THE CHARACTER AND CONDUCT OK JAMES I. 147 



demands it from James: — " God knoweis it is only a trikke of ydle 

 brain hoaping thairby to shifte his tryall, but is easie to bee seene, 

 that he wolde threattain me, with laying an aspersion upon me of 

 being in some sorte accessore to his cryme."* There are, however, 

 so many asserted facts in Weldon and other contemporary authori- 

 ties, which denote that open defiance of the most respectable feelings 

 and the most ordinary decencies in the conduct of James, that the 

 suspicion of his being addicted to a crime, which cannot even be 

 named in a Christian country, rises to its highest point. 



In the documents printed in the Archceologia, there is also cir- 

 cumstantial evidence of the following remarkable fact, recorded by 

 Burnett, which like many others from his pen, have been so tardilv 

 accredited. " King James in the end of his reign was become 

 weary of the Duke of Buckingham, who treated him with such an 

 air of insolent contempt, that he seemed at last resolved to throw 

 him off", but could not think of taking the load of government on 

 himself, and so resolved to bring the Earl of Somerset again into 

 favour, as that lord reported it to some from whom I had it. He 

 met with him in the night in the gardens at Theobald's, two bed- 

 chamber men were only in the secret, the king embraced him ten- 

 derly, and with many tears. The Earl of Somerset believed the 

 secret was not well kept, for soon after the king was taken ill, with 

 some fits of an ague and died of it."f The results of this extraordi- 

 nary interview, for so it must be termed, was a free pardon granted 

 to the earl. A memorial drawn up by Somerset evidently at the 

 king's command, and most probably, as Mr.Hallam observes,^ after 

 this clandestine interview, contains a variety of charges, and some of 

 them very strong ones, against Buckingham. But here the matter 

 ended, whether from James having been reconciled to the duke, or 

 whether his predominant timidity, which made him crouch under 

 every threat, while he seemed to dictate the law, sic volo, sicjubeo, 

 stet pro ratione voluntas — despaired of ruining him whom he feared 

 as an enemy, but no longer wished to have as a friend. For never 

 did a subject more completely rule his sovereign, than at this time 

 did his majesty's " poor slave and dog, Steenie." Conceive a prime 

 minister of the present day dispatching this short missive to his 

 royal master : — " In obedience to your commands, I will tell the 

 house of parliament that you have taken such a fierce rheum and 



• P. 365. 



+ History oj his own Time, vol. i. p. 28. 



X Const. Bilk, vol. i, p. 'Mil, note. 



