mother and wife, who was the sole daughter and heir to the Earl of Rutland; thirdly, That he spake particularly and bowed to the Count of Gondemar, the Spanish ambassador; and fourthly, That looking up to one window as he passed, full of gentlemen and ladies, all in yellow bands, he cried out aloud, A p-x take ye, are ye there?" at which, being much ashamed, they all withdrew themselves suddenly from the window." James appears, not only to have merited his reputed character for cowardice, but to have been totally deficient in that tact which occasionally suffices to conceal a deficiency of personal courage. Even the story related of him, that he shuddered at the sight of a drawn sword, appears to be deserving of credit. Sir Kenelm Digby in his Powder of Sympathy, assures us that when James knighted him, he very narrowly escaped having the sword thrust into his eyes: the king turning away his face, in order to avoid the sight of the naked weapon, the Duke of Buckingham was actually obliged to guide his hand to the knight's shoulder. Sir Kenelm attributes this particular weakness to the fright occasioned to his unhappy mother, by the assassination of Rizzio in her presence: she was at the time far gone in her pregnancy with James. The ridicule which want of courage drew down upon James, was not confined to his own subjects. In France, it was not unusual to distinguish the weak monarch as Queen James, and his highspirited predecessor as King Elizabeth. Sully tells us, that Henry the Fourth used to style his brother monarch captain at arts and clerk at The following epigram was popular at the period: arms. Tandis qu' Elizabeth fut Roy, The following translation appears to have been the most ingenious : While Elizabeth was England's king, These juggling days of gude queen Jamie! In a caricature of the time, James was exhibited with an empty scabbard; and in another as having his sword so firmly in its scabbard, that it was impossible to draw it out.* There are numerous other instances, of the king's private failings having been lashed by the wits of the period. A lampoon, containing some impudent reflections upon his court, was perused by him with evident indignation. At last he came to the concluding couplet, when his face suddenly lighted up with a smile. The lines which wrought the change were as follows: God bless the king, the queen, the prince, the peers, And grant the author long may wear his ears! " By my faith, and so he shall for me," said the easy monarch; "for though he be an impudent, he is a witty and pleasant rogue." James was constitutionally what may be called good-natured; but with the increase of years and political embarrassments, he became fretful, impatient, and suspicious. So melancholy and irritable was he at times, that it required all the efforts of Buckingham and his mother to rouse him from despondency. Sometimes he would break out * Sir Walter Raleigh's Ghost, in Phoenix Britan into the most passionate fits of anger; and though his better nature eventually prevailed, yet the manner in which he expressed his regret was frequently quite as unkingly, as had been the previous exhibition of his rage. On one occasion, happening to require some papers relative to the prince's proposed marriage with a daughter of Spain, he sent for his old and faithful servant, John Gib, a Scotsman, to whom he imagined he had intrusted them. Gib asserting that they had never been in his keeping, and all endeavours to discover them proving vain, the king flew into a violent passion: Gib, in order to assuage his anger, threw himself on his knees at the king's feet, declaring that he was ready to suffer death, should it be ever proved that the papers had been delivered to his custody. James, losing all selfcommand, was cowardly enough to give his faithful old servant a kick. Gib, instantly, and in natural indignation, rose from his knees, and addressing himself to the king:- "Sir," he said, "I have served you from my youth, and you never found me unfaithful; I have not deserved this insult from you, nor can I bear to live with you after such a disgrace. Fare ye well, sir, I shall never see your face more;" on which he left the royal presence, mounted his horse, and rode to London. Shortly after this the papers were found, and James became alive to the act of groos injustice of which he had been guilty. He was unmeasured in the terms of reproach which he heaped upon himself, and having despatched messengers in the utmost haste after Gib, declared that he would neither eat, drink, nor sleep, till he again beheld the face of his in his grapes, his nectarines, and other fruits, in his own keeping; besides, we did see that he fed very plentifully on them from abroad. I remember that Mr. French of the spicery, who sometimes did present him with the first strawberries, cherries, and other fruits, and kneeling to the king, had some speech to use to him; that he did desire his majesty to accept them, and that he was sorry they were no better, with such like complimental words; but the king never had the patience to hear him one word, but his hand was in the basket. After this eating of fruit in the spring time, his body fell into a great looseness; which, although while he was young, did tend to preserve his health, yet now, being grown toward sixty, it did a little weaken his body, and going from Theobald's to Newmarket, and stirring abroad when, as the coldness of the year was not yet past almost, it could not be prevented but he must fall into a quartan ague, for recovery whereof the physicians taking one course and the plaister another." His unwieldy size, for his obesity had increased with his years, had rendered such a complication of disorders the more formidable. Besides, he had always conceived such a repugnance to physic, that the doctors, even in his worst attacks, were unable to persuade him to have