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not escaped the scrutiny of conscience, which continually pointed to him his murdered friend; and even within the circle of a court, amid the blandishments of flattery and of love, struck him with the representation of his secret enormity, and diffused over his mind a deep melancholy, which was neither to be dispelled by the smiles of beauty nor the rays of royal favour. The graces of his person gradually disappeared, and his gayety and politeness were lost in sullenness and silence.

The king, whose affections had been caught by these superficial accomplishments, finding his favourite no longer contribute to his amusement, and unable to account for so remarkable a change, more readily listened to the accusations brought against him. A rigorous inquiry was ordered; and Somerset and his countess were found guilty, but pardoned through the indiscreet lenity of James. They languished out their remaining years, which were many and miserable, in infamy and obscurity; alike hating and hated by each other.(1) Sir Jervis Elvis and the inferior criminals suffered the punishment due to their guilt.

LETTER II.

England and Scotland, from the Rise of Buckingham to the Death of James I. in 1625.

THE fall of Somerset, and his banishment from court, opened the way for a new favourite to rise at once to the highest honours. George Villiers, an English gentleman, of an engaging figure, and in all the bloom of twentyone, had already attracted the eye of James; and, at the intercession of the queen, had been appointed cup-bearer. (2) This office, so happily suited to youth and beauty, but which, when they become the cause of peculiar favour, revives in the mind certain Grecian allusions, might well have contented Villiers, and have attached him to the king's person; nor would such a choice have been censured, except by the cynically severe. (3) But the profuse bounty of James induced him, in the course of a few years, contrary to all the rules of prudence and politics, to create his minion viscount Villiers, earl, marquis, and duke of Buckingham, knight of the garter, master of the horse, chief justice in Eyre, warden of the Cinque Ports, master of the King's Bench, steward of Westminster, constable of Windsor, and lord high admiral of England.(4)

This rapid advancement of Villiers, which rendered him for ever rash and insolent, involved the king in new necessities, in order to supply the extravagance of his minion. A price had been already affixed to every rank of nobility, and the title of baronet invented, and currently sold for one thousand pounds, to supply the profusion of Somerset. (5) Some new expedient must now be suggested, and one very unpopular, though certainly less disgraceful than the former, was embraced; the cautionary towns were delivered up to the Dutch for a sum of money. These towns, as I have formerly had occasion to notice,(6) were the Brill, Flushing, and Ramakins; three important places, which Elizabeth had got consigned into her hands by the United Provinces, on entering into war with Spain, as a security for the repayment of the money which she might disburse on their account. Part of the debt, which at one time amounted to eight hundred thousand pounds, was already discharged; and the remainder, after making an allowance for the annual expense of the garrisons, was agreed to be paid on the surrender of the

(1) Kennet.

(2) Rushworth, vol. i.

(3) James, who affected sagacity and design in his most trifling concerns, insisted, we are told, on the ceremony of the queen's soliciting this office for Villiers, as an apology to the world for his sudden predi Jection in favour of that young gentleman. Coke, p. 46.

(4) Franklin, p. 30. Clarendon, vol. i.

(5) Franklin, p. 11.

(6) Part I. Let. LXIX.

fortresses.(1) This seems to have been all that impartial justice could demand, yet the English nation was highly dissatisfied with the transaction; and it must be owned, that a politic prince would have been slow in relinquishing possessions, on whatever conditions obtained, which enabled him to hold in a degree of subjection so considerable a neighbouring state as the republic of Holland.

The next measure in which James engaged rendered him as unpopular in Scotland as he was already in England. It was an attempt to establish a conformity in worship and discipline between the churches of the two kingdoms; a project which he had long held in contemplation, and towards the completion of which he had taken some introductory steps. But the principal part of the business was reserved till the king should pay a visit to his native country. Such a journey he now undertook. This naturally leads us to consider the affairs of Scotland.

