Chapter XVIII: JAMES I. (concluded) (1)

Reign of Favourites--Robert Carr--His Marriage--Death of
Overbury--Venality at Court--The Addled Parliament--George
Villiers--Fall of Somerset--Disgrace of Coke--Bacon becomes
Lord Chancellor--Position of England Abroad--The Scottish
Church--Introduction of Episcopacy--Andrew Melville--Visit
of James to Scotland--The Book of Sports--Persecution of the
Irish Catholics--Examination into Titles--Rebellion of the
Chiefs--Plantation of Ulster--Fresh Confiscations--Quarrel
between Bacon and Coke--Prosperity of Buckingham--Raleigh's
Last Voyage--His Execution--Beginnings of the Thirty
Years' War--Indecision of James--Despatch of Troops to the
Palatinate--Parliament of 1621--Impeachment of Bacon--His
Fall--Floyd's Case--James's Proceedings during the
Recess--Dissolution of Parliament--Reasons for the Spanish
Match--Charles and Buckingham go to Spain--The Match is Broken
Off--Punishment of Bristol--Popularity of Buckingham--Change of
Foreign Policy--Marriage of Charles and Henrietta Maria--Death of
James.

From the death of Cecil we may date the reign of favourites, which continued as long as the king lived. That cautious and able minister was too fond of power himself to allow it to pass into the hands of much weaker men. James, while Cecil lived, had indeed no lack of favourites on whom he lavished affluence and honours; but his cunning minister had the address to prevent him from giving them places of real power and responsibility. James therefore, so long as Cecil remained, was content to make his favourites his companions and left Cecil to conduct public affairs; but no sooner was Salisbury in his grave, than James became the slave of his favourites, who ruled both him and the kingdom.

The first of these was Robert Carr, or Ker, a young border Scot of the Kers of Fernihurst. He had been some years in France, and being a handsome youth--"straight-limbed, well-formed, strong-shouldered, and smooth-faced"--he had been led to believe that if he cultivated his personal appearance and a gaiety and courtliness of address, he was sure of making his fortune at the Court of James. Accordingly he managed to appear as page to Lord Dingwall at a grand tilting match at Westminster, in 1606. According to chivalric usage, it became his duty to present his lord's shield to his Majesty; but in manoeuvring his horse on the occasion, it fell and broke his leg. That fall was his rise. James was immediately struck with the beauty of the youth who lay disabled at his feet, and had him straightway carried into a house near Charing Cross, and sent his own surgeon to him. As soon as he could get away from the tilt-yard, he hastened to him himself. He renewed his visits daily, waiting upon him himself, and displaying to the whole Court the intensity of his sudden regard for him. "Lord!" says Weldon, "how the great men flocked then to see him, and to offer to his shrine in such abundance, that the king was forced to lay a restraint, lest it might retard his recovery."

The lad's fortune was made; and though James, in conversing with him, found that he was very ignorant--the whole of his education having been directed to his outside--this did not abate his regard, for he condescended to be at once his nurse and schoolmaster. "The prince," says Harrington, "leaneth on his arm, pinches his cheek, smooths his ruffled garments. The young man doth study much art and device; he hath changed his tailors and tiremen many times, and all to please the prince. The king teaches him Latin every morning, and I think some one should teach him English too, for he is a Scotch lad, and hath much need of better language."

(_From the Portrait by Van Somer._)]

James found that Carr had been his page in Scotland, and that his father had suffered much in the cause of the unhappy Mary Stuart; these were additional causes of favour. On Christmas-day, 1607, James knighted him and made him a gentleman of the bed-chamber, so as to have him constantly about his person. Such was his favour that every one pressed around him to obtain their suits with the king. He received rich presents; the ladies courted his attention; the greatest lords did him the most obsequious and disgusting homage. Carr, however, had an eye to pleasing the public and therefore, Scotsman as he was, he turned the cold shoulder to his countrymen, and associated with and favoured the English; probably, too, finding this the most profitable. Those about him were almost wholly English; and his affairs were in the hands of one Sir Thomas Overbury, a man of an evil look, and with a countenance said to be shaped like that of a horse. The dark ability of this man supplied the lack of talent in his patron, and became a mine of wealth to Overbury himself. Even Cecil and the Earl of Suffolk strove to avail themselves of his services; and when Cecil quitted the scene, Carr, through Overbury's management, carried all before him. In March, 1611, he had been created Viscount Rochester; in April, 1612, he became a member of the Privy Council, and was invested with the order of the Garter. The Earl of Suffolk succeeding to Cecil's post of Lord Treasurer, Carr stepped into Suffolk's office of Lord Chamberlain, at the same time discharging the duties of the post of Secretary by the aid of Sir Thomas Overbury. The favourite's favourite, however, was no favourite of the king, who was jealous of having so much of the time and confidence of Carr occupied by Overbury, and this feeling was probably much heightened by the queen, who had an instinctive aversion to the man. On one occasion the queen succeeded in obtaining his expulsion from Court, for alleged discourtesy to her, but he soon returned; and though the king appointed Sir Ralph Winwood and Sir Thomas Lake to occupy jointly the office of Secretary of State, yet Carr, by the king's favour and Overbury's ability, remained lord paramount in the Court; Overbury himself being the avenue to every favour. On April 21, 1613, Overbury boasted to Sir Henry Wotton of his good fortune, and his flattering prospects, yet that very day saw him committed close prisoner to the Tower. Adept as he was in all Court intrigues, he had yet committed an irremediable blunder, and aroused a spirit of vengeance which nothing but his blood could quench. This spirit lived in the bosom of a beautiful girl not yet twenty years of age.