recourse to it. As his indisposition became more alarming, he retired to Theobald's, which had ever been his favourite residence, and which was shortly to become the scene of his dissolution. The Lord Keeper Williams (a man whose power of amusing others appears to have been considerable) was no sooner acquainted with the king's danger, than he hasten jured follower. Gib having been induced to re-ed to the royal presence, and remaining by his turn, and having been conducted into the royal presence, James, in his turn, fell on his knees before him, imploring his pardon, and expressing his determination not to rise till he had obtained the forgiveness of his servant. For some time Gib modestly declined, but James would on no account be satisfied till the words of pardon had actually been pronounced. CHAPTER VIII. The king appears to have entertained a sort of presentiment of his own end. He had been much affected by the deaths of the Duke of Richmond and the Marquis of Hamilton :"When the branches," he said, "are cut down, the tree cannot long remain." His last illness commenced with a tertian ague, and was followed by a fever, which proved fatal. The courtiers, in order to console him, reminded him of an old proverb, that an ague in the spring was life for a king: he replied, that the proverb was meant for a young king. James, however, stood little in need of consolation; the courage, in which he had formerly been deficient, seemed eminently conspicuous in his death. He prepared himself for his end with a decency and a fortitude which would have been creditable to a braver man, and was not unworthy of the religion which he professed. We have the authority of his physician, Sir Theodore Mayerne, that the king had been suffering for some time from stone, gout, and gravel : and according to Bishop Goodman, he was guilty of imprudences which were not unlikely to hasten his end. "Truly," says the gossiping prelate, "I think King James every autumn did feed a little more than moderately upon fruits; he had bedside till midnight, attempted to cheer and console the sick monarch. The following morning there was a consultation of physicians, who gave it as their opinion that his majesty's case was hopeless. When this was intimated to the lord keeper, with the prince's permission, he knelt by the bed of the royal patient:-" he came," he said, " with the message of Isaiah to Hezekiah, to exhort him to set his house in order, for that his days would be but few in the world." "I am satisfied," replied the king calmly, " and I desire you to assist me in preparing to go hence, and to be with Christ, whose mercies I pray for, and hope to find.* Feeling his strength declining, he sent for Prince Charles, whom he retained in conversation for three hours. He solemnly exhorted him to fix his thoughts on religion, to uphold the church of England, and to take the family of the palatine under his protection. The points on which the king admonished his son must have been communicated by the prince himself, since we find, by a letter of the time, that in order that the conversation might be secret, not a single person was admitted within the distance of two or three rooms. On the Thursday before his dissolution, the king received the sacrament, with which he expressed himself much comforted; and from this period he continued praying and meditating on religious subjects. The lord keeper never left the sick chamber, nor changed his dress, till the king had breathed * Philips's Life of Lord Keeper Williams, p. 143. Echard. vol. i. 978. See also Mr. D'Israeli's ingenious Curiosities of Literature, vol. iii. p. 259, in of Sir Thomas Brown, strongly corroborative of Echard's account, and to which, indeed, Echard appears to have had access. nicus, p. 323. there is an extract from the MS. collection his last, but continued by his bedside, endeavouring to make his path easy to another world. On the Friday night his tongue had become so swollen that it was with difficulty he could make himself understood. A little before break of day, on the Sunday, he expressed a wish to have another interview with Prince Charles, who instantly rose and came in his night dress to the king's bedside. The dying monarch endeavoured to raise himself on his pillow, as if he had something of importance to impart, but by this time his speech was inaudible. In his last moments, however, when the prayer commonly used at the hour of death was concluded, he repeated once or twice the words, Veni, Domine Jesu, and shortly after ceased to breathe, without any appearance of pain. The lord keeper closed the king's eyes with his own hand. It may not be out of place to speculate for a moment on the nature of those religious feelings, which could enable a pusillanimous monarch to support with dignity and courage the afflictions of disease and the terrors of dissolution. James had naturally the highest reverence for religion; his intentions were generally laudable; and he had from his youth been a constant observer of the external ordinances of the church, and even supported its supremacy with his pen. Unfortunately, however, he was a mere creature of impulse; easily led astray by passion, or the temptation of the moment. With an inherent anxiety to do good, he was constantly commiting evil. Still, however, there was the same veneration for the Deity, and the same ardour in his cause. The error or crime of to-day was followed by penitential tears on the morrow, an anomaly which continued to the last moment of his existence. Socrates considers that a disinclination for crime is an apology for its commission. This apothegm reminds us of the murderer's consolation on the scaffold, who expressed his hopes of being saved, on the ground that he had never passed by a church without taking off his hat. Religion, unfortunately, owing to the weakness of human nature, is open to