72 The Soverane Herbe 



before James himself, when that monarch visited the 

 University in 1605 and clinched a debate on the sub- 

 ject by a violent speech against smoking. The worthy 

 don, pipe in hand, stoutly maintained the virtues of 

 tobacco against the King and the servile scholars. 

 A later writer, after speaking of its use by seamen, 

 soldiers, farmers, ploughmen, porters and all labour- 

 ing men, declared : ' Scholars use it, and many grave 

 and great men take tobacco to make them more 

 serviceable in their callings.' Court influence pre- 

 vented tobacco becoming popular in high society, but 

 by the great mass of the people it was used and loved 

 despite the restrictions of James and his efforts to 

 uproot it, 



Charles I. had almost as great a dislike of tobacco 

 as his father, and continued the heavy duties and its 

 royal monopoly. Considering the great revenue it 

 brought him, he was not likely to do otherwise ; 

 indeed, James' hostility to tobacco on the ground 

 that it was ruining the nation's health and morals 

 was unkind, for he did not scruple to employ the vast 

 sums of money that even then this ' devilish practice ' 

 brought to the royal treasury. 



Cromwell, though an occasional smoker, prohibited 

 tobacco culture in England and maintained the heavy 

 import duties. The Puritans as a body originally 

 detested and abhorred tobacco, but they, too, soon 

 fell a prey to its all-conquering virtues. Many of the 

 sectarians prided themselves on smoking, and puffed 

 tobacco in cathedrals and churches as well as stabling 

 their horses there. But the majority of the Puritans 

 seem to have preferred snuff, and compounded for 



