*

Majesty. Sixty young citizens, dressed like Moors, danced through the town before her. The nine Muses stood round the Butter Tron'-proh scelus ! —' bravely arrayed in cloth of silver and gold,' and sung psalms to the Queen as she passed, while a young man, probably designed for Apollo, accompanied them on the organ! The whole was an exquisitely absurd compound of ancient and modern divinity, being partly dictated by the literary taste for the classics, and the popular taste for religion. At the High Church, her Majesty heard a sermon ;-at the Tolbooth, she was introduced to the four virtues, Justice, Temperance, Prudence, and Fortitude;—at the Cross, she was regaled-first with a psalm, and then with a sight of Bacchus, upon a puncheon of wine, drinking, and casting the liquor in cup-fulls upon the people. The principal street of Edinburgh, famed for its width and loftiness, was on this day lined with tapestry from top to bottom, many of these pieces of tapestry representing stories in ancient history, so that the whole must have had a singularly magnificent effect. At the extremity of the city liberties, a box of precious stones, valued at twenty thousand crowns, was presented to her Majesty as the gift of the town, and she was again regaled with psalms, accompanied by organ music.

6

A few days before this grand ceremonial, the Queen's Danish friends had made a progress by Falkland, Dunfermline, and Linlithgow, to take sasine in her Majesty's name of the dotarial possessions which the King had granted to her by his

The keys laid on a plate, and covered with a veil, as was the old fashion.

treaty of marriage. These dignitaries soon after left the country, accompanied by their retinues, all except about sixteen persons, male and female, who remained about the Queen's person. The Scotch chroniclers are inhospitably particular in recording that, during the time they staid in the country, they put it to an expense of twelve hundred merks daily; which was too immense an ex. penditure, over and above the usual costs of the court, to be long tolerable.

*

Nothing else is remarkable about James's marringe, except that Elizabeth sent an ambassador to congratulate him on the event, and to carry presents to his wife. The ambassador was the same person who had sat as chancellor on the jury which condemned his mother to the block; a proof striking, above all others, of what I have oftener than once had to point out in the course of this narrative, the want of delicacy-the total insensibility to all that is now called good taste, which characterized the age.

The Earl of Worcester.

He brought a cloak finely trimmed round, and set with rich jewels; a carcanet with

pearls, a tablet, and a clock.

CHAPTER VI.

TURBULENCE OF THE EARL OF BOTHWELL AND THE CLERGYPOETICAL EXERCISES-DEATH OF THE EARL OF MORAY.

1589-1591.

THE first year of James's married life was spent in some degree of quiet. Neither the nobility nor the ministers troubled him much during that pe riod. It was not to be expected, however, that he could remain long unannoyed by one or other of these turbulent bodies. In the spring of 1591, an individual of the former class began a series of disturbances, which embittered the King's life for several years. This was Francis Earl of Bothwell, his illegitimate cousin, and the nephew of the former and more infamous Earl of the same title. Bothwell had been concerned in the intrigues which the Earl of Huntly, and some others of the Scotch nobility, carried on with the Spanish government, for furthering the object of the Invincible Armada; and in May 1589, he had been regularly condemned as guilty of treason on that account; though the King, from anxiety to keep on good terms with the Catholics, hung up the process against him and his accomplices. Bothwell was a man of exceeding violent passions. In the summer of

1589, he had received some contumelious language from Sir William Stuart, who was then in high fa vour, from his activity in suppressing the Catholics of the south of Scotland. As this language was given in the King's presence, he did not resent it on the instant; but he openly vowed to be revenged. Some days after, happening to meet Sir William on the principal street of Edinburgh, he drew his sword, and called to him to stand to his defence. A conflict took place, in which the servants joined. Stuart soon lost his sword, in consequence of a thrust by which he killed one of Bothwell's retinue. He then fled to a cellar in the neighbourhood, whither Bothwell pursued him, and there killed his defenceless antagonist by re peated wounds. Strange to say, the King, from his peculiar situation, was unable to take any legal cognizance of this atrocious homicide. He was even obliged to make this very nobleman, within a few months, one of his regents to govern the coun try during his absence in Denmark.

It is not now easy to discern, through the involved politics of James's court, how he at length came to look upon Bothwell as an enemy to his person. It is generally thought that Chancellor Maitland was the cause of his ruin, from dread of his turbulent and ambitious character. But, probably, the Earl had also offended James by some assumptions on the score of his descent; for although the King was, by his genealogy, the undoubted heir of both Scotland and England, yet he was induced, by the disposition which the Catholics and dissenters manifested to set aside his succession, to dread every sort of pretender, how ever absurd his claims.

Perhaps, after all, the more probable way of accounting for the disgrace of Bothwell, is to give credit to the charges brought against him by Maitland, and for which he ostensibly suffered, that he consulted with necromancers and witches, for the purpose of destroying the King, and procuring his own exaltation. It was his own constant declaration that he was innocent of any such offence; and the scepticism of later historians, in inducing them to scoff at witchcraft, has led them also to write as if there could have been no such thing as consulting with persons professing the art. But, as it is now known that both Bothwell and his son were, at a later period, noted for using such arts, * and as instances are on record of persons of equally good condition consulting sorcerers more than a century later, there seems to be no reason on that account for supposing his crime fictitious.-But this is a subject which will require to be treated at some length.

One of the most prominent charges brought a gainst the intellect of King James, is his belief in witchcraft; and an allusion to his famous book on Dæmonology, is a favourite way of pointing an epigrammatic sentence against him. Many who never read his book take it upon them, from the changed opinions of the age regarding witchcraft, to sneer at him for giving his countenance to so base a superstition. But, how easy it is for a small mind, amidst the means and appliances of a late age, to assume a superiority over the picture of a great one struggling with the sloughs and shadows of a former and darker time!

See Mr Sharpe's Introduction to Law's Memorialls.