ment, the king endeavoured, 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. 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 could condescend to oblige her husband by asking this favour 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*." From this time the overthrow of Somerset became a leading object with a daily increasing party in the court; and his part in the iniquitous treatment of Overbury, which had embittered his marriage, was to occasion his fall. James is said to have urged upon the younger favourite that he should profess himself willing to do good service to the elder; but Somerset replied with the reckless asperity which had become common to him,-" I will none of your service, and you shall none of my favour. I will, if I can, break your neck, and of that be confidentt." While Somerset pursued this haughty course, the old rumour with respect to the murder of Overbury became more loud and general, so much so, that James was led to question certain suspected parties on the subject, and the result was a strong persuasion as to the guilt both of the countess and the favourite. Arrangements were accordingly made for the arrest of both, and of various other persons as their accomplices. Fall of Arrest of Somerset was ignorant of these proceedings until the moment of his being apprehended. The following is a description of the last interview between James and this once pampered the countess, object of his affection. "The king took his farewell for a time of London, and was accompanied with Somerset to Royston, where no sooner he brought him, but instantly took leave, little imagining what viper lay amongst the herbs; nor must I forget to let you know how perfect the king was in the art of dissimulation, or to give it his own phrase-king-craft. The Earl of Somerset never parted from him with more seeming affection than at this time, when he knew Somerset should never see him more; and had you seen that seeming affection (as the author himself did), you would rather have believed he was in his rising than setting. The earl, when he kissed his hand, *Hume, Hist. vi. 54. We have selected this passage, and a preceding one on the rise of Somerset, from the pages of Hume, that the conduct of James in this respect may have the advantage of being described by his panegyrist. the king hung about his neck slabbering his cheeks, saying,' For God's sake, when shall I see thee again! On my soul, I shall neither eat nor sleep until you come again!' The earl told him, on Monday (this being on the Friday); 'For God's sake let me!' said the king: Shall I, shall I ?' then lolled about his neck:- Then, for God's sake, give thy lady this kiss for me!' in the same manner at the stayre's head, at the middle of the stayres, and at the stayre's foot. The earl was not in his coach when the king used these very words, in the hearing of four servants, of whom one was Somerset's great creature, and of the bed-chamber, who reported it instantly to the author of this history,—I shall never see his face more." To this it must be added, that before the earl had reached London, "his countess was apprehended-himself on his arrival *.” James now spoke more freely, complaining that Somerset and his wife had made him an assistant in the crimes of adultery and murder; and in consigning the further investigation of the affair to the vigilance of Chief Justice Coke, he pronounced a solemn curse on the head of that functionary and his posterity "if he spared any of them; and upon himself and his, if he pardoned any." We shall presently see how far it was safe in the monarch thus to expose himself and his descendants to malediction in this matter. The progress of this odious investigation led to the conviction of Elways, lieutenant of the Tower, and of Weston its warden; of Mrs. Turner, a superior sort of fortune-teller, and of and of their accomplices. Franklin an apothecary, all as being more or less concerned in the poisoning, and all suffered the penalty of the law. Sir Thomas Monson, the king's falconer, was also arraigned as having exercised much severity towards Overbury, and as being probably acquainted with his end. But, from some mysterious cause, this person was suddenly reconducted from the bar to the Tower by order of the sovereign; from which place, after a short interval, he was liberated without further process. of these Some time was suffered to elapse before the chief culprits were brought to trial. The countess pleaded guilty, and the sentence of the law was pronounced. Somerset shared the same fate Trial and fate by an unanimous verdict of the peers, though he laboured strenuously for the space of eleven hours in the assertion of his innocence. The king, however, notwithstanding his solemn imprecation, soon conferred his pardon on the countess, and the earl's sentence, after being suspended for several years, was at length reversed. In 1621 both were released from the Tower, and banished to a country. seat, with an allowance of 4000l. a year from their forfeited property. In that obscurity they passed the remainder of their days, hated of mankind, and hating each other. The countess died in 1632, Somerset lived to 1645. * Weldon, 101, 102. Coke's Detection, i. 87. 94 That James should have hesitated to shed the blood of persons with whom he had been on such terms of intimacy is not strange, and hardly censurable. But unfortunately there is room to suspect that this lenity was the effect of fear more than of clemency. The circumstance of Monson's being forced from the bar in the manner already noticed, and that in consequence of a hint received by the king only the previous evening, intimating the probability that the culprit would play an unwelcome card upon his trial; the haughty and even menacing demeanour of Somerset, both before and after his conviction, and the mysterious terms in which he expressed his purposes of revenge; the solicitude of the king to have him assured that his life should not be taken, and to have him brought to trial in a more submissive state of mind than he had generally evinced in his present circumstances; and the character of the letters addressed to the monarch by Sir Thomas More, the lieutenant of the Tower, on this subject-all are matters which show that Somerset was possessed of some secret which gave him a power that he was not slow to exercise over the fears of the king. It was to prevent the threatened disclosure that James promised all he could promise with any regard to decency. It should be added that there were menaces used by Overbury towards Somerset of the same nature with those now used by Somerset towards James, and the close confinement to which that person was subject from the time of his commitment provokes the conclusion that he also was a depository of some dangerous secret, probably the same which was more successfully employed by his patron *. In what the secret of Somerset consisted a future day must disclose. That