his father-in-law, who was accounted as chief of the Protestant interest, but James was not sanguine, and it moreover was contrary to his principles to countenance popular revolutions. To Gondomar, he said that the Palgrave was a villain and usurper, and that he would assist neither him nor the confederate princes; while to the Protestant envoys he promised to support the true faith and his dear son.

The general voice of England obliged James to do something, and a force of four thousand, under the Earls of Oxford and Essex, was despatched to the Palatinate, but it was too small and too late, to be of much service. The Palatinate was soon overrun by the Imperialists, and the victory of Prague in 1620, drove the unfortunate Frederic from his throne, and made him dependent on the Dutch States for a pension. He was not only deprived of all his dominions, but placed, with all his adherents, under the ban of the Empire. This revolt of the Bohemians was the occasion of the celebrated "Thirty Years' War", (1618-48,) in which figured Mansfeldt, Wallenstein, Tilly, Gustavus Adolphus, and other military leaders of note. It became, indeed, a military school, to which volunteers flocked in numbers from England and Scotland. James still held back, partly because of his dislike to war, and partly from want of funds. When he broke with Spain in 1624, he entered into alliance with the continental powers opposed to the Imperialists, and gave permission to Mansfeldt to take twelve thousand English over, to act as auxiliaries in the service of the Elector, and for whose support £20,000 a month was promised. These recruits were crowded into transports, which with want of provision and accommodation when they landed, carried off half their number in a few weeks. The Count, with the remainder, passed on to the Rhine, but with a force so enfeebled, that he could act only on the defensive.

4. Relations with Holland. (1.) RESTORATION OF THE CAUTIONARY TOWNS, 1616. When Elizabeth, in 1585, consented to become the protector of the Dutch States, she agreed to supply them with a mercenary force, to be paid for at the end of the war. As security for payment, the towns of Flushing, Brill, and Rammekins, in the Isle of Walcheren, were put into the hands of the English. James, who was always in want of money, made a bargain with the Dutch, and took in ready cash about one-third of the sum for which they were pledged. With the money thus obtained, he paid off some of his most urgent debts, and with improved credit, borrowed at once £96,000 at ten per cent., to defray the expenses of his journey to Scotland.

(2.) JAMES TAKES PART IN THE SYNOD OF DORT, 1619. James had some years before (1611) written a tract against

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Vorstius, the successor of Arminius, professor of Divinity, at Leyden. The Arminians held that predestination was conditional; that Christ died for all men; that God wills the salvation of all men; that grace may be resisted; and that believers may fall from faith, and perish. The English king, brought up in the opposite creed of Calvinism, and accounting the doctrines of the Leyden professor, damnable heresies, ordered the ambassador at the Hague to accuse Vorstius of heresy and infidelity, before the States. The Dutch much disliked this interference, but James bade them remember that the king of England, was the Defender of the Faith, and that in conjunction with other churches, it was his duty "to extinguish and remand to hell such abominable doctrines". In the end, the Dutch were told they must either give up their professor, or forfeit the friendship of the king of England. Holland itself was divided on the question, and the removal of Vorstius from his professorship did not bring tranquillity, for it had become intermingled with political partisanship, Prince Maurice and Barneveldt heading the parties. James suggested a national council. This was agreed to, and a Synod called at Dort, to which the Genevan churches sent deputies; James also sent four to represent England, and one as the representative of the Scotch Kirk. Victory rested on the side of the Calvinists, Barneveldt, the greatest man in the States, was sentenced to be beheaded for supporting the Arminians; Vorstius was decreed to perpetual banishment; Grotius and Hogerbets to perpetual imprisonment; and seven hundred families of Arminians driven into exile and reduced to beggary.

