was signed and ready about five hours after | was the readiness of the nation to acknowledge Elizabeth's decease; and then those who had the Scottish king, or their laudable anxiety to signed it went out of the council-chamber at avoid a disputed succession and civil war. Whitehall, with Secretary Cecil at their head, who had taken the chief direction of the business, and who in the front of the palace read to the people the proclamation, which assured them that the queen's majesty was really dead, and that the right of succession was wholly in James, King of Scots, now King of England, Scotland, France, and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, &c. They then went to the High Cross in Cheapside, M THE HIGH CROSS, CHEAPSIDE. From a painting lately at Cowdray, Sussex. 66 There was one person, however, whose claim excited uneasiness in the cautious mind of Cecil this was the Lady Arabella Stuart, daughter of the Earl of Lennox, younger brother of James's father, Darnley, and descended equally from the stock of Henry VII. This young lady was by birth an English woman, a circumstance which had been considered by some as making up for her defect of primogeniture, for James. though nearer, was a born Scotchman and alien. Cecil for some time had had his eye upon the Lady Arabella, and she was now safe in his keeping. Eight hundred dangerous or turbulent persons, indistinctly described as vagabonds," were seized in two nights in London, and sent to serve on board the Dutch fleet. No other out ward precautions were deemed necessary by the son of Burghley, who calmly waited the coming of James and his own great reward, without asking for any pledge for the privileges of parliament, the liberties of the people, or the reform of abuses which had grown with the growing prerogative of the crown. But these were things altogether overlooked, not only by Cecil and Nottingham, and those who acted with them, but also by the parties opposed to them, the most remarkable man among whom was Sir Walter Raleigh, who, like all the other courtiers or statesmen, looked entirely to his own interest o aggrandizement. Between the independent, unyielding spirit of his clergy, the turbulent, intriguing habits of his nobles, and his own poverty, James had led rather a hard life in Scotland. He was eager to take possession of England, which he looked upon as the very Land of Promise; but so poor was he that he could not begin his journey until Cecil sent him down money. He asked for the crown jewels of England for the queen his wife; but the council did not think fit to comply with this request: and, on the 6th day of April, he set out for Berwick, without wife or jewels. On arriving at that ancient town he fired off. with his own hand, a great piece of ordnance, an unusual effort of courage on his part. On the same day he wrote to his "right trusty and right wellbeloved cousins and councillors, the lords and others of his privy council at London," thanking them for the money which they had sent, telling where Cecil again read the proclamation, and when he had done, "the multitude with one consent cried aloud-'God save King James!"" for all parties, or rather the three great religious sects, High Churchmen, Puritans, and Papists, all promised themselves advantages from his accession. Cecil next caused three heralds and a trumpeter to proclaim the said tidings within the walls of the Tower, where the heart of many a state-prisoner leaped for joy, and where the Earl of Southampton, the friend of the unfortunate Essex, joined the rest in their signs of great gladness. Of the other thirteen or fourteen conflicting claims to the succession which had been them that he would hasten his journey as much reckoned up at different times during Elizabeth's reign, not one appears to have been publicly mentioned, or even alluded to; and the right of James was allowed to pass unquestioned. Such had been the able management of Cecil-such 1 Stow: Weldon: Osborne; Memoirs of Sir Robert Carey. Lord Darnley, but through his mother, who, as the granddaughter of James IV. by his wife Margaret, eldest daughter of Henry VII., was, after Elizabeth, the next representative of that king. The Lady Arabella and her uncle Lord Darnley were descended from the same Margaret Tudor, but by her marriage with Matthew Stuart, Earl of Lennox. 