1625.] 



THE KNIGHTS OF NEWMARKET. 



269 



stituted the chief pleasures of his life. . . . Had the 

 lot of James been cast in private life, he might have 

 been a respectable country gentleman : the elevation 

 of the throne exposed his foibles to the gaze of the 

 public, and that at a time when the growing spirit of 

 freedom and the more general diffusion of knowledge 

 had rendered men less willing to admit the preten- 

 sions, and more eager to censure the defects, of their 

 superiors. With all his learning and eloquence, he 

 failed to acquire the love or esteem of his subjects : 

 and though he deserved not the reproaches cast on 

 his memory by the revolutionary writers of the next 

 and succeeding reigns, posterity has agreed to consider 

 him as a weak and prodigal king, and a vain and 

 loquacious pedant." * 



The following list of " all the Knights Batchelaurs made 

 by King James," at Newmarket, "since his comming to the 

 Crown of England" is extracted from the " Perfect Collec- 

 tion " by J[ohn] P[hiHpot] Esq., Somerset Herald, "a devout 

 servant of the Roy all Line," London (4™°) 166b: — 



COUNTY. 



Harwich 



Devon 



Southampton 



Suffolk 



Norfolk 



Suffolk 



Southampton 

 London 



Hist. Eng.," vol. vii., chap. iii. 



