XI. 1612. CHAP. afford those indications of capacity, and of generous feeling, which formed a rational ground of brilliant anticipation. He was cut off, however, in the nineteenth year of his age, and after a sickness which lasted little more than a fortnight. Nov. 6. Conduct of the king and the court. This event was felt by nearly all parties as a national calamity. The king, and the persons most in favour with him, appeared to be least affected by it—an unnatural circumstance, which gave rise to rumours of poison. Some, in the bitterness of their regret, did not hesitate to extend their suspicion to James himself, and they appear not to have been without the sanction of some strange circumstances as applied to Carr, the known enemy of the prince, and the established favourite of the monarch. Charles the first is said to have been of opinion, that the death of his brother was to be attributed to the jealousy of that rival. To us, at this distant period, it appears most probable that the prince died of a putrid fever. Three days only had passed since his decease, when Carr wrote to the English ambassador at Paris, instructing him to prosecute the negociation commenced with a view to the marriage of prince Henry, by merely substituting the name of Charles; and James not only prohibited all persons from approaching him in mourning, but gave orders that the preparations for the Christmas festivities should proceed without interruption. The indecency of all this is too palpable to require comment.* + Osborne's Memorials. Nuga Antiquæ. Coke's Detection. Welwood's Memoirs. Neal. Somer's Tracts, II. 231–252. Aikin's James I. CHAP. XII. FAVOURITES OF JAMES THE FIRST, AND MANNERS OF CHARACTER OF THE KING'S FAVOURITES.-RISE OF CARR.-SUPPLANTED XII. 1612. of the king's 1615. THE death of the heir apparent, and of the prin- CHAP. cipal minister of the crown, was inseparable from some important changes in the complexion of the Character court. From this period the king was governed by favourites, two favourites: first by Robert Carr, afterwards earl of Somerset, and subsequently by George Villiers, afterwards duke of Buckingham. Both were indebted for their prosperous fortune to superficial qualities. They were alike haughty in the exercise of their power, and were equally libertine in their conduct. They possessed the favour of the sovereign, and made but small effort to conciliate his subjects. Their elevation, as might have been expected, became the envy both of the court and the nation, and the close of their career proved to be a matter of regret with the few only who were immediately interested in its continuance. Carr. On a festive occasion, Carr, in the capacity of Rise of equerry, had to present a shield to the king. His horse started at the moment, threw him to the ground, and fractured his leg, and the sympathy of XII. 1612. CHAP. James, attracted by the accident, was to ripen speedily into the warmest affection.* The youth, it was discovered, had been page to the king in Scotland, and his family had suffered as the friends of Mary Stuart. Under the tuition of the sovereign, he improved surprisingly, was soon loaded with wealth and honours, and finally created earl of Somerset.+ 1614. Supplanted But the same event which led to his assumption, by Villiers of that title raised George Villiers to the office of cup-bearer to the king, and the ascendancy of the favourite was made ere long to give place to that of this new attendant. It was seen by the courtiers, that the noble person, and elegant manners, of Villiers, had interested the feelings of their master; and a party among them readily conspired to support him as the rival of the man who had so far April, 1615. engrossed the royal countenance. This object was achieved with little difficulty. Carr had received his last title on his marriage with the countess of Essex; and to possess the person of that lady, who had long and openly preferred him to her husband, a divorce had been effected by his influence, and that of the monarch. Sir Thomas Overbury, a sincere and intimate friend of Carr, ventured to oppose this disgraceful scheme. Under some pretext, the objector was committed a close prisoner to the tower, and there, a few months later, he died of poison. For a while the rumour which this foul deed gave rise to, was contradicted, and hushed. It now became the ground of inquiry, + Nugæ Antiquæ, I. 390. Aul. Coq. 261. XII. 1603. which led to the conviction of Somerset, of his CHAP. wife, and of several accomplices. The latter were executed. The countess confessed her guilt, was pardoned, and lived to the year 1632. Her husband denied the charge, and insisted on a reversal of his sentence, but he insisted in vain, and continued in obscurity and neglect until his decease, in 1645. Somerset, and the companion of his guilt, were thus spared to witness the brilliant career of their rival, who, as duke of Buckingham, was to obtain the same ascendancy over James and Charles, and, through nearly twenty years, was to exert a greater influence than either over the affairs of three kingdoms.* the court. A visible change had taken place in the manners Manners of of the English court before the death of Elizabeth. In the former part of her reign, her youth, her sex, and the splendour of her station, diffused around her a spirit of chivalry, and gave a prevalence, not only to the language of a high-strained loyalty, but to that of admiration. In her later days, when most of her attractions had disappeared, and when the hopes of her admirers were felt to be vain, she continued to demand the same homage; and it appeared to be rendered, but it was the body without the soul. A constrained pedantry supplied the place of genuine emotion, and the practice of uttering with the tongue what the heart felt not, became a fashionable vice. This evil was not lessened when the sceptre passed into other hands. The wisdom of the new king was to be approached Aikin's Court of James I. Weldon. Coke's Detection. State Trials, passim. XII. 1604. CHAP. as that of Solomon, and his power was to be feared as that of the Almighty's vicegerent; and, as flattery is only another mode of lying, it is not surprising, that in the English court, the promises, and even the oaths, of the most distinguished persons, soon came to pass for very little. Gaming and drunkenness broke forth upon the country like an inundation on the accession of the house of Stuart. The king's chief care in Scotland was, "to have quietness, that he might hunt and hawk in security." In England these sports were pursued with equal avidity, but they were connected with amusements which the revenue of a Scottish monarch could not have supplied, and which the taste of Scottish subjects would not, perhaps, have endured.* "The king," writes a courtier of 1604, "came back from Royston on Saturday, but is so far from being weary or satisfied with those sports, that presently after the holidays he makes reckoning to be there again; or, as some say, to go further towards Lincolnshire, to a place called Ancaster heath. In the mean time here is great provision for the cockpit, to entertain him at home; and of masks and revels against the marriage of sir Philip Herbert with the Lady Susan Vere, which is to be celebrated on St. John's day. The queen hath likewise a great mask in hand against twelfth-tide, for which there was 3,000l. delivered a month ago." On St. John's day "the court was great, and for that day put on the best bravery. The prince and duke of Holst led the bride to church: the queen followed her from thence. The king gave her, * Birch's Memoirs, I. 236. Boderie, III. 196, 197. Lodge, III. 245. |