of the

the stability of her government. For to all the world it had become notorious, that the deftinies and fate of the Reformation had for the time fallen exclufively into her hands; and that not in England only did fhe animate Champion every effort connected with the new faith, but and leader that, in her, centred not lefs the hopes of all Reformawho were carrying on the ftruggle, against tion. overwhelming numbers, in other lands. Of the movement, however, of which she was thus the heroine, fhe unhappily never recognifed the entire meaning and tendency; and instead of disarming Puritanism by conceffion, she had ftrengthened and cherished it by perfecution.

political

But, towards the clofe of her reign, when, Puritanafter that fubduement of the Roman Catholic ifm in a new form: power on the continent to which the had devoted fo many glorious years, fhe found leisure to investigate patiently the domestic concerns of her kingdom, the old Puritan. remonftrance prefented itself to her under a new form, and in ominous conjunction with very wide-fpread political diffatisfaction. Every- Joined where voices had become loud against royal with patents of monopolies; and not only was her discontent. firft minifter's coach mobbed in the streets when he went to open her parliament of 1601, but, when Mr. Serjeant Heyle rofe in that parliament to exprefs his amazement that a subsidy fhould be refused to the Queen, feeing that she had no less a right to the lands and goods of the fubject than to any revenue of her A Queen's crown, the Houfe univerfally "hemmed and Serjeant coughed laughed and talked" down the learned down.

66

Cecil's

Serjeant. Nor was the afpect of affairs become lefs grave or ftrange, when, a little later in that fame affembly, Cecil thought it right to warn warning to the lower Houfe of dangers which had particularly declared themfelves to his ripe and experienced judgment. "I muft needs give

Commons.

Eliza

appearance in Parliament.

you this for a future caution, that whatso"ever is fubject to public expectation cannot "be good, while the parliament matters are "ordinary talk in the street. I have heard. "myfelf, being in my coach, thefe words fpoken aloud: God profper thofe that further "the overthrow of thefe monopolies!" It had not beth's laft then feemed poffible to the Secretary's experience, that the Queen herself might think it fafer to attract this prayer to her own profperity than to let any one elfe reap the benefit of it; but a very few days undeceived him. Elizabeth in perfon went to the House, withdrew all claim to the monopolies which had excited refiftance, redreffed other grievances complained of, and quitted Westminster amid the shouts and prayers of the people that God might profper their Queen. Within two more years fhe died, bequeathing the Crown to her coufin of Scotland.

James I. 1603.

To this point, then, the Tudor fyftem had been brought, when Scotland and England became united under one fovereignty, and the noble inheritance fell to a race, who, comprehending not one of the conditions by which Two alone it was poffible to be retained, profligately kingdoms mifufed until they completely loft it. united un- calamity was in no refpect foreseen by the Stuarts. ftatesman, Cecil, to whofe exertion it was mainly

der the

The

due that James was feated on the throne; yet in regard to it he cannot be held blameless. Right he undoubtedly was, in fo far as the courfe he took fatisfied a national defire, and brought under one crown two kingdoms that Opportucould not feparately exift with advantage to nity loft by Cecil. either; but it remains a reproach to his name that he let flip the occafion of obtaining for the people fome fettled guarantees which could not then have been refufed, and which might have faved half a century of bloodfhed. None No condiTuch were propofed to James. He was allowed tions made to feize a prerogative, which for upwards of at Accef fifty years had been ftrained to a higher pitch than at any previous period of the English hiftory; and his clumfy grafp closed on it without a fign of remonftrance from the leading ftatefmen of England. "Do I mak the judges? Do I mak the bifhops?" he exclaimed, as the powers of his new dominion dawned on his delighted fenfe: " then, God's "wauns! I mak what likes me, law and gof

ftrained

preroga

pel!" It was even fo. At a time when it was manifeft that the prerogative had outgrown No check even the power of the greatest of the Tudors on overto retain it, when the conflict long provoked was about to begin, when the balance of popu- tive. lar right had to be redreffed or the old conftitution to be utterly furrendered, this license to make gospel and law was given, with other far more questionable powers, to a man whose perfonal appearance and qualities were as fuggeftive of contempt, as his public acts were provocative of rebellion. It is neceffary to dwell upon this part of the fubject; for it is bellion.

Provoca

tion to Re

only juft to his lefs fortunate fon and fucceffor Penalties to fay, that in it lies the fource of not a little to be paid. for which the penalty was paid by him. What is called the Great Rebellion can have no comment so pregnant as that which is fuggested by the character and previous career of the first of the Stuart kings. Upon this, therefore, and upon the court with which he furrounded himfelf in England, though they do not otherwise fall strictly within my purpose, I fhall offer a few remarks before clofing this Effay.

Character

ing.

§. III. FIRST STUART KING.

That James the First had a decidedly more of James. than fair fhare of learning is not to be denied ; but it was of no use to anyone, and least of all to himself. George Buchanan was reproached for having made him a pedant, and replied that it was the best he could make of him. LearnHis learn- ing the great teacher could communicate, but neither objects nor methods for its ufe, nor even a knowledge of its value. Probably no fuch foolish man, in ways of fpeech and life, as James the First, was ever in fairness entitled, before or fince, to be called a really learned one. Nevertheless the greater marvel is, that not only, being thus foolish in language and conduct, was he undoubtedly a fcholar, but that he had alfo an amount of native fhrewdnefs which fcholarfhip had neither taught him, nor tamed in him. He poffeffed, to a quite curious extent, a quick natural cunning, a native mother wit, and the art of circumventing an adversary; and it was to this Henri Quatre alluded when he called

His cunning and

fhrewdnefs.

That Wifeft fool in

him the wifeft fool in Chriftendom. what he had acquired ever helped him to a Chriftenufeful thought, or a fuggeftion of practical dom. worth, it is impoffible to discover. Mystically to define the prerogative as a thing fet far above the law; to exhibit king-craft as his own particular gift, directly vouchfafed from heaven; to denounce Prefbytery as the offfpring of the devil; to blow with furious vehemence what he called counterblafts to tobacco; to deal what he damnation to the unbelievers in witchcraft,id with learning. and to pour out the wrath of the Apocalypfe upon Popery; were its higheft exploits. He had been busy torturing and burning old women for the imaginary crime of witchcraft, while Elizabeth was preparing a scaffold for his mother; and it was to make the reft of the world as befotted with fuperftition as himself, that he wrote his Demonologie. Before he Ufes of his was twenty, with an aftonishing difplay of knowledge. erudite authorities, he had conclufively fhown St. Peter's defcendant to be Anti-Chrift; but his real objection to the Pope was his holiness's inconvenient rivalry to the royal fupremacy, and James, who at other times feems to have contemplated even the setting up of a Scotch Cardinal, was not more eager to fet fire to a witch than to burn feditious priests who might prefume against his own Anti-Chrift to rebel. To him it was, in all conditions, the climax of fin to refift any fettled authority. He would have been right if fettled authority had found in himself, as he appears to have Too converily believed it had, its highest exponent and fident an noblest representative that the earth could tion.

affump