Lady Frances Howard, the daughter of the Earl of Suffolk, had been married at the age of thirteen to the Earl of Essex, the son of Elizabeth's unfortunate favourite, who was only a year older. It was a match promoted by the king out of regard, as he said, for the memory of the young earl's father. The ceremony being performed, the bride returned to the care of her mother, and the boy bridegroom proceeded, under care of a tutor, on his travels. At the end of four years he returned, and claimed his wife, whom he found the beauty and pride of the Court. But whilst he was enraptured with her loveliness, he was mortified to find that she treated him with every mark of aversion. It was only by the stern command of her father that she consented to live with him at all, and he soon discovered that in his absence her affections had been stolen away by the profligate favourite Rochester, who had won her even from another and a royal suitor, Prince Henry.

This discovery, and the constant bickerings which took place between the earl and countess, made Essex willing that a divorce should be obtained. There were others who were glad of this expedient: Lady Howard's father, Lord Suffolk, and the Earl of Northampton, Lord Privy Seal, saw in her marriage with Rochester a mode of putting an end to the rivalry which existed between them, and the king was equally eager for this result. But to Overbury the scheme boded the destruction of his power, which would be at an end if his patron coalesced with his enemies. He therefore commenced a determined opposition to the match. He it was who had written the glowing and eloquent love-letters of Rochester, and had promoted the _liaison_ to the utmost of his power; but he had never dreamt of its leading to a marriage which must work his own ruin. He therefore represented to Rochester the odium of such a marriage; the base and abandoned character of the woman, who might do for his mistress, but was not to be thought of as a wife. When he found that his arguments did not produce the effect which he wished, he took the dangerous step of menaces, and declared that he could and would throw an insuperable bar in the way of the divorce from Essex, without which there could be no marriage. This bar was undoubtedly Overbury's knowledge of the adulterous connection which had existed between the parties, and which would certainly ruin the countess's demand of a separation.

The master of deep policy could not see the rock upon which he was running, and which would have been very clear to him in another person's case. Rochester repeated to the countess all that he said, and the rage of a sinful woman, proverbially fierce as hell, seized upon her. She vowed that she would have his life. In her first fury she offered £1,000 to Sir John Wood to kill him in a duel, but her friends interposed, and suggested a less hazardous and less criminal method of getting Overbury out of the way, which was to send him on an embassy to France or Russia. If he accepted the office, he would be detained abroad till the divorce was effected; if he refused, it would be easy to construe his conduct into a contempt of the king's service.

Overbury was sounded on the subject of a mission to Russia, and listened to it with apparent pleasure; but the young beauty could not thus satisfy her revenge, and at her instigation Rochester affected to feel his projected absence intolerable. He declared his presence and counsel were indispensable to him, and he promised to satisfy the king, if he agreed to decline the offer. No sooner did Overbury consent than Rochester, so far from excusing him to the king, represented his conduct as not only disobedient to his Majesty, but as insolent and intolerable to himself. James was only too glad to clear the Court of the hated man; a warrant was immediately issued, and Overbury was committed to the Tower. By the arrangement of Rochester and the Earl of Northampton, the lieutenant of the Tower, Sir William Wade, was removed, and a creature of theirs, Sir Jervis Elwes, was installed in his place. Under the care of Elwes, Sir Thomas Overbury was at once cut off from all communication with the outer world. Neither servant nor relative was permitted to see him; he was already dead to the world, and the world was soon to be dead to him.

The dangerous man secured, the measures for the divorce commenced. The countess petitioned for it, alleging serious grounds, and her father signed the petition. But no one was more forward and determined in carrying this disgraceful transaction through than the king. He appointed without delay a commission to try the cause. The commissioners were Abbot the Archbishop of Canterbury, the bishops of London, Winchester, Rochester, Ely, Lichfield, and Coventry; Sir Julius Cæsar, Sir John Barry, Sir Daniel Dunne, Sir John Bennet, Francis James and Thomas Edwards, doctors of civil law.

The Earl of Essex was only too glad to be rid of his virago, and consented to anything, even to the most humiliating imputations on his manhood. The real causes of the vile business were sufficiently notorious; and the Primate, though at the head of the commission, revolting at being made a tool for the accommodation of aristocratic licentiousness, strongly opposed the divorce. But James took him sharply to task, telling him in so many words that it was his duty to resign his own judgment and follow that of his sovereign. "If," he wrote, in a most imperative letter, "a judge should have a prejudice in respect of persons, it should become you rather to have a kind of implicit faith in my judgment, as well in respect of some skill I have in divinity, as also that I hope no honest man doubts the uprightness of my conscience; and the best thankfulness that you, that are so far my creature, can use towards me, is to reverence and follow my judgment and not to contradict it, except where you may demonstrate unto me that I am mistaken or wrong informed."

