JAMES L (OP ENGLAND). 



JAMES I. (OF ENGLAND). 



690 



in obtaining the assent of that body, and also of the General Assembly, 

 to such regulations as, along with other innovations previously made 

 since his accession to the English throne, brought the Scottish Church, 

 in government, in ceremonies, and in its position in relation to the 

 civil power, very nearly to the model of the English. It was now no 

 longer a Presbyterian, but nominally ag well as substantially an Epis- 

 copal church. But the popular feeling of the country was never for 

 a moment reconciled to these enforced changes. 



The year 1618 was disgraced by the execution of Sir Walter Raleigh, 

 on the monstrous pretence of the sentence passed upon him for the 

 conspiracy in which he had been involved in the first year of the 

 king's reign, but in reality as a sacrifice to the court of Spain. 

 [RAI.EIQH.] But the public indignation at James's subserviency to 

 that power was roused to a still higher pitch by the great foreign 

 eventa of the two following years, when, Austria assisted by Spain 

 having attacked the Bohemians, who had chosen the elector palatine 

 for their king, James not only refused to take part with his son-in-law 

 and the Protestant interest on the Continent, of which he was thus 

 installed as the champion, but even refused to acknowledge hia new 

 regal title. Frederick was soon driven from both his acquired and his 

 hereditary dominions by the arms of the Roman Catholic powers con- 

 federated against him, and obliged with his family to take refuge in 

 Holland. Staggered by this sudden catastrophe, and by the vehemence 

 with which the people expressed their rage and grief, James now 

 hastened to take some steps to repair the disasters which his pusil- 

 lanimity and inaction had mainly occasioned. After endeavouring to 

 raise money in the way of a benevolence, he found himself obliged to 

 call together a parliament, the first that had been allowed to meet for 

 six years. In this parliament, memorable among other things for the 

 impeachment of Bacon [BACON, FBANCIS], the first decided stand was 

 taken by the Commons in their contest with the crown by their 

 famous protest, passed on the 18th of December 1621, in reply to the 

 king's assertion that their privileges were derived from the grace and 

 concession of his ancestors and himself: "That the liberties, fran- 

 chise*, and jurisdiction of parliament are the ancient and undoubted 

 birthright and inheritance of the subjects of England." This reso- 

 lution, which the king tore from the Journals with his own hand, was 

 followed by the immediate prorogation and soon after by the disso- 

 lution of the parliament ; several of the leading members of the 

 House of Commons being at the same time sent to the Tower or to 

 other prisons. 



James had for some time before this set his heart upon the marriage 

 of his son Prince Charles with a Spanish princess : the project of that 

 match had principally influenced him to the course he had taken in 

 the affair of Bohemia, and he now hoped by the game arrangement to 

 be able, without having recourse to arms, to recover the palatinate for 

 his son-in-law. But in both these expectations he was disappointed. 

 For some time the negociations seemed to proceed favourably ; but 

 they were in 1623 brought to an abrupt termination, apparently by 

 the rash interference of Buckingham, who, after having persuaded 

 Prince Charles to proceed along with him to Spain for the purpose of 

 expediting the matter, disgusted and quarrelled with the leading 

 personages of the Spanish court, and then successfully exerted his 

 influence with James to prevent the match. As the public clamour 

 for the recovery of the palatinate still continued, another parliament 

 was assembled in February 1624, which eagerly granted supplies for 

 the attainment of that object by force of arms. War was in conse- 

 quence declared against Spain, and an army under Count Mansfeldt 

 wa sent into Germany in the latter part of the year. But this 

 expedition turned out an utter failure : the force, reduced to half its 

 numbers by a pestilential disorder before it had crossed the sea, never 

 even entered the Palatinate ; and that principality remained in the 

 hands of the Duke of Bavaria, to whom it had been assigned, along 

 with the electoral dignity, by the imperial diet 



James's reign, of nearly fifty-eight years in Scotland and rather 

 more than twenty-two in England, was terminated by his death on 

 the 27th of March 1625, when he was within three months of com- 

 pleting the fifty-ninth year of his age. As happened in the case of 

 the death of almost every person of eminence in that and the pre- 

 ceding age, a rumour sprung up that he had been carried off by 

 poUon ; and when Buckingham was impeached by the Commons in 

 the beginning of the next reign, one of the charges brought against 

 him was that the late king owed his death to some plasters and drinks 

 which he had administered to him without the knowledge of the phy- 

 icians. In fact something of this kind does appear to have taken 

 place, although Buckingham's intentions in what he did may possibly 

 have been innocent enough. It was even said, in the violence of 

 party hate, that Charles himself was implicated in the poisoning of 

 his father ; and this grossly improbable imputation received the 

 sanction of Milton. The statements upon the subject are collected in 

 Harris's ' Life of James I..' pp. 281-288 : and ' Life of Charles I.,' 

 pp. 21-25 (edit, of 1814). 



James's children by his queen, Anne of Denmark, born on the 12th 

 of December 1574, married on the 24th of November 1589, died on 

 the 2nd of March 1619, were 1, Henry Frederick, born at Stirling 

 Castle on the 19th of February 1594, died on the 6th of November 

 1612; 2, Robert, died in infancy in Scotland; 3, Charles, who sue- 

 OMcUd hi* father as king; 4, Elizabeth, born on the 19th of August 



1596, married to Frederick V. Elector Palatine on the 14th of February 

 1613, died on the 8th of February 1662 ; 5, Margaret, born on the 24th 

 of December 1593, died in infancy; 6, Mary, born in 1605, died on the 

 16th of December 1607; 7, Sophia, born on the 21st of June 1606, 

 died two days after. The Electress Sophia, the mother of George L, 

 was the youngest of the thirteen children of the Princess Elizabeth 

 and her husband the Elector Palatine. [GEORGE I.] 