It might have been readily foreseen by the Scots, when the crown of England devolved upon James, that the independency of their kingdom, for which their ancestors had shed so much blood, would thenceforth be lost; and that, if both kingdoms persevered in maintaining separate laws and parliaments, the weaker must feel its inferiority more sensibly than if it had been subdued by force of arms. But this idea did not generally occur to the Scottish nobles, formerly so jealous of the power as well as of the prerogatives of their princes; and as James was daily giving new proofs of his friendship and partiality to his countrymen, by loading them with riches and honours, the hope of his favour concurred with the dread of his power in taming their fierce and independent spirits. The will of their sovereign became the supreme law in Scotland. Meanwhile, the nobles, left in full possession of their feudal jurisdiction over their own vassals, exhausting their fortunes by the expense of frequent attendance upon the English court, and by attempts to imitate the manners and luxury of their more wealthy neighbours, multiplied exactions upon the people; who durst hardly utter complaints, which they knew would never reach the ear of their sovereign, or be rendered too feeble to move him to grant them redress.(2) Thus subjected at once to the absolute will of a monarch, and to the oppressive jurisdiction of an aristocracy, Scotland suffered all the miseries peculiar to both these forms of government. Its kings were despots, its nobles were slaves and tyrants, and the people groaned under the rigorous domination of both.(3)

There was one privilege, however, which the Scottish nobility in general, and the great body of the people, were equally zealous in protecting against the encroachments of the crown, namely, the independency of their church or kirk. The cause of this zeal deserves to be traced.

Divines are divided in regard to the government of the primitive church. It appears, however, to have been that of the most perfect equality among the Christian teachers, who were distinguished by the name of Presbyters; an appellation expressive of their gravity and wisdom, as well as of their age. But the most perfect equality of freedom requires the directing hand of a superior magistrate. Soon made sensible of this by experience, the primitive Christians were induced to choose one of the wisest and most holy among their Presbyters, to execute the duties of an ecclesiastical governor; and, in order to avoid the trouble and confusion of annual or occasional elections, his office continued during life, unless in cases of degradation, on account of irregularity of conduct. His jurisdiction consisted in the adminis

(1) Winwood, vol. ii. Rushworth, vol. i. Mrs. Macaulay thinks Elizabeth acted very ungenerously in demanding any thing from the Dutch for the assistance she lent them: "It ought, by all the obligations of virtue, to have been a free gift." (Hist. Eng. vol. i.) That the English queen took advantage of the necessities of the infant republic, to obtain possession of the cautionary towns, is certain; and the Dutch, now become more opulent, took advantage of James's necessities to get them back again. Justice and generosity, were in both cases, as in most transactions between nations, entirely out of the question. (2) Robertson, Hist. Scot. vol. ii. Hume, Hist. Eng. vol. vi.

(3) Before the accession of James I. to the throne of England, the feudal aristocracy subsisted in full force in Scotland. Then the vassals both of the king and of the nobles, from mutual jealousy, were tourted and caressed by their superiors, whose power and importance depended on their attachment and Edelity. Robertson, Hist. Scot, vol. ii."

tration of the sacraments and discipline of the church; in the superintendency of religious ceremonies, which imperceptibly increased in number and variety; in the consecration of Christian teachers, to whom the ecclesiastical governor or bishop assigned their respective functions; in the management of the public funds, and in the determination of all such differences as the faithful were unwilling to expose to the heathen world. (1) Hence the origin of the episcopal hierarchy, which rose to such an enormous height under the Christian emperors and Roman pontiffs.

When the enormities of the church of Rome, by rousing the indignation of the enlightened part of mankind, had called forth a spirit of reformation, that abhorrence, excited by the vices of the clergy, was soon transferred to their persons; and thence, by no violent transition, to the offices which they enjoyed. It may therefore be presumed, that the same holy fervour which abolished the doctrines of the Romish church, would also have overturned its ecclesiastical government, in every country where the Reformation was received, unless restrained by the civil power. In England, in great part of Germany, and in the northern kingdoms, such restraint was imposed on it by the policy of their princes; so that the ancient episcopal jurisdiction, under a few limitations, was retained in the churches of those countries. But in Switzerland and the Netherlands, where the nature of the government allowed full scope to the spirit of reformation, all pre-eminence of rank in the church was destroyed, and an ecclesiastical government established, more suitable to the genius of a republican policy, and to the ideas of the Reformers. This system, which has since been called Presbyterian, was formed upon the model of the primitive church.

