh.-The Elector Palatine.-Fall of Bacon.-The Spanish match.-Prince of Wales in Spain.-Breach with the court of Spain.-Death and character of James.-Affairs of Ireland ;of Scotland.-State of religion.-Book of Sports.

It is time now that we should proceed to notice a remarkable feature in the character of this feeble monarch-his favouritism. To this he had been addicted from his earliest days; and it is rather curious, that he, the most slovenly of men in his own person, should have been as fastidious as even the late queen about the looks and dress of those who were about him. A few years before the time of which we now write, on the occasion of a tilting-match, lord Hay, one of the Scottish nobles, selected a youth of the border family of the Kerrs for his equerry. Robert Kerr or Carr was now about twenty years of age, tall and handsome, and but just returned from his travels. It was his office to present his lord's shield and device to the king; and as he was about to perform it, his horse became unruly and threw him. His leg was broken in the fall, and James, affected by his youth and beauty, had him removed to a room in the palace, where he visited him after the tilt. The visits were frequently renewed; the youth gradually won the heart of the king, who resolved to make of him a scholar, a statesman, and a man of wealth and rank. The last was easy; to effect the former he himself became his tutor in Latin and his lecturer in politics. While Salisbury lived, the favourite, though laden with wealth and raised to the dignity of viscount Rochester, took no part in affairs of state; but after the death of that minister, the duties of