innumerable and strange perversions; and, like many others, James had no doubt fostered illusions which smoothed his path to eternity. The con a laudable magnanimity he refrained from visiting the sins of the few upon the heads of the many, and continued in the same course of mildness and conciliation to the last. There is a sup brought forward in support of any such supposition in the present case. That Buchingham and his mother applied remedies to the sick monarch, which were totally unauthorised by the of an injurious nature, and intended to destroy existence, is a circumstance not so easy to resolve. position that, in James's toleration of the papists, physicians, is a fact beyond the possibility of a he had in view the increased indulgences which doubt. Whether, however, these remedies were his own subjects might expect in foreign countries. Again, less laudable motives may be attributed to him. It may be reasonably argued, that he had an object in balancing the power of the Roman catholics against the augmenting influence of the puritans. Possibly, too his apprehensions of personal danger were not without their weight; James must have been well aware of the risk which he incurred should he make himself odious to a daring and relentless party.* It has been supposed, and that not without reason, that the exertions and sufferings of the Roman catholics, in behalf of his unhappy mother, may in some degree have influenced him in his praiseworthy moderation. There is, however, a more substantial reason why we should not bestow unqualified praise upon James for his religious toleration. It is not generally known, perhaps, that two unhappy creatures were burnt for heresy during his reign. One of these, Bartholomew Legate, a Socinian, is said to have been remarkable for theological learning, and for the blamelessness of his career. James attempted to convert him; but finding him fixed in his persuasions, the bishops declared him to be an intractable heretic, and he was burned to ashes at Smithfield. The other victim was one Edward Wightman, a harmless enthusiast, who had the misfortune to fancy himself Elias. The heresies of Ebion, Cerinthus, Valentinian, Arrius, Macedonius, Simon Magus, Manes, Manichæus, Photinus, and the Anabaptists, names of which the unhappy being had probably never heard, were summed up in the warrant for his execution. One act of James's life can never be sufficiently commended. During the progresses made through his kingdom, he had noticed the pernicious effects which a puritanical observance of the Sabbath was producing on the health and happiness of the lower classes of his subjects. With the certainty that religious bigotry would trivers of the famous gunpowder plot (many of be every where arrayed against him, he issued a whom were persons really estimable in private proclamation, that, after the performance of dilife) conceived, that, by a terrible annihilation of some hundreds of their fellow-creatures, they were doing God service, and securing their own eternal happiness: some allowance, therefore, may be made for James, if he placed any reliance on the respect which he had ever intended to pay to religion; and on the credit of having written some ponderous dissertations in its favour. With regard to ecclesiastical government during his reign, James has certainly proved himself wiser than his generation. Notwithstanding his firm attachment to the interest and doctrines of the church of England, and in spite of the oblo vine service, his subjects should be allowed to indulge in all legitimate sports and amusements. Without entering into any theological discussion, as to the proper observance of the Lord's day, there are few who will deny to James the real credit which he deserved on this occasion. Surely that monarch stands high among the thrones of the earth, who willingly turns from his own pomps and vanities, to the sufferings and discomforts of the poor and unprotected; and who readily encounters obloquy and discontent, in order to throw a gleam of sunshine over the broad shadows of human wretchedness. by poison, has either been altogether disregarded, or obscurely hinted at, by our historians. So usual has it ever been to attribute the deaths of princes to foul play, that we must receive with extreme caution any arguments which may be quy which was heaped upon him, he was per- 'The suspicion, which was very commonly sonally well inclined to religious toleration. Pos-entertained at the time, that James met his death sibly he had some speculative notion, of what a more extensive experience has since substantiated, that in order to destroy heresy, it is the worst policy to oppress it. In the history of the world, there does not appear to be any known instance of schism having been destroyed by violence. These remarks, however, on the king's conduct, refer principally to his treatment of the Roman catholic portion of his subjects. Even the fact of the horrible gunpowder treason made but little difference in the line of his religious policy; with * Burnet evidently attributes the king's moderation to fear. He says that ever after the gunpowder conspiracy, James was careful of not provoking the Jesuits, for it showed him of what they were capable.