PART IX. ENGLAND DURING THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. JAMES I.-CHARLES I.-CROMWELL-CHARLES II.- A. D. 1603-1702. "Then dawned the period destined to confine THOMSON. CHAPTER XL. THE FIRST ELEVEN YEARS OF JAMES I.'S REIGN. CONSPIRACIES-GUNPOWDER PLOT-PREROGATIVE-THE KING'S TASTESCECIL-BACON-LADY ARABELLA STUART. THE plague was raging in London; the weather was dark. and rainy; and altogether gloomy was the aspect of the 25th July, 1603, when the first of the unhappy race of Stuart was crowned king of England. At the accession of James I., there were three religious parties in the kingdom: the Established Church, the Roman Catholics, and the Puritans. The Papists hoped for the favor of the king, because of the religion of his mother; and the Puritans, because James had been so much indebted to the Presbyterians of Scotland, and had, it was affirmed, given them promises of support. James deceived the hopes of both these parties. giving all his countenance and favor to the Established Church. Very soon, the disappointed, both of religious and political parties, concerted plots against the king. These were discovered, and the parties punished. Among those who fell victims to these conspiracies was Sir Walter Raleigh. He was charged with conspiring against the life of the king, designing to overthrow the government and religion of the realm, and to place the Lady Arabella Stuart (a descendant of Henry VII.) on the throne. Raleigh, who was one of the greatest geniuses of his age, had rendered glorious services to the crown, as a navigator, a discoverer, and a brave defender of his country. All these claims were disregarded. He was brought to trial before a court composed of the bitterest of his enemies; and, notwithstanding one of the most eloquent defences that was ever pleaded in a court of justice, this brave man was declared guilty, and committed to the Tower. 1605. Towards the close of the year 1604, about twenty Roman Catholics, exasperated by the severe laws passed against their faith, entered into a conspiracy to blow up the parliament house. The ringleader of the Gunpowder Plot, as it is generally called, was Robert Catesby, a country gentleman, of ancient family and good estate. The conspirators hired a cellar under the parliament house, and placed in it thirty-six barrels of gunpowder, covered with faggots of wood. One Guy Fawkes, a Flemish soldier of fortune, and a bigoted Papist, undertook to pay daily visits to the cellar, to see that all was right. The meeting of parliament, deferred from time to time, was to take place on the 5th of November, 1605, and that day was fixed for the execution of the dreadful design. The conspirators intended, if possible, to save one of the king's sons, Prince Charles, from destruction, but if this could not be done, his sister, the Princess Elizabeth, was to be proclaimed queen. Ten days previous, Lord Mounteagle, a Roman Catholic gentleman, and member of parliament, received a letter warning him not to go to the House of Lords on the 5th. The nobleman showed the letter to Sir Robert Cecil (a son of Elizabeth's wise statesman, Lord Burleigh), and the latter carried it to the king. Suspicions were aroused. On the afternoon of the 4th of November, the lord chamberlain and Lord Mounteagle went to examine the vaults under the parliament house. They found there Guy Fawkes, whom they described as "a very tall and desperate fellow," but, after a few words, departed, leaving him unmolested. At two o'clock the next morning, as Guy Fawkes opened the door of the cellar, he was seized and bound by a party of soldiers, commanded by a magistrate of Westminster. He had no time to light the slow matches which were found about his person. Behind the cellar-door a dark lantern was discovered burning. Although put to the torture, Fawkes would confess nothing. The other conspirators, however, betrayed themselves by flight. They all came to a miserable end. Some, among whom was Catesby, were shot whilst defending themselves against those sent to seize them, and many perished on the scaffold. The day of this great deliverance of the king and parliament of England is still observed as a day of public thanksgiving in the English church. Among the populace, bonfires are lighted on the night of the 5th November, and Guy Fawkes is burned in effigy. The laws against the Roman Catholics were made more severe than ever. King James I. had a very high idea of the royal prerogative, or the rights claimed for kings because they are kings, and over which neither parliament nor law could have control. He held the sentiments which Shakspeare places in the mouth. of King Richard II. : "Not all the water in the rough rude sea James had written books to prove that kings' reign by divine right: and he taught therein, that it is the province of monarchs to rule by their own absolute will, and that the duty of subjects is to obey. In these exalted notions of the right of kings, James was upheld by the bishops generally, and by the greater part of the nobility. The Commons alone remained true to the trust reposed in them by the nation, and fought for their rights. Unlike the wise Elizabeth, whose economy rendered her less dependent upon her parliaments for supplies, and consequently less liable to have her prerogative called in question, James I. was extravagant, and demanded from the nation large grants of money. Whenever a parliament was called, the sturdy Commons, before voting a supply, demanded a redress of grievances. The grievances of which the nation complained were, that the king claimed, in virtue of his prerogative, to lay taxes and impose duties, without the consent of parliament;-that his majesty caused his royal proclamations to take the place of the laws;—and allowed the Court of High Commission to exercise great tyranny. So great was the king's need of money, that, when he could get none from the Commons, he chose other and unusual methods of procuring it. He sold patents of nobility, and created a new title, that of baronet, which he made hereditary and sold for a thousand pounds. King James, although he prided himself on his knowledge of government, and wrote, as he believed, very wise books on the subject, and was called by his flatterers the Scottish Solomon, had, in reality, very little understanding, and still less taste, for the duties which attend the faithful administration of a kingdom. He was passionately fond of hunting, and issued a proclamation that on hunting-days (and they took up nearly half his time) he should not be disturbed by affairs of state. His subjects were loud in their complaints, which were not unmingled with satires. One day, whilst he was hunting at Royston, a favorite dog, named Jowler, was missing. The king was much disturbed, until the following morning, when, greatly to his delight, the hound reappeared. Round the animal's neck was tied a paper, on which was written the following petition: "Good Mr. Jowler, we pray you speak to the king (for he hears you every day, and so doth he not us), that it will please his majesty to go back to London, for else the country will be undone: all our provision is spent already, and we are not able to entertain him longer." Dressed in his hunting-garb of green, with a little feather in his cap, and a hunting-bugle by his side, the king of England thus pursued the pleasures of the chase, and left the government of his kingdom in the hands of ambitious courtiers. 1609. Sir Robert Cecil, secretary of state, had at first the greatest influence in public affairs. In 1612 he died, adding another to the many witnesses of the vanity of earthly glory: "Ease and pleasure quake to hear of death; but my life, full of cares and miseries, desireth to be dissolved:" were his dying words. Coke, the attorney-general, and Sir Francis Bacon, two celebrated lawyers, exercised also great control in state affairs. Bacon, though first among philosophers, as a courtier and a statesman was unprincipled and corrupt. "No name in British annals is more illustrious than his, and none is shaded with more lasting shame." Says a writer: "The difference. between the soaring angel and the creeping snake, was but a type of the difference between Bacon the philosopher and Bacon the attorney-general-Bacon seeking for truth, and Bacon seeking for the seals." And the poet Pope, warning against mere greatness of intellect, exclaims: "If parts allure thee, think how Bacon shined, He rose from one degree of dignity to another, until he became lord chancellor, and received the titles of Viscount St. Albans and Baron Verulam. Towards the close of James' reign, Sir Francis Bacon was accused of bribery and corruption in his duties as chancellor. He was tried and found guilty. To a deputation of lords who waited upon him, he confessed his guilt, saying: "It is my act,-my heart,-my hand. Oh! my lords, be merciful to a broken reed." In this reign perished another victim to the jealousy of the monarch for his title to the throne-the Lady Arabella Stuart. |