his theology, his knowledge of the science of demonology, while his undoubted acquirements were so overlaid with pedantry, as to earn for him, from Sully, the title of "the wisest fool in Europe." Both had favourites; but the spirit of the Tudors always preserved Elizabeth from the abject slavery in which James was bound to Somerset and Buckingham. The morals of the Court of Elizabeth were not of the purest order, if we compare them with a modern standard; but in contrast with the profligate and degrading habits of the great lords and ladies under James, her courtiers were models of propriety. In the course of this narrative, enough will appear to warrant the assertion that, not even in the age of Charles II., were honour, virtue, and morality at so low an ebb, as during the first quarter of the seventeenth century. 66 When James was proclaimed on Tower Hill, "at "that instant the Earl of Southampton, with his keeper, did walk upon the leads in the Tower, "whence he perceived the proclamation to be made, "at which he did much rejoice, as great reason he "hath so to do, throwing his hat up two several times, "and the third time cast it over the wall from him, "that all upon the Tower Hill might behold it. At "the time of proclamation of the King in Cheap"side, my Lord of Northumberland brought with and judges well of them. She is passionate and violent among her attendants, and demands more than is due to her sex; she is more frugal than she ought to be, and instead of giving will have others give to her.” -From a despatch of M. de Bouillon, 1596. Von Raumer, ii. 178. แ 'him, upon horseback, the Earl of Essex his son, "and instantly after the proclamation was done, he was sent unto Essex House to his mother, for there "she doth lie at this time."1 66 Robert Devereux was, at this time, a gentleman commoner of Merton College, Oxford, whither he had removed from Eton at the end of January, 1602. Mr., afterwards Sir Henry Savile, was Warden of Merton, who, for his father's sake, undertook that the youth should be learnedly and religiously educated; the better to effect this, he gave him an apartment in the Warden's lodging.3 On the 5th April, James wrote a letter from Holyrood concerning the Earl of Southampton, which does not bear the address, but was probably to the Privy Council; in it he says, "We have thought "meet to give the Peers of the realm notice of our "pleasure, though the same be to be executed by "our own regal power; which is, only because the "place is unwholesome and dolorous to him, to "whose body and mind we would give present com"fort. We have written to our Lieutenant of the "Tower to deliver him out of prison presently, to go 1 From a letter from Thomas Ferrers to his brother Sir Henry Ferrers at Walton on Trent, in Lord Ashburnham's Collection, No. 355. Stowe Catalogue. 2 Warden of Merton, 1585. He became Provost of Eton 1596, and died 1621. He was a man of severe morals, and the strictest religious principles, from whom probably Lord Essex imbibed the anti-episcopal opinions which distinguished him at a later period. Sir Henry Savile was also an eminent mathematician, and founder of the chairs of Astronomy and Geometry at Oxford. 3 Ath. Oxon. iii. 189. "to any such place as he shall choose, in or near our "city of London, there to carry himself in such "modest form as we know he will think meet in his 66 66 own discretion, until the body of our State now "assembled shall come unto us, at which time we are pleased that he shall also come unto our presence; for as it is on us that his only hope แ dependeth, so so we will reserve those words of "further favor until the time he behold our own 66 66 eyes, whereof as we know the comfort will be great "to him, so it will be contentment to us to have op"portunity to declare our estimation of him."1 There was little cause to fear that the subject of such expressions from the new Sovereign would be treated with harshness or disrespect. But the House of Peers had not even waited thus long; for on the 26th March, only two days after the death of the Queen, bills reversing the attainders of the Earls of Southampton and Essex were read a first time, and came back from the Commons the 18th April. James must, therefore, have given instructions before he became King, or else his wishes were so well known to Cecyll that he ventured to forestal them thus; a remarkable circumstance whichever way it is viewed. James I. arrived at Theobalds on the 7th, having, by his reception of Southampton at York, displayed his antipathy to the late Queen, quite as much as his regard for the memory of Essex. On the 13th May, he made his entry into London, 1 Ashburnham MSS. 692. Stowe Cat. |