-Hist. of his own Time, vol. i. p. 19. Certain it is that Buckingham was fast declining in the royal favour, and that he had every thing to gain, and nothing to lose, by the king's demise at that particular time. Dr. Eglisham, one of the royal physicians, accused Buckingham, in print, of having murdered his sovereign; and another of the king's physicians, Dr. Craig, was banished the court for giving utterance to his suspicions. The latter individual was great uncle to Bishop Burnet, who informs us that his father had the account from Craig, and was by him strongly prepossessed with the truth of the accusation. "The king," says Coke, having had an ague, the Duke of Buckingham did, upon Monday the 21st, when in the judgment of the physicians the ague was declining, apply plaisters to the wrists and belly of the king, and also did deliver several quantities of drink to the king, though some of the king's physicians did disallow thereof, and refused to meddle further with the king, until the said plaisters were removed; and that the king found himself worse thereupon, and that droughts, raving, fainting, and an intermitting pulse followed hereupon; and the drink was twice given by the duke's own hands, and a third time refused; and the physicians to comfort him, telling him that this second impairement was from cold taken, or some other cause: No, no,' said the king, it is that which I had from Buckingham." Weldon says, that during the king's illness, he frequently implored the Earl of Montgomery to be careful that he had fair play; and that, on one occasion, when his servants were endeavouring to console him, "Ah," he said, " it is not the ague that afflicts me, but the powder I have taken, and the black plaister they have laid on my stomach." A less suspicious authority is Bishop Goodman, who, while he entirely exculpates Buckingham, evidently believes that his old master met with an untimely end. "I have no good opinion," he says, "of his death, yet I was the last man who did him homage in the extremity of his sickness." Howell, who was at Theobald's at the time of the king's death, in a letter to his father, alludes to the mutterings of the doctors, that a plaister had been applied by the duke's mother, to the " outside of the king's stomach." Arthur Wilson, another contemporary writer, does not materially differ from the foregoing accounts. "The king," he says, "that was very much impatient in his health, was patient in his sickness and death. Whether he had received any thing that extorted his anguish fits into a fever, which might the sooner stupify the spirits, and hasten his end, cannot be asserted; but the Countess of Buckingham had been tampering with him in the absence of the doctors, and had given him a medicine to drink, and laid a plaister on his side, of which the king much complained, and they did rather exasperate his distemper than allay it: and these things were admitted by the insinuating persuasions of the duke her son, who told the king they were approved medicines, and would do him much good. And though the duke often strove to purge himself for this application, as having received both medicine and plaister from Dr. Remington, at Dunmow, in Essex, who had often cured agues and such distempers with the same; yet they were arguments of a complicated kind, not easy to unfold; considering that whatsoever he received from the doctor in the country, he might apply to the king what he pleased in the court." It would be curious to ascertain the nature and ingredients of the remedies, which were applied by Buckingham. Bishop Kennett informs us, that he was shown a copy of Dr. Eglisham's pamphlet against Buckingham by the Spanish ambassador, in which Eglisham declared, that neither he nor the other physicians could discover the nature of the plaister. It appears also, by the same authority, that about a week after the king's death, Eglisham being on a visit with Sir Matthew Lister at the Earl of Warwick's house in Essex, situated close to the residence of Dr. Remington, they sent for the doctor, in order to ascertain the nature of the plaister which he had supplied to Buckingham. Remington giving them the information they required, Sir Matthew Lister produced a piece of the plaister which had been applied to the king. On examining it, Remington seemed much surprised, and offered to take an oath that it was not the same which he had sent to the duke. There is a copy of Eglisham's pamphlet in the British Museum, which has been reprinted in the Harleian Miscellany; but there is no trace of the passage alluded to by Kennett. Sanderson, another writer of the time, assures us that the drink given to James, was "a posset of milk and ale, hartshorn, and marygold flowers, ingredients harmless and ordinary." With regard to the plaister, he says, "that although the physicians were justly offended at the duke's interference with their practice, yet that the composition was as harmless as the drink, and that a portion of it was even eat by those who had manufactured it. For some months afterwards, he says, it was open to the examination of the curious. Eglisham's pamphlet, though undoubtedly curious, is only to be received as evidence, when corroborated by the assertions of other writers. After the king's death he gave such unguarded utterance to his suspicions, as to render it necessary for his own safety that he should fly the kingdom. He retired to Brussels, where he published the tract in question. It had been, in the first instance, submitted, in the form of a petition, to the two houses of parliament; but whether it was actually presented, does not appear. It was afterwards translated into High Dutch, with a view of throwing obloquy upon the royal family of England. The suspicions of Eglisham's veracity are founded on the extreme rancorous Would to God I had never taken it! it will cost | His mouth and nose foaming blood, mixed with me my life.' "In like manner, also, the Countess of Buckingham, my Lord of Buckingham's mother, upon the Friday, the physicians being also absent and at dinner, and not made acquainted with her doings, applied a plaister to the king's heart and breast; whereupon he grew faint and short breathed, and in a great agony. Some of the physicians after dinner, returning to see the king, by the offensive smell of the plaister, perceived something to be about him, hurtful to him, and searched what it should be, and found it out, and exclaimed that the king was poisoned. The Duke of Buckingham entering, commanded the physicians out of the room, caused one of them to be committed prisoner to his own chamber, and another to be removed from court; quarreled with others of the king's servants in his sick majesty's own presence so far, that he of fered to draw his sword against them in his majesty's sight. And Buckingham's mother, kneeling down before his majesty, cried out with a brazen face, Justice, justice, sir, I demand justice of your majesty! His majesty asked her for what? For that which their lives are no way sufficient to satisfy, for saying that my son and I have poisoned your majesty?" • Poisoned me?" said he; with that, turning himself, swooned, and she was removed.