(3.) MASSACRE OF AMBOYNA, 1623. As soon as the truce was concluded in 1609, by which the Dutch were freed from hostilities with Spain, and permitted to trade with India, that nation became particularly active in the Indian and Chinese seas. One of the most important islands held by them was Amboyna, which they had taken from the Portuguese, and over which they claimed an absolute sovereignty. As the Spice islands, of which Amboyna was one, yielded most profitable returns, the English in 1612 made an ineffectual effort to establish themselves. In 1619, a treaty was concluded at London, to regulate the trade of the English and Dutch in the East India Islands, and in virtue of this, the English thought they had now a fair title to a share of the trade. But the Dutch determined otherwise. Both nations had establishments at Amboyna, the Dutch living in a strong castle, with a garrison of two hundred, while the English numbered only eighteen, and lived in a defenceless house. Yet the latter were charged with conspiring to seize the fortress, put to horrid tortures, and ten of them beheaded, together with the same

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number of servants, belonging to the English Factory. This "deliberate and cold-blooded" transaction, when tidings reached home, roused the indignation of the English people, but it was just at the time when Buckingham was making arrangements with the Dutch to drive the Spaniards out of the Netherlands. England remonstrated, and the Dutch promised redress, but nothing was done till Cromwell compelled them to make reparation.

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES.

JAMES I, 1566-1625. James was the son of the unfortunate Mary of Scots by her second husband, Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley. Eight months after his birth, his father was basely murdered, and five months later his mother was compelled to resign the crown in his favor. He was crowned at Stirling 29th July, 1567, as James VI., being then but thirteen months old. Prior to his mother's marriage with Bothwell, she committed the care of James to the Earl of Mar, who took his ward to reside in Stirling Castle, where the prince continued during the successive regencies of the Earls of Murray, Lennox, Mar, and Morton. His education was committed to Alexander Erskine, the brother of Mar, but was really conducted by George Buchanan, and other eminent scholars of Scotland. In 1578, at a council which met at Stirling, the prince was requested to take the government into his own hands, the real object being to get rid of the regency of Morton, who had rendered himself odious to the nation. In the struggle of parties which followed, Morton regained his supremacy, which he retained till 1581, when he was publicly executed, for being accessory to the murder of Darnley. James was now governed by two favorites, which led a party of nobles to concert a scheme to seize his person. This was done at Gowrie's Castle of Ruthven in 1582, and hence known as the Raid of Ruthven. Having remained a prisoner at large for about ten months, he contrived with the aid of friends to escape and throw himself into the castle of St. Andrews. The power of that party was now broken, the favorite Arran became again the king's adviser, and Ruthven was executed.

In 1585, James entered into alliance with Elizabeth, and obtained from the English queen a pension of £5,000 a year. Elizabeth however in the same year favored the lords who had been concerned in the Raid of Ruthven, so that they entered Scotland at the head of ten thousand men, and forced a pardon from the king and the dismissal of Arran and his party from power. After the condemnation of his mother, James made considerable efforts to save her life, but when he heard of her execution, though he talked largely, his prudence dictated quietness, lest he should forfeit his pension and hazard his chance of the English succession. Two years later he married Anne of Denmark, in which matter he showed unusual spirit, actually making a voyage to Norway in the fall of the year, to find his bride, who had been driven there by a storm. For ten years after his marriage, the only points of great interest are, his being made a prisoner by a faction of his nobles in 1593, in his own palace, and his

endeavour to break the power of the Presbyterians by the revival of episcopacy. In 1600, happened the mysterious affair, known as the Gowrie conspiracy. This was an attempt by Ruthven, a son of the Earl of Gowrie, executed for the Raid of Ruthven, to secure the person of the king. James maintained that they proposed to take his life. Both Ruthven and his brother, the Earl of Gowrie, were slain by the king's attendants. Of the history of James, after succceding to the English throne, nothing need be said in this place.