it related to some iniquitous matter is beyond doubt: nothing short of this could have produced the confidence of the one party, or the apprehension of the other. to Villiers favourite. When Archbishop Abbot had succeeded in placing George Villiers near the person of the king, the considerate prelate, aware Abbot's advice of the probable course awaiting the favoured youth, endeaprogress of the voured to impress his mind with the value of three maxims: -these were, that he should offer daily supplication to God for grace to serve the king faithfully; that he should study to do all good offices between the king, the queen, and Prince Charles; and that he should address nothing but truth to the ear of the sovereign. The young man learnt these precepts by rote, “ indifferently well," and his monitor with characteric gravity professed himself much gratified when assured by the monarch that such were the counsels which it became a bishop to bestow. But the giddy height to which the new minion was speedily raised left him little inclination or capacity to profit by the weighty advice of his reverend instructor. Within * Bacon, iv. 90, 447, 465, 470; vi. 89, 90, 101, 103. Cabala, 33, 38, 221. Truth brought to Light, pp. 24-136. Coke's Detection, i. 84-88. Archæologia, xviii. 355-358. Howell's State Trials, ii. 951, et seq. a few years, George Villiers became Viscount Villiers, Earl, Marquis, and Duke of Buckingham, and Knight of the Order of the Garter; adding to this succession of titles places of trust not less considerable; as the mastership of the horse, and of the King's Bench office, and the wardenship of the Cinque Ports; with the offices of the chief justice in Eyre, steward of Westminster, constable of Windsor, and lord high admiral of England. At the same time the mother of this fortunate adventurer became a countess, his brother a viscount, and not a few of his needy kindred were drawn in various ways from their obscurity to opulence and power. In the early stages of his advancement, Villiers promised to remember the archbishop as a father; but Abbot soon found himself a sufferer, in common with others, from the heedless conceit which this ill-judged profusion tended necessarily to produce. CHAPTER VIII. Conduct of James and Somerset toward Sir Walter Raleigh-He is released through the influence of Villiers-Projects a voyage to Guiana-Obtains the king's commission-Aggression of the Spaniards at St. Thomas-Failure of the enterprize-Arrest of Raleigh-Proceedings against him-Is condemned as a peace-offering to Spain-His character, and his demeanour in his last momentsGovernment of Ireland-State of the Irish Catholics-Plantation of Ulster-Evils of subsequent proceedings. It was long the boast of Somerset, that whatever may have been his gains during the three years he was in power, he had Conduct of always declined gratuities, and discouraged proposals that James and would have tended to diminish the hereditary possessions Somerset or the permanent revenue and influence of the crown; and toward Raleigh. that he had pursued this course at the certain cost of making himself numerous enemies. But, allowing such to have been his practice, it may have originated in nothing better than a selfish foresight. His conduct towards Sir Walter Raleigh, in the matter of the estate and castle of Sherbourne, affords sufficient proof that there was scarcely any injustice to which he could not descend in order to enrich himself. Raleigh had conveyed the castle and adjoining property at Sherbourne to his eldest son some time before the decease of Elizabeth, and it was thus saved from the wreck which befell his other possessions on his being declared a traitor; but it was afterwards ascertained that in the deed of conveyance a word had been omitted, through the heedlessness of a transcriber, and this omission, according to the chief justice Popham, an enemy of Raleigh, rendered the document invalid. Carr seized the occasion to pray the king that the castle and its demesnes might be bestowed on himself. Raleigh had now passed some years in the confinement of the Tower, where, together with the Earl of Northumberland, he had nobly occupied himself in the pursuits of literature and science. He had suffered much, but hitherto poverty had not been among the evils of which he had to complain; and it was to prevent the adding of this affliction to the many which oppressed him, that he now addressed a dignified and pathetic expostulation to the favourite, apprising him of the bitter sorrow that would be brought on an imprisoned parent, and on those whose condition was really that of the widow and the orphan, by the meditated wrong. But the man whom the king delighted to honour had no pity; and when lady Raleigh and her children threw themselves at the feet of the monarch himself, entreating that their last reliance might not be torn from them, the only answer obtained from the royal clemency was-"I mun ha' the land, I mun ha' it for Carr." It is true James granted lady Raleigh the sum of 8000l. as a proRaleigh liber- fessed compensation; but only a few months later more ated through than three times that amount was necessary to purchase the influence the alienated property. of Villiers. The death of Prince Henry, which happened at this juncture, threw the deepest gloom over the prospects of Raleigh. Cecil, indeed, his most powerful adversary, was no more; but Carr had injured him much too seriously not to prove an enemy fully as relentless. But the time was at hand in which the course of this later opponent was to reach its close; and Villiers, his successful rival, not having the same motives to enmity, listened to certain bribed connexions, and procured the liberation of Raleigh after he had suffered inprisonment thirteen years. Elizabeth had conferred her sanction on Raleigh in prosecuting several voyages of discovery, and in 1595 had encouraged his attempt to reach the great empire of Guiana, as it was called, situated, as was then supposed, on the banks of the Oronoko. This expedition was so far successful, that the Englishman penetrated large territories unexplored by Europeans, and took formal possession of them in the name of his sovereign. Raleigh had found means to continue his correspondence with the chiefs of those distant regions from the walls of the Tower, and while a prisoner had solicited permission to visit them, but in vain. When restored to liberty, the project of such a voyage increasingly Indulges the occupied his mind; and James, partly from the advice of project of a persons of influence, but chiefly in the hope that a gold voyage to Guiana. 1616. mine, said to have been discovered, might afford a seasonable aid to his necessities, was induced to confer a reluctant sanction on the enterprise. Among the friends of Raleigh in this undertaking were the earls of Pembroke and Arundel, and Secretary Winwood. The latter, who was perhaps the most honest-minded man about |