But James did not content himself with recommending implicit obedience; he influenced and controlled the proceedings, and intimidated the judges by all means in his power. His zeal was quickened by the receipt of twenty-five thousand pounds from Rochester, at a moment when his officers were at their wits' end for money. But do what he would, he could not bend the integrity of the Primate, who to the last resisted the divorce, and three of the doctors of law supported him. The Bishop of London also voted with him, but the rest of the bishops and civil lawyers voted for the divorce, which was carried by seven voices against five. The Bishop of Winchester showed himself so servile on the occasion, that the king knighted his son, who was ever afterwards dubbed by the people Sir Nullity Bilson. The other judges and bishops who voted according to his wish were also rewarded by James, and the sentence of divorce was pronounced on the 25th of September.

The public at large, to whom the facts of the case were no secret, condemned the whole proceeding in no measured terms, and this reprobation rose into actual horror when the news oozed out that, the very day before the verdict for the divorce, Sir Thomas Overbury was found dead in his cell in the Tower. He was buried in all haste, and with profound secrecy, the officials diligently propagating a report that he died of a loathsome and contagious disease: but the public entertained no doubt of his perishing of poison.

In the face of all this, James proceeded immediately to raise Rochester to the dignity of Earl of Somerset, that he might equal in rank, if not in iniquity, the murder-breathing countess. The marriage, moreover, was celebrated on the 26th of December, at the royal chapel in Whitehall, the king making it his own affair, being himself present, with Prince Charles, and a great crowd of bishops and noblemen. The queen kept herself commendably apart from the whole infamous business. The blood-stained bride, with a shamelessness unparalleled, appeared with her hair hanging loose on her shoulders, in the character of a virgin! Montague, Bishop of Bath and Wells, married the guilty couple, and Mountain, Dean of Westminster, pronounced a blessing upon them. Then the king gave a series of banquets and masques at Whitehall in honour of them, which continued till the 4th of January, 1614; and, as if all classes of public men were eager to disgrace themselves by sanctioning this Court wickedness, the Lord Mayor and aldermen invited the adulterous couple to a splendid banquet, given at the Merchant Taylors' Hall, on the same 4th of January, whither they were accompanied by the Duke of Lennox, the Earl of Northampton, Lord Privy Seal, the Lord Chamberlain, and the Earls of Worcester, Pembroke, and Montgomery.

From his gaieties James was called, by his eternal want of money, to face his Parliament. Since 1611, when he dissolved his last House of Commons, he had endeavoured to carry on by any illegal and unconstitutional means that the people would submit to. But the Dutch did not keep their engagement to pay off their debt of upwards of eight hundred thousand pounds by annual instalments of sixty thousand pounds, and James was too pusillanimous to adopt the means which a Cromwell would have done. He threatened war, and threatened only; and therefore became despised by his debtors, who thenceforth made no movement towards paying. Disappointed here, the only alternative was to fleece his own subjects. He resorted to the scandalous measure of selling all the places of honour and trust, and all kinds of dignities, for money. He sold several peerages for high prices. Every place under Government was to be had only for cash; nor did the proceeds of this infamous traffic always reach the king's hands, but fell into those of his minion Somerset, and the Howards, the relatives of Somerset's wife. The wicked Countess of Somerset, and Lady Suffolk, her mother, got four thousand pounds as a bribe from Sir Fulke Greville, for the Chancellorship of the Exchequer. The example thus set at Court ran through all departments, and the whole management of the country was given up to corruption and venality. So little of these proceeds of iniquity came to the king, and that little was so foolishly and recklessly given away amongst his hangers-on, that the salaries of all who were not in a situation to be bribed, and thus pay themselves, remained unpaid. In this difficulty, James hit upon a notable scheme, and originated a new order of aristocracy--namely baronets, or little barons, a link between the barons, or lowest peers, and knights. These new titles he sold at one thousand pounds apiece. Sir Nicholas Bacon was the first created for England, and Sir Francis Blundell for Ireland, in 1620. Baronets for Nova Scotia, of whom Sir Robert Gordon was first, were added by Charles I., to extend this source of income, in 1625.

James was now compelled to summon a Parliament, and Sir Francis Bacon concocted a scheme for managing the House of Commons. Bacon's plan was this, and he had regularly weighed it and drawn it up for the king's consideration: that, according to a principle afterwards made a maxim by Sir Robert Walpole, every one had his price; that the leaders of the late opposition, Neville, Yelverton, Hyde, Crew, and Sir Dudley Digges, were chiefly lawyers, and there were plenty of means, by prospects of promotion skilfully applied, to bring them zealously to the king's side; that they being once brought over, he had the talking, persuasive power of the House; and that much might be done beforehand also with the city men and country gentlemen, and where any obstinate man appeared, means might be used to keep him out. At the same time Bacon assured James that it was necessary to make a show of some concession. It was suggested that as he had promised to abolish abuses, he should at least give up some of the lesser ones; and on his accepting this plan, he and his friends were ready to "undertake" to manage Parliament, and to guarantee his Majesty plenty of money and little trouble, provided James would only avoid irritating speeches.