* "The Sunday after his majesty died, Buckingham desired the physicians who attended his majesty to sign with their own hands a writ of testimony, that the powder which he gave him was a good and safe medicine, which they refused. "Immediately after his majesty's death, the physician, who was commanded to his chamber, was set at liberty, with a caveat to hold his peace; the others threatened, if they kept not good tongues in their heads. "But in the mean time the king's body and head swelled above measure, his hair, with the skin of his head, stuck to his pillow, and his nails became loose upon his fingers and toes." Eglisham, moreover, accused the duke of having caused the death of the Marquess of Hamilton by poison. The following passage is too ridiculous for belief, and goes far to throw an air of fiction over Eglisham's extraordinary narration. The post-mortem appearance of the marquess's body is thus described. "No sooner was he dead, when the force of the poison began to overcome the force of his body, but it began to swell in such a sort, that his thighs were swollen six times as big as their natural proportion, his belly became as big as the belly of an ox, his arms as the natural quantity of his thighs, his neck as broad as his shoulders, his cheeks over two fingers high. He was all over of divers co some red, some yellow, some green, some blue, feeling which he exhibits towards Buckingham, the top of his nose, that his nose could not be * Mr. Meade, in a letter to Sir Martin Stuteville, thus alludes to this remarkable scene: The Countess of Buckingham, the Tuesday before he [the she had approved; but being without the privity of the physicians, occasioned so much discontent in Dr. Cragge, that he uttered some plain speeches, for tunity, at length took it in wine, and immediately which he was commanded out of the court, the duke became worse and worse, falling into many himself, (as some say) complaining to the sick king swoonings and pains, so tormented, that his ma- of the word he spake." - Ellis's Orig. Letters, vol. iii. froth of divers colours, a yard high." We are not informed by Dr. Eglisham, why the king's body did not exhibit similar evidences of foul play. Certain it is, that no traces of poison were discoverable. In a letter of the time, from Mr. Joseph Meade to Sir Martin Stuteville, we find that when the body was opened by the physicians, they found "his heart of an extraordinary bigness, all his vitals sound, as also his head, which was very full of brains; but his blood was wonderfully tainted with melancholy; and the corruption thereof supposed the cause of his death." Sir Symonds D'Ewes, who adds his quantum of suspicion to the "potion and plaister," informs us that when the king's skull was opened, the pia mater was so full of brains that they could " scarcely be kept from spilling." There is no allusion, however, in any documents of the time to the least trace of poison having been discovered. There is another curious tract, in the British Museum, purporting, after the manner of Lucian, to be a conversation in the lower regions between James, the Duke of Buckingham, the Marquess of Hamilton, and Dr. Eglisham. The interview between the murderer and his victims is sufficiently tragical, and would do credit to any provincial theatre in the realm : "King James. Dost thou know me, Buckingham? If our spirits or ghosts retain any knowledge of mortal actions, let us discourse together. "Buckingham.-Honour hath not now transported me to forget your majesty; I know you to be the umbra or shade of my sovereign, King James, unto whom Buckingham was once so great a favourite. But what ghost of Aristotle is that which bears you company? His pale look show him to be some scholar. "King James. It is the changed shadow of George Eglisham, for ten years together my doctor of physic, who, in the discharge of his place, was ever to me most faithful; this other is his and my old friend, the Marquess of Hamilton. "Buckingham. -My liege, I cannot discourse as long as they are present, they do behold me with such threatening looks; and your majesty hath a disturbed brow, as if you were offended with your servant, Buckingham. "King James. I, and the Marquess of Hamilton, have just cause to frown and be offended; hast thou not been our most ungrateful murderer? "Buckingham. - Who-I my liege? What act of mine could make you to suspect that I could do a deed so full of horror? Produce a witness to my forehead, before you condemn me upon bare suspicion. "King James. - My doctor, Eglisham, shall prove it to thy face, and if thou hast but any sense of goodness, shall make thy pale ghost blush, ungrateful Buckingham!" Shortly after this Eglisham steps forward, and with all proper dignity accuses the duke, not only of having poisoned James and the marquess, but of having plotted and contrived the doctor's own departure from the world. Buckingham, staggered by the proofs which are brought against him, at length confesses his crimes, and spouts, as he sweeps from the stage, a sort of dramatic epilogue, of which the following lines are the conclusion: "You, O good king, were gracious to that man, But I was most ungrateful to my