It ought, however, to be remarked, that the genius of the Reformers, as well as the spirit of the Reformation and the civil polity, had a share in the establishment of the Presbyterian system. Zuinglius and Calvin, the apostles of Switzerland, were men of a more austere turn of mind than Luther, whose doctrines were generally embraced in England, Germany, and the north of Europe, where Episcopacy still prevails. The church of Geneva, formed under the eye of Calvin, and by his direction, was esteemed the most perfect model of Presbyterian government; and Knox, the apostle of Scotland, who, during his residence in that city, had studied and admired it, warmly recommended it to the imitation of his countrymen. The Scottish converts, filled with the most violent aversion against popery, and being under no apprehensions from the civil power, which the rage of reformation had humbled, with ardour adopted a system so admirably suited to their predominant passion. (2) Its effects on their minds were truly astonishing, if not altogether preternatural.

A mode of worship, the most naked and simple imaginable, which, borrowing nothing from the senses, leaves the mind to repose itself entirely on the contemplation of the divine essence, was soon observed to produce great commotions in the breast, and in some instances to confound all rational principles of conduct and behaviour. Straining for those ecstatic raptures, the supposed operations of that divine spirit by which they imagined themselves to be animated; reaching them by short glances, and sinking again under the weakness of humanity; the first Presbyterians in Scotland were so much occupied in this mental exercise, that they not only rejected the aid of all exterior pomp and ceremony, but fled from every cheerful amusement, and beheld with horror the approach of corporeal delight.(3)

It was this gloomy fanaticism, which had by degrees infected all ranks of men, and introduced a sullen, obstinate spirit into the people, that chiefly induced James to think of extending to Scotland the more moderate and cheerful religion of the church of England. He had early experienced the

(1) See Mosheim's Ecclesiastical History, cent. i. ii. and Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity, lib. vii. et seq. A bishop, during the first and second centuries, was only a president in a council of Presbyters, and the head of one Christian assembly; and whenever the Episcopal chair became vacant, a new president was chosen from among the Presbyters, by the suffrage of the whole congregation. Mosheim, ubi supra. 2) See Part I. Let. LV. (3) Keith. Knox.

insolence of the Presbyterian clergy; who, under the appearance of poverty and sanctity, and a zeal for the glory of God, and the safety and purity of the kirk, had concealed the most dangerous censorial and inquisitorial powers, which they sometimes exercised with all the arrogance of a Roman consistory. In 1596, when James, by the advice of a convention of estates, had granted permission to Huntley, Errol, and other Catholic noblemen, who had been banished the realm, to return to their own houses, on giving security for their peaceable and dutiful behaviour, a committee of the general assembly of the kirk had the audacity to write circular letters to all the Presbyteries in Scot. land, commanding them to publish in all their pulpits, an act of excommunication against the popish lords, and enjoining them to lay all those who were suspected of favouring popery under the same censure by a summary sentence, and without observing the usual formalities of trial!(1) On this occasion, one of the Presbyterian ministers declared from the pulpit, that the king, in permitting the popish lords to return, had discovered the treachery of his own heart; that all kings were the Devil's children, and that Satan had now the guidance of the court!(2) Another affirmed, in the principal church of the capital, that the king was possessed of a devil, and that his subjects might lawfully rise, and take the sword out of his hand!(3)

In consequence of these inflammatory speeches and audacious proceedings, the citizens of Edinburgh rose, and surrounding the house in which the Court of Session was sitting, and where the king happened to be present, demanded some of his counsellors, whom they named, that they might tear them in pieces. On his refusal, some called, " Bring out the wicked Haman!" while others cried, "The sword of the Lord and of Gideon!" And James was for some time a prisoner in the heart of his own capital, and at the mercy of the enraged populace.(4)

But the king's behaviour on that occasion, which was firm and manly, as well as political, restored him to the good opinion of his subjects in general. The populace dispersed, on his promising to receive their petitions, when presented in a regular form; and this fanatical insurrection, instead of overturning, served only to establish the royal authority. Those concerned in it, as soon as their enthusiastic rage had subsided, were filled with apprehension and terror at the thoughts of insulted majesty: while the body of the people, in order to avoid suspicion, or to gain the favour of their prince, contended who should be most forward to execute his vengeance.(5)

A convention of estates being called in January, 1597, pronounced the late insurrection to be high-treason; ordained every clergyman to subscribe a declaration of his submission to the king's jurisdiction, in all matters civil and criminal; empowered magistrates to commit instantly to prison any minister, who in his sermons should utter any indecent reflections on the king's conduct, and prohibited any ecclesiastical judicatory to meet without the king's license. (6) These ordinances were confirmed the same year, by the general assembly of the kirk, which also declared sentences of summary excommunication unlawful, and vested in the crown the right of nominating ministers to the parishes in the principal towns.(7)