James's Parliament met on the 5th of April 1614, and he endeavoured to put in practice the Machiavellian instructions of Bacon by delivering a very popular speech--popular because it promised plentiful persecution for religion, which was the spirit of the day, and a liberal removal of grievances; but, as usual, first of all he placed the supply of his necessities. But the Undertakers had not succeeded in their first out-of-door efforts; there was a sturdy assemblage of popular members, and such faces appeared amongst them, according to a writer of the time, as made the Court to droop. The House of Commons at once reversed the topics of the king's speech, placing the grievances in the front and making the supplies conditional on their abolition. The royal party which the Undertakers had got together, found their pleas for slavish obedience drowned in a storm of angry demand for justice; and the House demanded a conference with the Lords on the subject. The Lords asked the opinion of the judges on the question, and especially that of Coke the Lord Chief Justice. Coke, who remembered the endeavours of Bacon to supplant him in the good graces of the king, and who hoped for no higher preferment, took the opportunity to throw cold water on the conference, asserting that the judges, after consultation among themselves, felt that they were bound by their office to decide between the king and his subjects, and were therefore equally bound not to appear as disputants or partisans on either side. The Lords on hearing this declined the conference, and Neale, who had recently been transferred from the see of Lichfield to the wealthier one of Lincoln, for his services in procuring the Countess of Essex's divorce, rose and uttered a most unbecoming tirade against the Commons, charging them with striking at the root of the royal prerogative, and anticipating that if admitted to a conference, they might use very disloyal and seditious language.

This roused the indignation of the Commons: they did not understand the etiquette of our time, which supposes what passes in one House unknown in the other; but they immediately demanded of the Lords the punishment of the man who had thus dared to slander their loyalty. On this the bishop, who was as cowardly as he was insolent, and who was hated by the Puritans as a merciless persecutor, instantly recanted in his place; and with many tears, and fervent declarations of his high respect for the Commons, denied many of the offensive expressions attributed to him. But the House was not thus to be appeased. The members were greatly exasperated at the plan of managing them, which had become public, and fell on Bacon as the author of the scheme. The versatile Sir Francis pretended to ridicule the very idea of any such scheme being in existence, as the king had done in his opening speech, but the House gave him no credit; they proceeded to question even his right to sit in their House, on his accepting the office of Attorney-General, and only permitted it as a special indulgence, which was not to be drawn into a precedent.

The king, who saw no chance of supplies in the present temper of the House, sent them a sharp message, desiring them to proceed to the business of the supplies, attended with a threat of immediate dissolution in case of non-compliance. This produced no effect, and the House was dissolved on the 7th of June. Having thus broken the immediate power of retaliation in the House, he, the next morning, arrested the most refractory members and committed five of them to the Tower, amongst whom was Wentworth, a lawyer, destined to act a very prominent part in the next reign. These members were not discharged till they had, by their admissions, occasioned the king to arrest others, who were committed in their turn. This Parliament obtained the name of the Addled Parliament, because it had not passed a single bill, but it had displayed a spirit which was pregnant with the most momentous consequences. It had laid the foundation of the rights of the Commons, and at the same time had displayed its rigid temperament, by issuing an order which excluded all Catholics, and by making it necessary for every member, before taking his seat, to receive the Sacrament according to the form of the Church of England.

James had indeed got from the determined tone of the House a fright which lasted him nearly seven years. He returned to his usual unconstitutional modes of extorting revenue. Besides the sale of monopolies and privileges, he compelled the payment of benevolences, an odious tax, not only because raised without sanction of Parliament, but because its name implied a free gift. Those who resisted these modes of royal robbery were dragged into the Star Chamber, and there sentenced to enormous fines. Mr. Oliver St. John, a gentleman who had not only refused such payment, but had vindicated his conduct in an able letter, in which he commented freely on the king's violation of Magna Charta, was fined by the tyrannic Star Chamber five thousand pounds, and ordered to be imprisoned during the king's pleasure.

A new era now arrived in the history of the king's favourites. Though the Countess of Somerset was hardened enough to stalk through adultery and poison to the gratification of her desires, and show no remorse, it appears that her new husband was not altogether of so callous a nature. From the moment of the death of Overbury, he was a totally changed man. All pleasure in life had deserted him; he had lost all his gaiety and went about moody and morose. His person became neglected, his dress disorderly, and even in the king's company he was absent of mind and took no pains to please him. This was not lost on those courtiers who envied the favour of the Howards, who now enjoyed complete ascendency through their wicked kinswoman. The Earls of Bedford, Pembroke, and Hertford maintained a sharp watch for a new favourite to bring before James, confident that a suitable man once found, the day of Somerset was over. This man soon appeared in a youth of the name of George Villiers, the younger son of Sir George Villiers of Brooksby, in Leicestershire. Sir George was dead, and young Villiers had been brought up under the care of his mother, who was at once one of the most beautiful and infamous women of her time. She saw in the beauty and grace of this boy the means of advancing the fortunes of the whole family. She therefore carefully educated him to win the favour of the favourite-loving king, confident that if he once attracted his attention, the result was sure. This far-seeing and ambitious woman therefore sent the lad to France, to acquire the gay and easy manner of that Court.