In drawing the character of James, Hume's skill, in constructing so favorable a portraiture from such rude and unpromising materials, is remarkable. If its correctness be objected to, no one can deny it to be a beautiful specimen of pen-craft. "In all history, it would be difficult to find a reign less illustrious, yet more unspotted and unblemished, than that of James's in both kingdoms. No prince, so little enterprising and so inoffensive, was ever so much exposed to the opposite extremes of calumny and flattery, of satire and panegyric. And the factions, which began in his time, being still continued, have made his character be as much disputed to this day, as is commonly, that of princes who are our contemporaries. Many virtues, however, it must be owned, he was possessed of; but scarce any of them pure, or free from the contagion of the neighbouring vices. His generosity bordered on profusion, his learning on pedantry, his pacific disposition on pusillanimity, his wisdom on cunning, his friendship on light fancy and boyish fondness. While he imagined that he was only maintaining his own authority, he may perhaps be suspected, in a few of his actions, and still more of his pretensions, to have somewhat encroached on the liberties of the people While he endeavoured by an exact neutrality, to acquire the good-will of all his neighbours, he was able to preserve fully the esteem and regard of none. His capacity was considerable, but fitter to discourse on general maxims than to conduct any intricate business: His intentions were just, but more adapted to the conduct of private life, than to the government of kingdoms. Awkward in his person, and ungainly in his manners, he was ill-qualified to command respect: Partial and undiscerning in his affections, he was little fitted to acquire general love. Of a feeble temper more than of a frail judgment: Exposed to our ridicule from his vanity, but exempt from our hatred by his freedom from pride and arrogance. And upon the whole, it may be pronounced of his character, that all his qualities were sullied with weakness and embellished by humanity: Of political courage he certainly was destitute, and thence chiefly is derived the strong prejudice which prevails against his personal bravery; an inference, however, which must be owned, from general experience to be extremely fallacious."

Macaulay, like Hume, an artist in words, though much less courtly in phrase, draws from the same materials, a portrait anything but flattering to so royal a person. "The kingdom passed to one who was, in his own opinion, the greatest master of king-craft that ever lived, but who was, in truth, one of those kings whom God seems to send for the express purpose of hastening revolutions. Of all the enemies of liberty whom Britain has produced, he was at once the most harmless and the most provoking. His office resembled that of the man who, in a Spanish bull-fight, goads the torpid savage to fury,

by shaking a red rag in the air, and by now and then throwing a dart, sharp enough to sting, but too small to injure. The policy of wise tyrants has always been to cover their violent acts with popular forms. James was always obtruding his despotic theories on his subjects without the slightest necessity. His foolish talk exasperated them infinitely more than forced laws and benevolences would have done. Yet, in practice, no king ever held his prerogatives less tenaciously. He neither gave way gracefully to the advancing spirit of liberty, nor took vigorous measures to stop it, but retreated before it with ludicrous haste, blustering and insulting as he retreated. The English people had been governed during near a hundred and fifty years by princes who, whatever might be their frailties or their vices, had all possessed great force of character, and who whether beloved or hated, had always been feared. Now, at length, for the first time since the day when the sceptre of Henry the Fourth dropped from the hand of his lethargic grandson, England had a king whom she despised.

The follies and vices of the man increased the contempt which was produced by the feeble policy of the sovereign. The indecorous gallantries of his court, the habits of gross intoxication in which even the ladies indulged, were alone sufficient to disgust a people whose manners were beginning to be strongly tinctured with austerity. But these were trifles. Crimes of the most frightful kind had been discovered; others were suspected. The strange story of the Gowries was not forgotten. The ignominious fondness of the king for his minions, the perjuries, the sorceries, the poisonings, which his chief favorites had planned within the walls of the palace, the pardon which, in direct violation of his duty and of his word, he had granted to the mysterious threats of a murderer, made him an object of loathing to many of his subjects. . This was not all. The most ridiculous weaknesses seemed to meet in the wretched Solomon of Whitehall, pedantry, buffoonery, garrulity, low curiosity, the most contemptible personal cowardice. Nature and education had done their best to produce a finished specimen of all that a king ought not to be. His awkward figure, his rolling eye, his rickety walk, his nervous tremblings, his slobbering mouth, his broad Scotch accent, were imperfections which might have been found in the best and greatest men. The effect, however, was to make James and his office objects of contempt, and to dissolve those associations which had been created by the noble bearing of preceding monarchs, and which were in themselves no inconsiderable fence to royalty."

ANNE OF DENMARK. 1575-1619. Anne, the first Queen Consort of Great Britain, was the daughter of Frederic II. of Denmark, a sovereign who had gained the esteem of James, by sending him the dying declaration of Bothwell, to the effect that his mother, Mary of Scots, was innocent in the matter of Darnley's murder. Anne was married to James by proxy in 1589, bringing, besides a dower in money, the Islands of Orkney and Shetland, which had been pledged to Scotland for a century. In her endeavour to reach her adopted home, she was driven by stress of weather to winter in Norway, to which country James made a winter voyage, for the purpose of celebrating his nuptials. When the young queen reached Scotland, she was only in her sixteenth year, and her excessive gaiety gave occasion