2 James's claim, however, was not at all through his father, as conveniently he might that he intended to tarry awhile at the city of York, and to make his entry therein in some such solemn manner as appertained to his dignity, and that, therefore, he should require that all such things as they in their wisdom thought meet should be sent down to York. The body of Elizabeth was still above ground, and it would have been regular in him to attend her funeral in person. He assured the lords that he could be well contented to do that, and all other honour he might, unto "the queen defunct;" and he referred it to their consideration, whether it would be more honour for her to have the funeral finished before he came, or to wait and have him present at it. Cecil and his friends knew what all this meant, and hastened the funeral: there was no rejoicing successor present; but 1500 persons in deep mourning voluntarily followed the body of Elizabeth to Westminster Abbey. The king was a slow traveller. On the 13th of April, or seven days after, he had got no farNewcastle, ther than whence he wrote another letter, commanding coins of different denominations to be struck in gold and silver. He gave minute directions as to arms, quarterings, and mottoes. By the 15th of 291 made easy;" yet, notwithstanding their system and his own great caution, his majesty got a fall off his horse, near Belvoir Castle. "But God be thanked," adds Cecil, in relating the accident to the ambassador in France, "he hath no harm at all by it, and it is no more than may befall any other great and extreme rider, as he is, at least once every month." As he approached the English capital, hosts of courtiers and aspirants after places hurried to meet him and pay their homage. Among these the great Francis Bacon was not the last, who, in a letter to the Earl of Northumberland, has left us a curious record of his first impressions.2 Other persons who were not, as Bacon was, afraid of judging too boldly of James's charac ter and address, expressed astonishment, if not disgust, at the very unroyal person and beh viour of the new sove reign, whose legs were too weak to carry his body-whose tongue was too large for his mouth whose eyes were goggle, rolling, and yet vacantwhose apparel was neglected and dirty-whose whole appearance and bearing was slovenly and ungainly; while his unmanly fears were betrayed by his wearing a thickly wadded daggerproof doublet, and by April he had reached the JAMES I-From a portrait by Vandyke, after a miniature many other ridiculous by Hilyard, 1617. precautions. To such as house of Sir William hungered after the honours of knighthood, he may have appeared in a more favourable light, for, as he went along, he profusely distributed these honours: in fact, he appears to have bestowed the honour of knighthood on nearly every person that came to him during this hey-day journey. At last, on the 3d of May, he reached Theobalds in Hertfordshire, the sumptuous seat of Secretary Cecil, where, as at other gentlemen's houses at which he had stayed, he was astonished at the luxury, comparative elegance, and comfort he found. He was met by all the lords of the late queen's council, who knelt down and did their homage, after which the Lord-keeper Egerton made a grave oration, in the name of all, signifying their assured love and allegiance. On the morrow he made twenty-eight more knights. But it was not for these operations that Cecil Ingleby at Topcliff; and from that place he wrote a curious letter, to the lord-keeper, the lord-treasurer, the lord-admiral, the master of the horse, and the principal secretary for the time being. All his circumlocution and care could not conceal his -humour at their not coming to meet him, and their still delaying to send the crown jewels. It is said that James, in conversing with some of his English counsellors about his prerogative, exclaimed joyously, "Do I make the judges? Do I make the bishops? Then, God's wounds! I make what likes me law and gospel!" Though he had hardly ever had the due and proper authority of a king in his own country, he had long indulged in a speculative absolutism, and, as far as his cowardice and indolence allowed him, he came fully prepared to rule the people of England as a despot. To enliven his journey he hunted along the road. He was a miserable horseman, but his courtiers invented for him a sort of "hunting 'Sir Henry Ellis' Collection. 2 Serinia Sacra, a supplement to the Ce had induced him to take Theobalds on his way; and during the four days which the king passed there, that wily statesman ingratiated himself with his new master, and remodelled a cabinet very much (though not entirely) to his own satisfaction. The chief objects of Cecil's present jealousy were the Earl of Northumberland, Lord Grey, Lord Cobham, and the versatile, intriguing, and ambitious Sir Walter Raleigh, who, very fortunately for Cecil, had given grounds of offence to the king before Elizabeth's demise. Northumberland, who employed the cogent advocacy and eloquent tongue of Bacon, was promised a share in the king's favour; but Cobham and Grey were cut off from promotion, and Raleigh, who aspired to the highest posts, was deprived of the subordinate ones which he had held.' Cecil was retained, together with his friends Nottingham, Henry and Thomas Howard, Buckhurst, Mountjoy, and Egerton, to whom James added four Scottish lords, and his secretary, Elphinstone, a nomination which instantly called forth jealousy and discontent. made more. By the time he had set foot in his palace of Whitehall, he had knighted 200 individuals of all kinds and colours, and before he had been three months in England he had lavished the honour on some 700; nor was he very chary