His courtly education being considered perfect, at the age of one-and-twenty, the post of cup-bearer to his Majesty was purchased amongst the lavish sale of offices of the time, as one that must unavoidably place him under the eye of the king. Accordingly, he appeared in that employment with a fine suit of French clothes on his back, and as many French graces as any silly modern Solomon could desire. He was a fine, tall young fellow, and pre-eminently handsome, at the same time that he was one of the emptiest, haughtiest, and most profligate men that ever lived. Time, however, was yet to display these qualities; they were at present concealed under a garb of finished courtesy and agreeable manners. The Herberts, the Russells, and the Seymours were delighted; and it was planned that young Villiers should discharge his office of cup-bearer at a supper entertainment at Baynard's Castle, in such a manner as must strike the imagination of the king. James was, according to expectation, smitten with the looks of the youth, and pointed out his imagined likeness to a beautiful head of St. Stephen at Whitehall, whence he gave him the pet name of "Steenie," which he always after used.

Villiers once installed in James's good graces, the fall of Somerset was easy, and no time was lost in effecting it. Somerset was not so lost to observance of what passed around him as to be unaware of some danger; probably his vigilant spouse brought the fact to his attention. He therefore solicited a pardon of the king, in full and formal style, of all and everything which he might have done, or should hereafter do, which might subject him to a charge of treason, misprision of treason, felony, or other accusation. James, who had not yet been incited to his destruction, with his usual facility in such matters, especially when under certain genial influences, freely granted it; but the Lord Chancellor Ellesmere refused to put the Great Seal to such a document, declaring that it would subject him to a Præmunire. After all, it might be a _ruse_ of James to grant this pardon, thus still preserving an appearance of favour to Somerset, as he did to the last moment, knowing that a hint to Ellesmere, who was a very compliant creature of his, would prevent the deed taking effect. James went further; he sent Villiers to Somerset, to assure him that he desired not in any way to interfere between him and the king's favour, but would seek preferment only through his means and be "his servant and creature;" to which Somerset, with the moroseness which had become his manner, replied, "I will have none of your service, and you shall have none of my favour. I will, if I can, break your neck."

Matters now being ripe, Mr. Secretary Winwood was induced by Archbishop Abbot, under promise of protection from the queen, to communicate to James the popular rumour that Overbury had been poisoned in the Tower, and that this had been confirmed by some admissions of Elwes, the lieutenant of that fortress, in conversation with the Earl of Shrewsbury. That the old favourite had lost his place in James's heart was immediately evident. He took up the matter with his usual avidity where a mystery was to be probed. He put a number of questions to Elwes in writing, and demanded, on pain of his life, a faithful answer. The answer satisfied James that Somerset and his wife were guilty of this foul murder. He immediately sent for the Lord Chief Justice Coke, and ordered him to arrest them. Coke demurred till the king had named several others in commission with him. This being settled, this extraordinary royal dissembler set out to Royston to hunt, and took Somerset with him, showing him all his old marks of fondness. In the days of his real favour he had refused him not the most iniquitous request. Even when the wife of Sir Walter Raleigh, on his first condemnation for treason, had gone down on her knees to him, to implore him to spare his castle and estate at Sherborne, in Dorsetshire, for his children, James had ruthlessly replied, "Na, na; I maun hae the land; I maun hae it for Carr." And at this moment, when he was dooming the same Carr to destruction, he was pretending the same infatuated regard. When the Chief Justice's messenger arrived at Royston with the warrant, he found the king hanging about Somerset's neck, kissing him in the true Judas style, and saying, "When shall I see thee again? When shall I see thee again?"

When the warrant was delivered to Somerset, in the midst of these disgusting affectations of endearment, he exclaimed that never had such an affront been offered to a peer of England in presence of his sovereign. "Nay, man," replied the royal hypocrite, coaxingly, "if Coke sends for _me_, I maun go;" and as soon as Somerset's back was turned, he added, "Now the deil go with thee, for I will never see thy face mair." Soon after Coke himself arrived, to whom James indignantly complained that Somerset and his wife had made him a go-between in their adultery and murder. Even his enormous self-conceit was so far overcome, as to compel him to admit that he had been grossly duped. He commanded Coke to search the affair to the bottom, and to spare no man or woman that he found guilty, however great or powerful. "And," added he, "may God's curse be upon you and your house if you spare any of them; and God's curse be upon me and mine, if I pardon any of them."