king, This being said, the duke's ghost shrunk away." One of the articles of impeachment against the Duke of Buckingham, in the succeeding reign, was, not for having actually poisoned the king, but for having dared to administer remedies to the sovereign, without the concurrence of the physicians. To say the least, it was a strange and unjustifiable act. Charles, as is well known, to prevent the question of the duke's conduct from coming to an issue, braved the wrath of the commons, and dissolved the parliament. There was another attempt to stigmatise Buckingham as a wholesale poisoner. Eglisham asserts, in his petition to parliament, that at the time of the Duke of Richmond's death, a paper was found in King street, in which Buckingham had inserted the names of several noblemen, all of whom had since died. He adds that his own name came after the Marquess of Hamilton's with proviso a that he should be embalmed. This would be considered as mere nonsense, did it not appear by the evidence of Sir Henry Wotton that some such document really existed, though without commission doubt it was a "I had a forgery. laid upon me," says Sir Henry, "by sovereign command, to examine a lady about a certain filthy accusation, grounded upon nothing but a few a kennel, and footman in names taken up by a straight baptised. It was a list of such as the duke had appointed to be poisoned at home, him self being then in Spain. I found it to be the most malicious and frantic surmise, and the most contrary to his nature, that I think had ever been brewed from the beginning of the world." Wotton speaks of Eglisham as a "fugitive physi cian," and corroborates a statement made by Sanderson, on the authority of Sir Belthaser Gerbier, that when Eglisham offered to publish a recantation of his scandalous pamphlet, for a certain remuneration, the duke listened to the overture with indignation and disgust. That Buckingham's mother, who was under the influence of the Jesuits, should have been induced to tamper with the king, is not improbable; but that Bucking ham himself should have entered into the conspiracy, notwithstanding his many faults, is in utter contradiction to all our preconceived notions of his character. King James died on the 27th of March, 1625, in the fifty-ninth year of his age, and the twentythird of his reign over the kingdom of England. On the 7th of May he was buried at Westminster with proper solemnity. We will conclude our notices of him with Ben Jonson's admirable character of the weak monarch, in his Masque of the Gypsies Metamorphosed. One of the wandering tribe is supposed to discover the king's identity, by her professional knowledge of palm istry : "With you lucky bird, I begin, let me see, The grounds of my art, here's a gentleman's hand. blood. * The abhorrence which James entertained for a pig, has already been mentioned. Your Mercury's hilt, too, a wit doth betoken, spoken: But stay, in your Jupiter's mount what is here? were any thing but suited to enliven her husband's court, or to conciliate the people among whom she came to reside. The writer of a letter among the Cecil Papers thus speaks of her at this period:-"Our quein carys a marvelus gravity, quhilk, w her patriall solitariness, contrar to ye humor of our pepell hath bannised all our ladys clein from her." The queen's manners afterwards improved. Lady Arabella Stuart the Court at Woodstock, gives her the highest in a letter to the Earl of Shrewsbury, dated from praise for courtesy, and remarks that she was in the habit of speaking kindly to the people whom she happened to meet in her way. This statement is corroborated by another letter from Sir Dudley Carleton to Sir Thomas Parry, in which the writer observes, "The queen lieth this night at Sir John Fortescue's, where the king meets her. She giveth great contentment to the world in her fashion and courteous behaviour to the ANNE OF DENMARK, people. QUEEN OF JAMES I. Of the merits of Queen Anne's personal appearance we know very little. The portraits we have seen of her were drawn at a late period of her life, and principally indicate a masculine character, and display a tawdry and tasteless style of dress. The beauty of queens is seldom left uncelebrated; and as historians are silent on the present occasion, there is reason to suppose that there was little room for panegyric. Peyton alone styles her, "A body of a goodly presence, beautiful eyes, and strong to be joined with a prince young and weak in constitution; a union unsuitable for a virago to couple with a spiny and A lady remarkable for all the masculine qualities in which her husband was so sadly deficient. Ambitious, bold, enterprising; fond of tumult and grandeur; impatient of control; engaging in all the civil and religious factions of the period; despising her timorous and pedantic husband, and yet vainly endeavouring to govern him and his councils, she failed in her objects from want of capacity, yet saved herself from obloquy by the deepest cunning. James, however subservient he may have been to his passions and his favourite-however deficient in moral and personal thin creature." Osborne's praise is somewhat courage, was at least no dastard to his wife. Thwarted in her ambitious views, and piqued Edinburgh, of forcing herself into the king's spired Prince Henry, was probably, in a great After his accession to the throne of England years." Notwithstanding, however, their noc tural estrangement, James, in his Edict on Duels, continues speaking of her as our dearest bed- Her manners, on her first arrival in Scotland, 1 "was more dubious:--"Her skin," he says, Anne was a bigoted catholic, a fact not generally dwelt upon by historians. It is strange, that Horace Walpole, a curious researcher, should have been long ignorant of this important circum "one most extraordinary passage, entirely stance. Speaking of the Bacon Papers, he