CHAP. XI. DEATH OF THE EARL OF SALISBURY, AND OF PRINCE POLICY OF CECIL.-HIS TROUBLES.-HIS ERRORS.-DIES UNREGRETTED. XI. 1604. Policy of SIR ROBERT CECIL, now earl of Salisbury, had em- CHAP. ployed every artifice at his command, with a view to preserve the favour of his late mistress to the time of her decease, and to obtain the same place in Cecil. the confidence of the prince to whom her crown would soon be transferred.* His success was probably equal to his most sanguine expectations. But it was to be attended with difficulties and disappointments scarcely less painful than defeat. In his former associate, the earl of Northampton, he was to find a rival, who, if too feeble to create any serious alarm, was formidable enough to occasion considerable annoyance.† Lord Burleigh, his venerated father, a man whose head and heart were, in many respects, preferable to those of his son, had often complained of the restless suffering which his elevation brought upon him. To this son he wrote, not long before his death, observing, * Birch's Memoirs, II 514, 515. Aikin's James I. I. 49, 50. † Winwood, II. 94, 399. Boderie, II. 135, 201, 254, 440. III. 248, 302, 344. XI. 1604. CHAP. "If I may not have some leisure to cure my head, I must shortly ease it in my grave."* It is in the following forcible and affecting language, that the younger Cecil adverts, soon after the king's accession, and while possessing the highest favour at court, to the many cares, which he felt to be a sort of inheritance. His trou bles. "My noble knight, my thanks come with your papers, and wholesome statutes for your father's household; I shall, as far as in me lieth, pattern the same, and give good heed for due observance thereof in my own state. Your father did much affect such prudence, nor doth his son less follow his fair sample of worth, learning, and honour. I shall not fail to keep your grace and favour quick and lively in the king's breast, as far as good discretion guideth me, so as not to hazard my own reputation for humble suing, rather than bold and forward entreaties. You know all my former steps; good knight, rest content, and give heed to one that hath sorrowed in the bright lustre of a court, and gone heavily even to the best seeming fair ground. It is a great task to prove one's honesty, and yet not spoil one's fortune. You have tasted a little hereof in our blessed queen's time, who was more than a man; and, in truth, sometimes less than a woman. I wish I waited now in her presence- chamber, with ease at my food, and rest in my bed. I am pushed from the shore of comfort, and know not where the winds and waves of a court will bear me; I know it bringeth little comfort on earth; and he is, I * Murdin, p. 366. XI. 1604. reckon, no wise man that looketh this way to CHAP. heaven. We have much stir about councils, and more about honours. Many knights were made at Theobald's during the king's stay at mine house, and more to be made in the city. My father had much wisdom in directing the state, and I wish I could bear my part so discreetly as he did. Farewell, good knight, but never come near London till I call you. Too much crowding doth not well for a cripple, and the king doth scant find room to sit himself, he hath so many friends, as they choose to be called, and heaven prove they lie not in the end. In trouble, hurrying, feigning, suing, and such like matters, I now rest your true friend.”* Such was the feeling of regret with which the accession of the new dynasty was regarded, even by persons who shared most in the royal patronage. Every subsequent step in Cecil's history only served to confirm those desponding impressions which the preceding letter so pathetically disclosed. There was much in the policy of this minister to be applauded; but to retain the favour of James, it became necessary that he should incur the hatred of the people, and what he appears to have felt still more, the rebukes of conscience. If to have prevented the spoiling of his fortune, by parting with his integrity, would, under any circumstances, have been a sorry commerce; to part with honesty, and to fail in the object for which that loss was submitted to, must have been doubly distressing. But this was evidently the fate of Salisbury. He contrived, indeed, to retain his place Nugæ Antiquæ, I. 344-346. XI. CHAP. in the cabinet; but the failure of his plans in connexion with the last meeting of parliament, left the anxious treasurer exposed to difficulties which broke his spirit, and rapidly impaired his health. 1610. His errors. Weldon has charged him with destroying "a cart-load of precedents which spoke the subjects' liberties." And judging from his conduct, we might indeed suppose him a man conscious of having effected such a demolition. There was not a question at issue between the crown and the people, from the meeting of parliament in 1604, to its dissolution, in 1610, in which he did not appear as the advocate of encroachment and arbitrary power. This was the case in the discussions relating to the authority of the house of commons with respect to disputed elections-the increase of duties without sanction of parliamentthe creation of royal patents-the enforcement of feudal claims and especially in the doctrine which he avowed respecting the power of the sovereign with regard to state offenders, and to the use of torture. Exhausted by disappointment and suffering, he visited Bath for the benefit of the waters. During his stay there, he received several friendly Dies uure. messages from James; but at Marlborough, on his return, breathed his last, unlamented by the nation, and, it would seem, but little regretted at court.* gretted, May 24, 1612. * Aikin's Court of James I. I. 394-403. This pleasing writer has printed some extracts from MS. letters addressed by Cecil to his son, which present a favourable view of his domestic, and even of his religious character. The following passage occurs in a letter to his son, while on the continent: "To which place (Geneva) I would not have you forbear to go, being so near it, but to spend some week there, or ten days, to see the exercises of their religion; though I would not have you think that whatsoever is more in our church must needs be too much, because it is more in outward ceremony His loss, however, was soon felt by the monarch, CHAP. and in some measure by the people. XI. 1612. Henry. ter. The year which deprived the king of his most Death powerful minister, deprived him also of his elder Prince son. It has been presumed that James felt the former bereavement more than the latter. Prince Henry's martial temper taught him to dwell with His characthe most lively enthusiasm on the stories of Cressy and Agincourt, and on the exploits of the most illustrious of the English monarchs who had borne his name. A contrast was thus supplied to his father's timid and pacific disposition which could not be pleasing. It is said also, that this contrast was rendered still more unwelcome to the royal parent, by the freedom with which the heir apparent expressed his dissatisfaction with his father's cautious and easy policy, and spoke of the very different spirit which should animate his own. The sober statesman would not, perhaps, have considered the passion with which the aspiring youth sought and wielded almost every instrument of destruction, as among the more hopeful of his qualities. Nor was it this propensity alone that rendered him so much a favourite with the court and the people. He was zealously attached to the protestant interest, and lived long enough to than that petty state affordeth there. I would only have you learn their inward zeal in your prayers, and attentive hearing of the word preached; observing their avoiding licentious speech, and custom of swearing, of which I tax you not, but only wish you to be where you may be confirmed by observation of the doctrine and the discipline." James was not ignorant of this heterodox inclination in his adviser.-Winwood, III. 235-239, 301, 332. * Boderie, the French ambassador, on calling to take leave of the prince, found him exercising the pike; and on asking his commands for the king of France, was answered, "Tell your king at what employment you left me." |