Coke seemed quite willing to act as vigorously and unsparingly as the king could desire. The commissioners, of whom he was the chief, subjected the adulterous pair to no less than three hundred examinations, and then announced that they found ample proofs of their guilt; that Frances Howard, formerly Countess of Essex, had resorted to sorcery to incapacitate her then husband, the Earl of Essex, and to procure the love of Lord Rochester; that, finding Sir Thomas Overbury an obstacle to their criminal designs, they had, by the assistance of the countess's late uncle, the Earl of Northampton, procured the commitment of Sir Thomas to the Tower, and the removal of the lieutenant, and the appointment in his place of their creature Elwes, and of one Weston to be the warder of the prisoner; that this Weston had formerly been the servant of Mrs. Turner, a woman famous for the introduction of yellow starch for ruffs, and an early companion of the said Lady Frances Howard; that, through Weston and Mrs. Turner, the countess had procured three kinds of poison from one Franklin, an apothecary; and that Weston had administered these poisons to his prisoner Overbury, and thus procured his death. Coke added that, from private memorandum books and letters which he had found amongst the papers of the prisoners, he had discovered that Somerset had undoubtedly poisoned Prince Henry. The queen is said to have been greatly excited by this intelligence, and had all her former belief of this poisoning revived. She declared her full conviction that Somerset and his clique had planned the removal of herself, and her son Charles also, in order to marry the Princess Elizabeth to the son of the Earl of Suffolk, brother to the countess. But James was too well satisfied by the _post mortem_ examination of the body of Prince Henry, and by the insufficiency of Coke's proof, to be led into this absurd belief, though he admitted a persuasion that Somerset had received money from Spain on condition of delivering up the Prince Charles to that monarch.

Though the minor confederates were promptly hanged, the trial of Somerset and his wife was deferred till April, 1616. The real cause of delay was probably the fear of bringing a man like Somerset, who had been so long in all James's secrets, to trial, lest he should avow something in his despair to the damage of the royal reputation. Certain it is that, when the time of trial approached, James betrayed the most extreme terror and uneasiness, and omitted no means to induce Somerset to make a full confession in private, offering him both life and restoration to his estates. He sent messenger after messenger to Somerset in prison, the Attorney-General Bacon being the principal, James Hay, afterwards Earl of Carlisle, another, with whom was employed Somerset's late private secretary. They did all in their power to induce Somerset to accept the king's terms, but he remained obstinate, replying, when offered life and fortune, "Of what use is life when honour is gone?" He demanded earnestly to be permitted to see the king himself, declaring that in half an hour's interview he could place all in so clear a light as should perfectly satisfy his majesty. This interview James declined, as well as a proposal to send a private letter to the king. These requests being refused, he assumed an attitude of menace, declaring that whenever he was brought into court, he would make such avowals as should astonish the country, and cause the king to rue his rejection of his offers. James displayed much alarm on hearing of this.

On the 24th of May the countess was brought before the Peers, where, as she had already confessed, she had only to plead guilty. She was extremely agitated, pale, spiritless. She trembled greatly all the time that the clerk was reading the indictment, and put her fan before her face at the mention of Weston. Her words were nearly inaudible, through weeping, as she pleaded guilty, and threw herself on the royal mercy. This done, she was removed from the bar before the sentence was pronounced, during which interval Bacon delivered a perfectly unnecessary speech, as she had pleaded guilty, detailing the damning facts which he was prepared to produce, had he been compelled by her denying her guilt. This manoeuvre was intended to criminate Somerset, without the hazard of his wife's declaring his innocence on hearing him implicated. Bacon's purpose being served, she was recalled, and the Lord Chancellor Ellesmere, who acted as High Steward on the trials, pronounced sentence of death upon her.

That day Somerset was informed that he would go to trial on the morrow: they had not deemed it safe to try him and his wife together. On hearing this he went into a great rage, declaring that the king had assured him that he should never go to trial, and protesting that if they took him there, it should be by force and in his bed. He repeated his former threats, adding the king dared not bring him into open court. More, the lieutenant of the Tower, was so alarmed at this temper and language, that he hastened away to James at Greenwich, though it was getting late, and was midnight when he reached the palace. He was hastily admitted to the king's chamber, and James, on hearing his statement, burst into an agony of tears, and exclaimed: "On my soul, More, I wot not what to do. Thou art a wise man: help me in this great strait, and thou shalt find thou dost it for a thankful master." More promised to do his best, and was afterwards actually rewarded for his services on this occasion with a suit worth to him fifteen hundred pounds, though the Earl of Annandale, his great friend, managed to get half of it.

(_From the Portrait by Cornelius Janssen._)]

The lieutenant hastened back to the Tower, and told Somerset that he had communicated his wishes to the king, who was in the most gracious disposition towards him, and sent him assurance that though for form's sake he must appear in court, he should not be detained there by any proceedings; but whilst he had there an opportunity of seeing his enemies and their malice towards him, the royal power should protect him from any harm.

This appeased the rage of Somerset, and he prepared calmly to make his appearance in the morning. But even then the officers of the court were by no means secure of the result when he should find himself compelled to plead, notwithstanding the royal promise. Bacon had planned all necessary cautions for this emergency, as we find from his "Particular Remembrances for his Majesty," preserved in the State Trials. "It were good," he says, "that after he is come into the hall, so that he may perceive that he must go to trial, and shall be retired to the place appointed till the court call for him, then the lieutenant shall tell him roundly that, if in his speeches he shall tax the king, the justice of England is that he shall be taken away, and the evidence go on without him; and then all the people will cry away with him, and then it shall not be in the king's power to save his life, the people will be so set on fire."