says, there is overlooked, and yet of great consequence to explain the misfortunes into which her descendants afterwards fell. The Pope sends her beads and reliques, and thanks her for not communicating with heretics at her coronation." Sully, however, was not only acquainted with the fact, but evidently dreaded her influence, as regarded the predominancy of the Spanish interests and the advancement of the Roman Catholic religion. He says, that when following the king from Scotland, it was believed she was coming to England, in order to add her personal influence to the Spanish faction; a circumstance which so disturbed the king, that he sent the Earl of Lennox persuade her to return. The Spaniards, indeed, to oppose her progress, though he was unable to whose interests she adhered to, in opposition to those of France, appear to have rested their hopes of destroying the protestant faith in England, principally on her influence and exertions. She endeavoured to instil her prejudices, in favour of Spain and the pope, into the mind of her son, Prince Henry. Sully says, that none doubted but that she was inclined to declare herself " absolutely on that side;" and that in public she affected to have the prince entirely under her guidance. In a letter from Sir Charles Cornwallis to the Earl of Salisbury, she is even stated to have told the Spanish ambassador, that he might one During his flight he applied for refuge and hospitality at Lord Sinclair's castle of Ravenscraig. Lord Sinclair told him that he was welcome, but that he would have been much more welcome if day see the Prince of Wales on a pilgrimage to St. Jago. Time and experience appear at length to have convinced her of the inflexibility of her husband's disposition, and of her own incapacity for meddling in state affairs. With the exception of some occasional interference, in the rise or downfall of a favourite, she seems to have contented herself with entertaining the king and his court with balls and masques. "The arrival of the queen in London," says Sully, "did not occasion all that disorder which had been apprehended; the discontented found her not to be what they had conceived. It seemed as though her sudden change of situation and country had made as sudden change in her inclinations and manners: from an effect in the elegances of England, or from those of the royal dignity, she became disposed to vanities and amusements, and seemed wholly engaged in the pursuit of pleasure. She so entirely neglected or forgot the Spanish politics, as gave reason to believe she had, in reality, only pretended to be attached to them." King James had quitted Edinburgh for his new dominions on the fifth of April, 1603; and in June following, accompanied by her two eldest children, Prince Henry and the Princess Elizabeth, the queen prepared to follow him. James, either willing to gratify her taste for show, or desirous that his wife should appear among his new subjects with all due magnificence, not only gave the strictest orders for her honourable reception, but even commanded some of the late queen's jewels to be transmitted to her, before the former had been laid in the grave. On the fifteenth of April we find him writing to his ministers:"Touching the jewels to be sent for our wife, our meaning is not to have any of the principal jewels of state to be sent so soon or so far off; but only such as, by the opinion of the ladies attendant about the late queen our sister, you shall find to be meet for the ordinary appareling and ornament of her; the rest may come after when she shall be nearer hand. But we have thought good to put you in mind, that it shall be convenient that besides jewels you send some of the ladies of all degrees who were about the queen, as soon as the funeral be past, or some others, whom you will think meetest and most willing and able to abide travel, to meet her as far as they can at her entry into the realm, or soon after; for that we hold needful for her honour: and that they do speedily enter into their journey, for that we would have her here with the soonest. And as for horses, litters, coaches, saddles, and other things of that nature, whereof we have heretofore written, for her use, and sent to you our cousin of Worcester, we have thought good to let you know that the proportion mentioned in your particular letter to us shall suffice in our opinion for her. And so you may take order for the sending of them away with the ladies that are to come, or before, as you shall think meetest." The queen arrived at York on the 11th of June; and having remained there some days, proceeded to East Neston, the seat of Sir George Farmer, where she was joined by the king. For her splendid entertainments, those magnificent masques which made the "nights more costly than the days," she has been often and sufficiently celebrated. They appear, however, to have been conducted with but little attention to decorum. The Countess of Dorset mentions in her memoirs, that there was "much talk of a masque which the queen had at Winchester, and how all the ladies about the court had gotten such ill names, that it was grown a scandalous place; and the queen herself was much fallen from her former greatness and reputation she had in the world." Peyton's censure is far stronger : "The masques," he says, "and plays at Whitehall he had passed on. However, notwithstanding were used only as incentives for lust, therefore this rough reception, Lord Sinclair entertained the courtiers invited the citizens' wives to those him kindly, and conducted him in safety to the shows on purpose to defile them. There is not Highlands. Huntley, shortly afterwards, returna chamber nor lobby, if it could speak, but would ed to Edinburgh, where he escaped with a brief verify this." Whatever share the queen may have had, in effecting a kind understanding between the courtiers and the