even of the honour of the English peerage, which Elizabeth held at so high a price. He presently made four earls and nine barons, among whom was Cecil, who became Lord Cecil, afterwards Viscount Cranborne, and finally Earl of Salisbury. Several of the English promotions excited surprise and derision; but these feelings gave place to more angry passions when he elevated his Scottish followers to seats in the House of Lords. Before he had done he added sixty-two names to the list of the peerage. Towards the end of June, James met his queer and his children (with the exception of Charles, his second son, who had been left behind in Scot land) at Windsor Castle, where the young price Henry was installed knight of the order of the Garter. On the 22d of July the court removed to Westminster, where the king, in his garden, dubbed knights all the judges, all the serjeantsat-law, all the doctors of civil law, all the gen ties." Splendid preparations had been made for the coronation of the king and queen with pageants and shows of triumph; but as the plague was raging in the city of London and the suburbs, the people were not permitted to go to Westminster to see the sight, but forbidden by proclamation, lest the infection should be further spread On the 7th of May the king moved towards London, and was met at Stamford Hill by the lord-mayor and aldermen of London, in scarlet | tlemen-ushers, and "many others of divers qualirobes; and about six o'clock in the evening he arrived at the Charter-house, where he made some more knights. On the same day proclamation was made that all the monopolies granted by the late queen should be suspended till they had been examined by the king and council, that all royal protections that hindered men's suits in law should cease, and that the oppressions done by saltpetre makers, purveyors, and cart-takers, for the use of the court, should be put down. These were valuable instalments if they had been held sacred; but a few days after, James, "being a prince above all others addicted to hunting," issued another proclamation, prohibiting all manner of persons whatsoever from killing deer, and all kinds of wild-fowl used for hunting and hawking, upon pain of the severest penalties.3 From the Charter-house James removed to the Tower, where he made more knights, and from the Tower he proceeded to Greenwich, where he 1 He was allowed to retain the government of the island of Jersey, which had been given to him by Elizabeth.-Sir Henry Ellis' Letters. 2 Lodge (Illustrations) gives a complete list of these monopolies. One of them gives Symon Farmer and John Crafford an exclusive right "to transport all manner of horns for twenty-one years." One gives Bryan Amersley the sole right of buying steel beyond seas, and of selling the same within this realm. One confines to Ede Schets the sole right of exporting ashes and old shoes for seven years. One gives Sir Walter Raleigh the faculty of dispensing licenses for keeping of taverns and retailing of wines throughout all England. 3 Stow; Roger Coke, Detection of the Court and State of England, &c. Mr. Hallam tells us "In the first part of his reign James had availed himself of an old feudal roucre, calling on all who for there died that week in London and the suburbs of all diseases 1103; of the plague 857. To increase the inauspicious aspect of things, the weather was darker and more rainy than had ever been known at such a season.* On the 25th of July the coronation took place. However weak might be the personal character of James, the power of the great nation he was called to govern was not to be despised by the contending states on the Continent. Almost immediately on his arrival, special ambassadors began to flock from all parts, to congratulate him on his accession, and to win him each to the sepa held £40 a-year in chivalry (whether of the crown or not, as it rate views and interests of his court. The first embassy that arrived was from the states of Holland, Zealand, and the United Provinces, which stood most in need of English assistance. But the suitors of Portia in the immortal drama scarcely arrived with more rapidity to woo the beautiful heiress, than did the rival diplomatists to win the good graces of James. James had no sympathy for the emancipated subjects of Spain, who had prevailed in their struggle for independence, in good part through the assistance lent to them by Elizabeth; and when over his cups he spoke of the Hollanders as rebels and traitors to their lawful sovereign. The Hollanders, moreover, had not been very grateful for aid which had been lent from selfish motives, and they were slow in paying the money they owed to England. The Archduke of Austria, on the other hand, showed a great disposition to liberality, and it appears pretty certain that his envoy D'Aremberg would have prevailed with James, had it not been for the address, the winning manners, and the gold of Rosny, the French ambassador, afterwards the great Duke of Sully, who distributed bribes among the needy courtiers, and, it