THE

COURT OF KING JAMES;

OR,

A GENERAL DISCOURSE

OF

SOME SECRET PASSAGES IN STATE,

SINCE THE DEATH OF THAT EVER GLORIOUS QUEEN
ELIZABETH, UNTIL THIS PRESENT.

BY THE AUTHORS OWN OBSERVATION, WHO WAS EITHER EYE OR
EAR WITNESS, OR FROM SUCH AS WERE ACTORS IN THEM,
FROM THEIR OWN RELATION.

death.

UPON the twenty-fourth of March, 1602, Q. E. did set the most glorious sun that ever shi ́ned in our firmament of England, (the never to be forgotten Queen Elizabeth, of happy P.2.1 memory,) about three in the morning, at her mannour of Richmond, not only to the

The figures on the side mark the paging of the original edition, and are here retained for the facility of the references from Aulicus Coquinariæ.

3.

unspeakable grief of her servants in particular, but of all her subjects in general.

And although many of her courtiers adored that rising sun, appearing in the north, yet since, not without regret of their monstrous ingratitude to her (that sun) now set, and in peace.

For no sooner was that sun set, but Sir Robert Carew, (her near kinsman, and whose family and himself she had raised from the degree of a mean gentleman to high honour in title and place,) most ingratefully did catch at her last breath, to carry it to the rising sun, then in Scotland, notwithstanding a strict charge laid to keep fast all the gates, yet (his father being Lord Chamberlaine) he by that means found favour to get out to carry the first news;

2

Sir Robert Cary, afterwards created Earl of Monmouth, tenth son of Henry Lord Hunsdon. His father was related to Queen Elizabeth by the mother's side. Cary wrote Memoirs of his own Life, which were published by the Earl of Corke and Orrery, and republished at Edinburgh in 1808.

⚫ Cary escaped out of court by the interest of his

which, although it obtained for him the governourship of the Duke of York, yet. hath set so wide a mark of ingratitude on him, that it will remain to posterity a greater blot, then the honour he obtained afterward will ever wipe out.'

About nine in the morning of that day, was proclaimed King James, of blessed memory, by the title of James the First; and now nothing on all hands, but preparations for accommodating him in his journey for England, many posting into Scotland for preferment, either by indearing themselves by some merit of their own to the king, or by purchasing friends with

brother Sir George, the gates having been shut by order of the privy-council. He reached Edinburgh in three days, notwithstanding a severe fall by the way.See p. 146.

'It cannot be denied, that the interested and coldblooded anxiety with which Cary haunted the rooms of the dying queen, (his mistress, kinswoman, and benefactress,) in order to obtain and carry the earliest news of her decease, was a great stain on his character. He was created Lord Lippington, and afterwards Earl of Monmouth.

4.

Sir Roger
Aston,
K. James

his barber.

their purses, (gold and silver being a precïous commodety in that climate, and would procure any thing,) and did procure suits, honours, and offices, to any that first came; of all which the king afterward extended his bounty, in so large and ample a manner, as procured his own impoverishment, to the pressure of his subjects, so far as set some distance between him and them, which his wisdom and king craft could not easily at all times reconcile.'

The first that came from the king to the lords in England, to give order for all things necessary for the expediting his journey towards England, was Sir Roger Aston, an Englishman born, but had his breeding wholly in Scotland,' and had served the

'James, however, took the most ingenuous mode of stifling the complaints of his subjects, by acknowledging his own prodigality, and expressing a resolution (which he did not adhere to) of guarding against his propensities to liberality in future.-See SOMERS' Tracts, last edition, vol. ii. p. 69.

Sir Roger Aston was groom of the chamber to James I., although here irreverently termed his barber.