The lieutenant had carefully acted on this plan, and had provided two servants, each with a cloak on his arm, to stand behind Somerset, so that if More's representations did not after all prevent Somerset from speaking out to the discredit of the king, they should throw the cloaks instantly over his head, and drag him from the bar, from all consequence of which proceeding he promised to protect them.

These singular precautions, which betrayed an awful terror on the part of the king of some withering exposure from the exasperated favourite, so far prevailed, that Somerset stood upon his trial with apparent calmness, but refused steadfastly to plead guilty. Bacon, on his part, was careful in stating the charges against him, to do it so mildly that the prisoner should not be excited to any dangerous pitch. Somerset never mentioned the king, but he defended himself resolutely and with consummate ability. He analysed the whole string of charges brought against him, explained away whatever appeared to tell most forcibly to his disadvantage, and for eleven hours prolonged the trial and the intolerable agony and suspense of the king, who, during the whole time, was in the most pitiable condition of terror. "But who had seen," says Sir Anthony Weldon, in a passage which is fully borne out by the letters of More, the lieutenant, "the king's restless motion all that day, sending to every boat landing at the bridge, cursing all that came without tidings, would have easily judged that all was not right, and that there had been some grounds for his fears of Somerset's boldness; but at last, one bringing him word that he was condemned, all was quiet."

In the course of a few weeks James actually granted a pardon to the murder-stained countess, on the plea that she was not tried as a principal, but as an accessory before the fact; though all the facts of the case go to show that she was the chief instrumental instigator of the death of Overbury. He also offered the same grace to Somerset; but the proud, though fallen, favourite haughtily refused it, saying that he was an innocent man, who therefore needed no pardon, but expected a reversal of his sentence.

Time, however, showed him that the favour of the prince had passed on to others, and that his enemies were working for further injury to him; he therefore condescended in the autumn of 1624 to petition for the pardon formerly rejected. It was granted on the 24th of October, with a promise of the restoration of his property. James meanwhile allowed him an income of four thousand pounds a year, and protected him from the infamy attaching to his condemnation. He would not allow him to be expelled from the Order of St. George, nor his arms to be reversed in the chapel of that saint at Windsor.

The guilty earl and countess are said to have retired together into the country, not to the felicity of innocent affection but, as it was said, to mutual hatred and recrimination. The countess died in 1632; the earl, who never recovered his estates, lived on thirteen years longer. Their only child, Lady Ann Carr, who was born in the Tower, was married to William, the fifth Earl, and afterwards Duke, of Bedford, and became the mother of the celebrated Lord William Russell, who perished on the scaffold under Charles II. Out of such a soil can rise such plants; nay, even the daughter of this infamous couple is declared to have been a woman of the purest and noblest character; and so carefully was the horrible history of her parents kept from her, that it never reached her ears till a few years before her own death. The Earl of Essex, so cruelly treated in this revolting affair, lived to lead with high distinction the army of the Commonwealth.

Fast on the fall of Somerset followed that of the Chief Justice Coke. He had rendered distinguished service to James in hunting out the evidence and bringing to punishment the favourite and his wife; but he had neutralised this benefit by his haughtiness and opposition to the royal authority in other respects. Coke and Bacon had pursued two opposite systems of policy in their courses towards the highest honours of the State. Bacon had affected liberalism and a championship of popular rights, which the higher he rose the more he sacrificed to the pleasure of the monarch. There was a profound flattery in this, for it seemed to give an additional value to his growing attachment to the Crown, that it was won from his original bias towards the people. On the other hand, Coke commenced as a thorough-going supporter of the prerogative, and as his abilities were pre-eminent, and his prosecution of State offenders unrestrained by any scruples of conscience, he did the work of that despotic prince with a gusto and a ruthlessness which highly delighted his employer. No lawyer, except Jeffreys, in a later age, ever indulged in the same unsparing abuse of those against whom he was retained. His disposition was not merely unfeeling, it was truculent, and the insolence of his language was beyond all former experience. When let loose on a victim, he certainly was no respecter of persons; an Arabella Stuart or a Raleigh were abused in a style which would not now be tolerated towards the most abject criminal. But when Coke had reached the summit of his ambition, and thought the height to which he had climbed secure, he began to display the inherent pride of his nature, by assuming an independence of manner and a haughtiness of opinion, exhibited even towards the Throne, which astonished and irritated James. In the Commons he openly opposed the claims of prerogative, came out in defence of popular rights, and ended where Bacon had begun. From abject servility he rapidly passed to daring opposition. On the subject of the late benevolences, he stood forward as a patriot in the Commons; in the case of Peacham, that which was prosecuted as treason, Coke declared was only defamation; and in that of Owen, he agreed with the prisoner that he had committed no treason in saying that the king, if excommunicated, might lawfully be killed, because the king not having been excommunicated, the opinion could not apply to him. These declarations, both in Parliament and on the Bench, roused James to a keen resentment, and this was continually augmented. He set his own court of the King's Bench above every other, and threatened with the penalties of a Præmunire the judges of the Court of Chancery, and all other judges who should grant relief in Equity after judgment had been pronounced in the King's Bench; and he extended the same menace to all suitors who sought for such relief. The judges of the Courts of Admiralty, of High Commission, of Requests, of the Duchy of Lancaster, and even the presidents of the Councils of the North and of Wales, felt their jurisdictions invaded and repressed by his pretensions. The Court of Star Chamber even, hitherto above all law, was called in question by him, and its power to levy fines in many cases denied. He went farther, and, as in the case of Owen and Peacham, dictated to the Privy Council, and contradicted the Sovereign to his very face.