is said, bribed the queen herself. James agreed to, and even ratified a treaty, in which he bound himself with Henry IV. to send secret assistance in money to the States, and, in case of Philip attacking France, to join in open hostilities. Rosny departed rejoicing; but it was soon found that King James had no money to spare, and that he was resolved to live in peace, even at the cost of the national honour. Pride prevented the Spanish court from sueing directly for a peace, but Philip III. told some desperate English Catholic plotters that he wished to live in amity with James; and he soon sent over a regular ambassador to negotiate in his own name. Denmark, Poland, the Palatinate, some other German states, Tuscany, and Venice, had already despatched their envoys, and to all of them the king had said, "Peace at home and abroad!-above all things peace." But he had already been made acquainted with a plot which he thought threatened not only to disturb peace at home, but also to deprive him of his throne and life. Sir Walter Raleigh, who was smarting with the pangs of disappointed ambition, and transported with jealousy of the prevailing influence of Cecil, was further enraged by the king's depriving him of his valuable patent of the monopoly of licensing taverns and retailing wines throughout all England, and by seeing his honourable post of captain of the guard bestowed upon one of the Scottish adventurers. In spite of his consummate abilities, he was a rash Stow; Coke; Wilson; Lodge; the Memoirs attributed to Bully; Birch, Negotiations. P politician; and our respect for his genius ought not to blind us to the fact that, in the pursuit of rank, power, and wealth, he could be a selfish, dangerous, and remorseless man. His political associate, Lord Cobham, who had joined with him and Cecil in ruining the Earl of Essex, was now equally disappointed and desperate. The Lord Grey of Wilton, who had partaken in their disgrace, partook also in their discontent and ill-will against Cecil; but he was inspired by higher, or less interested motives than Raleigh and Cobham. Each of these men had his partizans of inferior condition, and, up to a certain point, the disappointed Earl of Northumberland, whom Jame¬ had amused with promises, "as a child with a rattle," went along with them, and seems to hav been a party in intriguing with Rosny and with Beaumont, the resident ambassador of France, who had both been instructed to sow dissensions in the English cabinet, and to overthrow, if possible, the power of Cecil.' Here Northumberland stopped. The other three proceeded, at times in concert, at times separately, and with diverging views. They would all have been powerless and clientless, but for the unhappy disputes and heartburnings in matters of religion, and the disgust which many men felt at the king's being admitted without any pledge or assurance for the redress of grievances, and the better observance of the rights of parliament. The Puritans, who were still growing in consideration, wished for the establishment of a Presbyterian church, somewhat like that which had been set up by Knox and his associates in Scotland; the Catholics wished, for themselves, toleration, and something more; some minor and very weak sects would have been satisfied with simple toleration; but the High Church party--the only true Protestants by act of parliament-were determined to oppose all these wishes and claims, and to press for a uniformity of faith to be upheld by the whole power of the penal statutes. Before his coming to the crown of England, James had made large promises to the Catholics; but, on his arrival in London, he threw himself into the arms of the High Churchmen, who easily alarmed him as to the anti-monarchical influences of the court of Rome. He swore that he would fight to death against a toleration; and he sent some Irish deputies to the Tower for petitioning for it. oppressed and impatient began to conspire several weeks before the coronation, and their plots, loosely bound together by their common discontent, were pretty certain to fall asunder of them The 2 An expression of Lord Henry Howard, afterwards Earl of Northampton, in a letter to Mr. David Bruce.-Lord Hailes, Secret Correspondence of Sir Robert Cecil with James VI., King of Scotland. 3 Despatches of Beaumont, as quoted by Carte. 