These were great and necessary steps; and perhaps James should have proceeded no farther in altering the government or worship of the church of Scotland. But he was not yet satisfied: he longed to bring it nearer to the Episcopal model; and, after various struggles, he acquired sufficient influence over the Presbyterian clergy, even before his accession to the crown of England, to get an act passed by their general assembly, declaring those ministers, on whom the king should confer the vacant bishopricks and abbeys, entitled to a vote in parliament. (8) Nor did he stop here. No sooner was he firmly seated on the English throne, than he engaged them, though with still greater reluctance, to receive the bishops as perpetual presidents, or moderators, in their ecclesiastical synods.

(1) Robertson, Hist. Scot. vol. il.

(4) Robertson, Hist. Scot. book viii. vol ii.
17 Spotswood, p. 433.

(2) Id. ibid.

(3) Spotswood.
(6) Id. ibid.

(5) Id. ibid.

(8) Spotswood, p. 450.

The abhorrence of the Presbyterian clergy against Episcopacy was still, however, very great: nor could all the devices invented for restraining and circumscribing the spiritual jurisdiction of those who were to be raised to these new honours, or the hope of sharing them, allay their jealousy and fear. (1) James was therefore sensible, that he never could establish a con formity in worship and discipline, between the churches of England and Scotland, until he could procure from the Scottish parliament an acknowledgment of his own supremacy in all ecclesiastical causes. This was the principal object of his visit to his native country: where he proposed to the great council of the nation, which was then assembled, that an act might be passed, declaring that "whatever his majesty should determine in regard to the external government of the church, with the consent of the archbishops, bishops, and a competent number of the ministers, should have the force of a law."(2)

Had this bill received the sanction of parliament, the king's ecclesiastical government would have been established in its full extent; as it was not determined what number of the clergy should be deemed competent and their nomination was left entirely to himself. Some of them protested: they, apprehended, they said, that, by means of this new authority, the purity of their church would be polluted with all the rites and forms of the church of England; and James, dreading clamour and opposition, dropped his favourite measure. He was able, however, next year, to extort a vote from the general assembly of the kirk, for receiving certain ceremonies upon which his heart was more particularly set; namely, kneeling at the sacrament, the private administration of it to sick persons, the confirmation of children, and the observance of Christmas and other festivals. (3) Thus, by an ill-timed zeal for insignificant forms, the king betrayed, though in an opposite manner, an equal narrowness of mind with the Presbyterian clergy, whom he affected to hold in contempt. The constrained consent of the general assembly was belied by the inward sentiments of all ranks of people: even the few, over whom religious prejudices have less influence, thought national. honour sacrificed by a servile imitation of the modes of worship practised in England.(4)

A series of unpopular measures conspired to increase that odium, into which James had now fallen in both kingdoms, and which continued to the end of his reign. The first of these was the execution of sir Walter Raleigh. This extraordinary man, who suggested the first idea of the English colonies in North America, and who had attempted, as early as the year 1586, a settlement in the country now known by the name of North Carolina, then considered as part of Virginia, had also made a voyage, in 1595, to Guiana, in South America. The extravagant account which he published of the riches of this latter country, where no mines of any value have yet been discovered, has drawn much censure upon his veracity: particularly his description of the apparently fabulous empire and city of Manoa or Eldorado, the sovereign of which he conjectures possessed more treasure than the Spaniards had drawn from both Mexico and Peru.(5)

Raleigh's motive for uttering these splendid falsities seems to have been a desire of turning the avidity of his countrymen towards that quarter of the New World where the Spaniards had found the precious metals in such abundance. This, indeed, sufficiently appears from his relation of certain Peruvian prophecies, which expressly pointed out the English as the conquerors and deliverers of that rich country, which he had discovered. As he was known, however, to be a man of a romantic turn of mind, and it did not appear that he had enriched himself by his voyage, little regard seems

(1) Perhaps the Presbyterian clergy might have been less obstinate in rejecting James's scheme of uniformity, had any prospect remained of recovering the patrimony of the church. But that, they knew, had been torn in pieces by the rapacious nobility and gentry, and at their own instigation: so that all hope of a restitution of church-lands was cut off; and without such restitution, the ecclesiastical dignities could scarcely become the object of the ambition of a rational mind.

(2) Spotswood. Franklin.

(5) See his Relat. in Hackluyt's Collect.

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