It would seem as if at the moment when Coke was hunting down his former benefactor Somerset, the secret decree had gone out from the king against the Lord Chief Justice himself. Somerset was condemned on the 25th of May, and on the 30th of June Coke received an order from the king to absent himself from the Council chamber, and not to proceed on his circuit, but to employ himself in correcting the errors in his Book of Reports. He had outraged James's sense of his own supreme authority, by opposing him in the matter of Commendams and bishoprics, and had, moreover, contended with Villiers, the new favourite, respecting a patent place at Court. Long before he received this startling order for the suspension of his diplomatic and judicial functions, the Archbishop, the Chancellor, and Mr. Attorney-General Bacon had been employed by royal command to collect charges against him. He was now charged with concealing a debt of twelve thousand pounds, due from the late Chancellor Hatton to the Crown; with contempt of the king's authority in declaring from the Bench that the Common Law would be overthrown by proceedings in Equity, or by claims of prerogative; and for disrespect to the Crown in the affair of the Commendams.

The charge regarding the money Coke refuted when brought before the Council, and confirmed his case by a decision at law; as to the second charge, he explained it as in no way reflecting on the king; and for the third, he humbly solicited his majesty's forgiveness. James professed to retain the highest regard for the Lord Chief Justice, and intended, on his showing a proper humility, to continue to him his favour; but when Coke brought in his Book of Reports, and maintained that he could only find five trivial errors in it, James, in great anger for his "deceit, contempt, and slander of government," dismissed him from the Bench, and made Montague, the Recorder of London, chief justice in his place. Coke, with all his harshness and cutting style to others, felt for himself keenly, and is said to have wept like a child on receiving his dismissal. Bacon displayed anything but a philosophical magnanimity on the fall of his rival. He not only joked with Villiers on the disgrace of the great man who had offended the favourite, but he wrote a most insulting letter to the fallen judge, which was particularly odious from being garnished with the cant of piety.

Bacon now looked confidently towards the Chancellorship, and in March of the next year (1617) Brackley resigning from age, the Great Seal was transferred to him, with the title of Lord Keeper. Sir Francis had reached the elevation to which he had so long and so ardently aspired, by a slavish advocacy of the most unlimited claims of prerogative and, as far as in him lay, the restriction of constitutional liberty--a deplorable instance of how completely the most transcendent talents can be united in an ignoble and mercenary nature. Indeed, the conduct of Bacon on this occasion was vain and weak to a pitiable degree. Though he had now reached the mature age of fifty-four, and drew an enormous income from his grants and offices, he was so profuse of expenditure that he was a needy man, pressed with difficulties, which he saw in the Chancellorship an exhaustless means of dispersing. His vanity burst forth to a surprising extent and he assumed all the state of a Wolsey. He rode to Westminster Hall on horseback, in a gown of rich purple satin, and attended by a crowd of nobles, judges, great law officers, lawyers, and students, rivalling even the splendour of the king.

While these affairs were progressing at home, the credit of James abroad had sunk very low. At the conference for effecting a truce between Holland and Spain, held at the Hague--a conference which established the independence of the Low Countries--the English ministers had been made to feel the ignominy of their position, compared with the dignity of the ambassadors of Elizabeth. Prince Maurice told them openly that their master dare not open his mouth in contradiction to the King of Spain; and their allies, the French, in consequence assumed a superiority throughout the negotiations which mortified deeply the English envoys. Nor was that the only slight which James's truckling policy brought on him abroad. He was anxious to ally his son to the Court of Spain, notwithstanding the intense aversion of his subjects from the idea of a Catholic Princess. But Spain declined the offer. He next applied for the hand of Madame Christine, sister to Louis XIII. of France; but here again he was met with the contempt which his mean and insecure character merited: France preferred the suit of the Duke of Savoy. It was never before the fortune of England to have to go begging to the Continental states for wives for its princes: they had hitherto been only too officiously pressed on its acceptance.

We must now trace the proceedings of James in Scotland and Ireland, where he was anxious to establish his principles of Church and State supremacy as thoroughly as in England, and where the seed he sowed rapidly grew into the same harvest of bloodshed and revolution as on the south side of the Tweed.

The Church of Scotland, as established by Knox and his contemporaries, was, like Switzerland (from which they brought the idea), a republic. It acknowledged no head but Christ, nor any concern which the State had with it, except to furnish the support of the ministers whose lives were devoted to the civilisation and religious improvement of the community. The minister and the lay elders of a parish constituted the parochial assembly, which governed all the spiritual affairs of that little circle; a certain number of these assemblies constituted a presbytery, which heard all appeals from the parochial assemblies, and sanctioned the appointment, suspension, or dismissal of their ministers. Beyond the presbytery extended the provincial synod, and the General Assembly claimed the supreme management of the affairs of the Church under God.