Besides the well-authenticated public acts of James I., many mate- 

 rials may be found for the illustration of his character in the works of 

 various writers who were his contemporaries especially Sir Anthony 

 Weldou's ' Court and Character of King James," 12mo, 1651 ; Arthur 

 Wilson's ' Life and Reign of King James the First, King of Great 

 Britain,' fol., 1653, or as reprinted in the second volume of Bishop 

 Kennet's ' Complete History ; ' Sir Edward Peyton's ' Divine Catas- 

 trophe of the Kingly Family of the House of Stuarts,' 8vo, 1731 ; 

 'The Non-such Charles, his Character,' 12mo, 1651 (supposed by some 

 to be written by Peyton) ; Sir Ralph Wiuwood's 'Memorials of Affairs 

 of State in the Reigns of Queen Elizabeth and King James I.,' fol., 

 1725 ; Francis Osborne's ' Traditional Memoirs on the Reign of King 

 James,' in Works, 8vo, 1673, &c.; and Roger Coke's ' Detection of the 

 Court and State of England,' 2 vols. 8vo, 1697. See also Dr. James 

 Welwood's ' Memoirs of the most material Transactions in England 

 for the last Hundred Years preceding the Revolution,' 8vo, Lond., 

 1700. Although some of the above-named writers are avowedly very 

 unfavourably disposed to the memory of this king, and relate scarcely 

 anything of him that is not to his discredit, there is too much ground 

 for believing that the most severe of them have scarcely exaggerated 

 the more despicable features of his character. Even his better 

 qualities leaned to the side of vice or weakness ; his easiness of 

 temper was but an indolent sensuality, and his pacific disposition and 

 aversion to war mere pusillanimity and cowardice. Of dignity or 

 elevation of mind he had no conception ; his tastes, opinions, passions, 

 and habits were all alike low and vulgar, if indeed for some of them 

 these be not far too gentle epithets. With such a moral nature, it 

 was impossible that his intellect could be other than a stinted one ; 

 yet his education had given him a good deal of learning, at least for a 

 king, and although he was far from being either the profound scholar, 

 philosopher, or divine that he supposed himself, and that he was 

 flattered by his contemporaries, who called him Solomon the Second, 

 ho was certainly not destitute of some literary talent, however 

 dashed most of the exhibitions of it were with grotesqueness and 

 absurdity. 



James was a voluminous author, and any account of him would be 

 very incomplete which did not notice his various printed works in prose 

 and verse. They have been partially enumerated by Harris, in his 

 ' Historical and Critical Life,' and by Horace Walpole, iu his ' Royal 

 and Noble Authors ; ' but the fullest account that we have met with 

 is that given by Dr. David Irving, in hia ' Lives of the Scottish Poets,' 

 2nd edition, 2 vols., Edinb., 1810, voL ii. pp. 207-91. His first publi- 

 cation, a collection of poems, under the title of ' The Essays of a 

 Prentice in the Divine Art of Poesy,' 4to, appeared so early as 1584. 

 About the same time also he appears to have composed his ' Fruitful 

 Meditation,' upon part of the Revelation of St. John, which however 

 was not printed till 1588. Of his subsequent works the following are 

 the chief : 'His Majesty's Poetical Exercises at Vacant Hours,' 1591 ; 

 his ' Dsemonologie ' (a dialogue, in three books, in defence of the 

 belief in witches), 4to, 1597 ; ' The True Law of Free Monarchies, or 

 the Reciprocity and Mutual Duty betwixt a free king and his 

 Natural Subjects' (Anonymous), 1598; ' BairiAwcbj' Awpor, or his 

 Majesty's Instructions to his dearest Son Henry the Prince,' 1599 (a 

 treatise which, on account of the doctrines it contained on church 

 government, was censured as libellous by the synod of St. Andrews); 

 'A Discourse of the Unnatural and Vile (Gowrie) Conspiracy against 

 his Majesty's Person,' 1600; 'Triplici Node Triplex Cuiieus, or an 

 Apology for the Oath of Allegiance,' 1605 (which was answered by 

 Cardinal Bellarmin, and produced a long controversy, and many other 

 publications on both sides, for an account of which see a note by 

 Dr. Birch in the Appendix to Harris's Life) ; ' A Premonition to all 

 Most Mighty Monarchies, &c.' 1608 (on the same subject); 'A Decla- 

 ration (in French) concerning the Proceedings with the States-General 

 of -the United Provinces of the Low Countries, in the cause of D. 

 Conradus Vorstius ' (appointed Professor of Divinity at Leyden), 

 1612 ; and ' A Remonstrance for the Right of Kings (in French), in 

 answer to Cardinal Perron,' 1615. A collected edition of all the pre- 

 ceding prose works, except the Discourse on the Gowrie Conspiracy, 

 was published in folio, in 1616, under the title of ' The Works of the 

 Most High and Mighty Prince James, &c., by James (Mountague), 

 Bishop of Winton.' The volume also contained some treatises that 

 had not before appeared, particularly ' A Counterblast to Tobacco ' 

 (this however, according to Harris, was first printed in quarto, with- 

 out name or date), and 'A Discourse of the Manner of the Discovery 

 of the Powder Treason. 1 A Latin translation of this collection was 

 published under the care of Bishop Mountague, in 1619. To the 

 works already enumerated are to be added a number of speeches to 

 parliament, some of which are not the least curious or characteristic 

 of the royal author's compositions ; various sonnets and other short 

 pieces of verse, in English and Latin, scattered in different collections, 

 printed and manuscript; and a metrical version of the Psalms, pub- 