citizens' wives, it is certain that she herself was far from being averse to the tender passion. Carte tells us that she took a great delight in making the king jealous, and with this view, took liberties which were very improper, and were the cause of some excitement at court. It is to be feared, however, that Anne had less her husband's jealousy at heart than her own gratification. According to the chronicles or scandal of the time, she was far from being satisfied with the cold attentions and ungainly form of her pedantic spouse. The first person on whom the queen is reported to have fixed her affections was the brave, the beautiful, and unfortunate Earl of Murray. This is the "Bonnie Earl" of Scottish song; a name dear to those whose hearts have ever kindled with poetry, or sympathised with misfortune. A well-known ballad of the period concludes with an allusion to the queen's attachment: O the bonny Earl of Murray! The earl is also celebrated in the still popular ballad of Childe Waters. James has been accused of having sacrificed the earl's life to his jealousy of the queen. This supposition we should be extremely inclined to doubt, had not our suspicions been already aroused by the circumstances attending the tragical fate of the Gowries. Murray was accused, whether wrongfully or justly is not known, of having abetted the Earl of Bothwell in his famous attack upon the king's person in Scotland; James, instead of making use of legitimate means to insure the apprehension of the suspected earl, commissioned the Earl of Huntley, Murray's hereditary and deadly enemy, to bring him into his presence. Murray was not exactly the man to submit tamely to be made the prisoner of his feudal foe. A shot from his castle killed one of Huntley's followers. 'The storming party became furious and succeeded in burning the fortress. Murray, finding further opposition hopeless, endeavoured to effect his escape by rushing through the flames: unfortunately, however, his long hair caught fire, which enabled his enemies to follow him in the darkness to the rocks by the sea-shore, among which he probably expected to find a hiding-place. He defended himself as long as he was able, but fell at last covered with wounds. One Gordon, of Buckie, who had been the first to strike him, insisted that Huntley should implicate himself in the odium, by joining in the bloody work, and stabbing his defenceless enemy before he died. Huntley consented, and stabbed Murray in the face. The dying earl fixed his eyes on his hereditary foe:--" You have spoiled," he said, "a better face than your own." Huntley had actually alighted from his horse to perform the dastardly act. Murray's friends refused to bury him till they had avenged his death. Huntley, after the execrable deed, continued imprisoment. A suspicion certainly rests upon James. In the Advocates' Library in Edinburgh, are preserved the MS. annals of Sir James Balfour, Lyon King at Arms, who was living at the time, and who inserts among his papers the following curious annotation:-" The seventh of February this year, 1592, the Earl of Murray was cruelly murdered by the Earl of Huntley, at his house in Dumbrissel, in Fifeshire; and with him Dunbar, sheriff of Murray. It was given out and publicly talked, that the Earl of Huntley was only the instrument of perpetrating this fate, to satisfy the king's jealousy of Murray, whom the queen, more rashly than wisely, some few days before, had commended in the king's hearing with too many epithets of a proper and gallant man." The story is in some degree corroborated by Oldmixon. "I have it," he says, "from the best authority, that the king conceived a mortal hatred against the Earl of Murray for an expression of his wife Queen Anne, who, looking out at a window and seeing that lord entering the court, said he was the handsomest man she ever saw. • What,' said the king, 'handsomer than I?" and swore he would have his life." A supposition has long existed that the unfortunate John, Earl of Gowrie was a favoured lover of Queen Anne. There is, however, every reason to believe, that it was not the earl, but his younger brother, Alexander Ruthven, the sharer of his tragical fate, on whom the queen's affections were in reality fixed. More than one writer has endeavoured to trace the secret history of the Gowrie conspiracy from the existence of this romantic amour. They assert that the whole plot was a mere counterfeit, contrived by James himself, in order to revenge himself by the destruction of his rival. This supposition, though contrary to the king's well known character for timidity, is nevertheless consonant with his ideas and system of king-craft; and though it requires confirmation, is not altogether unsupported by correlative circumstances. The following story, the authority for which appears to rest entirely on traditional report, was inserted in Cant's notes on "the Muse's Threnody," and is related by Pinkerton in his Essay on the Gowrie Conspiracy: - The queen, it appears, in a moment of affection, had presented Alexander Ruthven with a riband, which some time before had been given to her by the king, and which Ruthven, in his gallantry, hung round his neck. One fine summer day, the young courtier, being in the royal garden at Falkland, threw himself under the shade of a tree, where he fell fast asleep. The weather being extremely sultry, had induced him to leave his neck and bosom uncovered. James, happening to pass by, paused for a moment to look at the sleeping Adonis, and perceived the fatal riband which he had so recently presented to his queen. He was exceedingly disconcerted, and instead of continuing his walk, returned to the palace. His movement, however, was observed by a young lady of the court (supposed to be Lady Beatrice for some time in real or affected concealment. | Ruthven, the sleeper's sister,) who instantly tore |