4 Despatches of Beaumont, the French ambassador. On the 24th of June, the day appointed by the "Bye" for seizing the king on his road to Windsor, Lord Grey and his 100 men were not at the place of meeting, and the priest Watson and his Catholic friends were too weak to attempt anything. On the 6th of July, Anthony Copley was arrested; and as he was timid, and ready to confess, and as Cecil knew already (if not through Brooke, through other parties), of the whole plot of the "Bye," Sir Griffin Markham, the priests Watson and Clarke, and the rest of Copley's confederates, were presently ap prehended. Cecil, who appears to have been as well acquainted with the "Main" as with the "Bye," met Sir Walter Raleigh on the terrace at Windsor, and requested his attendance before the lords of the council, then secretly assembled in the castle. Raleigh obeyed the summons, and was instantly questioned touching his friend Cobham's private dealings with the Count d'Arem berg. At first he asserted that there could have been no unwarrantable or treasonable practices between Cobham and that ambassador; but on being further pressed, he said that La Rensy, D'Aremberg's servant, might better explain what passed than he could do. Sir Walter was allowed to depart a free man, and he forthwith wrote a letter to Cecil, recommending him to interrogate La Rensy. It is said that Raleigh then wrote to Cobham, warning him of his dan selves. It should appear that the Catholics, the most oppressed party, took the initiative; but the fact is not certain, and it is impossible to explain by what means they were brought to coalesce with the Puritans, who were more intolerant of their faith than the High Churchmen. Sir Griffin Markham, a Catholic of small property or influence, joined with two secular priests, Watson and Clarke, and with George Brooke, a brother of Lord Cobham's, and an able but unprincipled man.' The priest, Watson, had been with James in Scotland previous to Elizabeth's death to gain his favour for the Catholics; and he said afterwards to the council, that the king's broken promises and determination to allow of no toleration to his church had induced him to enter into the plot. He was for a time the chief mover in it: he drew up and administered a terrible oath of secrecy, and, together with Clarke, laboured and travelled incessantly to induce the Catholic gentry to join the cause. He was, however, remarkably unsuccessful; for, of the Catholic gentry, scarcely one of any weight or consequence joined the conspirators, except Anthony Copley, of the west of England. It was probably on this failure (he must have moved and acted rapidly), that Watson won over the chief leaders of the Puritans by concealing from them the greater part of his views. Lord Grey of Wilton was a Puritan, and, though a young man, the leader of his party, and he entered into the plot, and engaged to fur-ger, and that this letter was intercepted by Cecil. nish 100 men well mounted. Lord Cobham, and perhaps Raleigh, were privy to this conspiracy; but it appears that they took no active part in it, being engaged in a separate plot of their own. Cecil says that Grey was drawn into the "priest's treason" in ignorance that so many Papists were engaged in the action, and that as soon as he had knowledge of their numbers, he sought to sever himself from them by dissuading the execution of their project till some future time. This project was, to seize the king's person, and to keep him in confinement (as the Scotch had done before them) till he changed his ministers, and granted a toleration, together with a free pardon, to all who had been concerned in the plot. Such was the constitution of the "Bye Plot," as it was called. The "Main," in which Raleigh and Cobham were engaged, was far more compact, but still weak and wild; and George Brooke, the brother-in-law, and suspected tool of Cecil, was engaged in it, as well as in the "Bye." 1 Mr. Jardine (Criminal Trials) says, "It is difficult to ascertain what could be Brooke's motive for joining the conspiracy, as he was actuated neither by political nor religious considerations." Mr. Tytler (Life of Raleigh) thinks it extremely probable that Cecil, aware of the intrigues of the Catholic priests, engaged Brooke, who was his brother-in-law, to become a party to their discontents, that he might discover and betray their secrets. And Mr. Tytler quotes several contemporary documents which go to establish this conviction. Cobham was called before the council, where, by showing Raleigh's letter to himself, advising him to question D'Aremberg's servant, and by otherwise working on his temper, Cecil made Cobham believe that he had been basely be trayed by Raleigh, and then confess that he had been led into a conspiracy by his friend Sir Walter. Both were secured and committed to the Tower, where, on the 27th of July, two days after the king's coronation, Raleigh is said to have attempted his own life.2 On account of the plague, which made the king's ministers, judges, and lawyers, flee from place to place, and partly owing to the presence of D'Aremberg, who did not leave England till October, no judicial proceedings were instituted till the 15th of November, when the commoners implicated in the "Bye" were arraigned in Winchester Castle. "Brooke, Markham, Brookesby, Copley, and the two priests," says a narrative of the affair written at the time, "were condemned for practising the surprise of the king's person. the taking of the Tower, the deposing of counsellors, and proclaiming liberty of religion. They were all condemned upon their own confessions, which were set down under their own hands as declarations, and compiled with such labour and 2 Cayley, Life of Raleigh; Howell, State Trials |