NINTH PERIOD1

"It is the nature of the devil of tyranny to tear and rend the body which he leaves." - MACAULAY

BEGINNING WITH THE DIVINE RIGHT OF KINGS AND ENDING WITH THE DIVINE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE

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415. Accession of James I. Elizabeth was the last of the Tudor family (§ 376). By birth, James Stuart, only son of Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, and great-grandson of Margaret, sister of Henry VIII, was the nearest heir to the crown. He was already King of Scotland under the title of James VI. He now, by act of Parliament, became James I of England. By his accession the two countries were united under one sovereign, but each retained its own Parliament, its own National Church, and its own laws.*

1 REFERENCE BOOKS on this Period will be found in the CLASSIFIED LIST OF Books in the Appendix. The pronunciation of names will be found in the Index. THE LEADING DATES stand unenclosed; all others are in parentheses.

2 House of Orange-Stuart.

8 See Genealogical Table, p. 207.

4 On his coins and in his proclamations James styled himself King of Great Britain, France, and Ireland. But the term "Great Britain" did not properly come into use until somewhat more than a hundred years later, when, by an act of Parliament under Anne, Scotland and England were legally united.

The English Parliament refused to grant free trade to Scotland and denied to the people of that country, even if born after James I came to the English throne (or "Post Nati," as they were called), the rights and privileges possessed by natives of England.

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The new monarch found himself ruler over three kingdoms, each professing a different religion. Puritanism prevailed in Scotland, Catholicism in Ireland, Anglicanism or Episcopacy in England.

416. The King's Appearance and Character. James was unfortunate in his birth. Neither his father, Lord Darnley, nor his mother had high qualities of character. The murder of Mary's Italian secretary in her own palace, and almost in her own presence (§ 395), gave the Queen a shock which left a fatal inheritance of cowardice to her son. Throughout his life he could not endure the sight of a drawn sword. If we can trust common report, his personal appearance was by no means impressive. He had a feeble, rickety body, he could not walk straight, his tongue was too large for his mouth, and he had goggle eyes. Through fear of assassination he habitually wore thickly padded and quilted clothes, usually green in color. He was a man of considerable shrewdness, but of small mind, and of unbounded conceit. His Scotch tutor had crammed him with much ill-digested learning, so that he gave the impression of a man educated beyond his intellect. His favorites used to flatter him by telling him that he was the "British Solomon"; but the French ambassador came nearer to the mark when he called him "the wisest fool in Christendom."

The King wrote on witchcraft, kingcraft, and theology, and composed numerous commonplace verses. He also wrote a sweeping denunciation of the new plant called tobacco, which Raleigh (§ 392) had brought from America, and whose smoke now began to perfume, or, according to James, to poison, the air of England. His Majesty had all the superstitions of the age, and one of his earliest acts was the passage of a statute punishing witchcraft with death. Under that law many a wretched woman perished on the scaffold, whose only crime was that she was old, ugly, and friendless.

417. The Great Puritan Petition (1603). During the latter part of Elizabeth's reign, the Puritans (§ 378) in England had increased so rapidly that Archbishop Whitgift told James he was amazed to find how "the vipers" had multiplied. The Puritans felt that the Reformation had not been sufficiently thorough.

They complained that many of the forms and ceremonies of the Church of England were by no means in harmony with the

Scriptures. Many of them wished also to change the Episcopal form of Church government, and instead of having bishops appointed by the King, to adopt the more democratic method of having presbyters or elders chosen by the congregation.

While James was on the way from Scotland to London to receive the crown, the Puritans presented the "Millenary Petition" to him. It was so called because it purported to have a thousand signers. The ministers presenting it asked that they might be permitted to preach without wearing the white gown called a surplice, to baptize without making the sign of the cross on the child's forehead, and to perform the marriage ceremony without using the ring. Bishop Hooker and Lord Bacon had pleaded for a certain degree of toleration for the Puritans. They even quoted the words of Christ: "He that is not against us is for us." But the King had no patience with such a plea.

418. Hampton Court Conference (1604). The King convened a conference at Hampton Court, near London, to consider the Petition, or rather to make a pedantic display of his own learning. The probability that he would grant the petitioners' request was small. James had come to England disgusted with the violence of the Scotch Presbyterians or Puritans (§ 378), especially since Andrew Melville, one of their leading ministers in Edinburgh, had seized his sleeve at a public meeting and addressed him, with a somewhat brutal excess of truth, as God's silly vassal."

But the new sovereign had a still deeper reason for his antipathy to the Puritans. He saw that their doctrine of equality in the Church naturally led to that of equality in the State. If they objected to Episcopal government in the one, might they not presently object to royal government in the other? Hence to all their arguments he answered with his favorite maxim, "No bishop, no king," meaning that the two must stand or fall together.

At the Hampton Court Conference all real freedom of discussion was practically prohibited. The Conference, however, had one good result, for the King ordered a new and revised translation of the Bible to be made (§§ 254, 357). It was published a

1 Gardiner in the "Dictionary of National (British) Biography," "James I," thinks that by "silly" Melville meant "weak." But that is not much improvement.

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few years later (1611). This translation of the Scriptures excels all others in simplicity, dignity, and beauty of language. After more than three hundred years it still remains the version used in the great majority of Protestant churches and Protestant homes wherever English is spoken.

James regarded the Conference as a success. He had refuted the Puritans, as he believed, with much Latin and some Greek. He ended by declaiming against them with such unction that one enthusiastic bishop declared that his Majesty must be specially inspired by the Holy Ghost!

He closed the meeting by imprisoning the ten persons who had presented the petition, on the ground that it tended to sedition and rebellion. Henceforth, the King's attitude toward the Puritans (§ 378) was unmistakable. 'I will make them conform,” said he," or I will harry them out of the land" (§ 422).

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Accordingly, a law was enacted which required every curate to accept the Thirty-Nine Articles (§ 383) and the Prayer Book of the Church of England (§ 381) without reservation. This act drove several hundred clergymen from the Established Church.

419. The Divine Right of Kings, 1604; the Protest of the Commons; "Favorites." As if with the desire of further alienating his people, James now constantly proclaimed the doctrine of the Divine Right of Kings. This theory, which was unknown to the English constitution, declared that the King derived his power and right to rule directly from God, and in no way from the people.1 "It is atheism and blasphemy," he said, "to dispute what God can do, so it is presumption and high contempt in a subject to dispute what a king can do.”

In making these utterances James seems to have entirely forgotten that he owed his throne to that act of the English Parliament which accepted him as Elizabeth's successor (§ 415). In his exalted position as head of the nation, he boasted of his power much like the dwarf in the story, who, perched on the giant's shoulders, cries out, "See how big I am!"

1 James's favorite saying was, "A Deo rex, a rege lex" (God makes the king, the king makes the law). He boasted that kings might, as he declared, "make what liked them law and gospel."

Acting on this assumption, James levied customs duties on goods without asking the consent of Parliament; violated the privileges of the House of Commons; rejected members who had been legally elected; and imprisoned those who dared to criticize his course. The contest was kept up with bitterness during the whole reign.

Toward its close James truckled meanly to the power of Spain, hoping thereby to marry his son Charles to a Spanish princess. Later, he made a feeble and futile effort to help the Protestant party in the great Thirty Years' War (1618-1648), which had begun between the Catholics and Protestants in Germany. The House of Commons implored the King not to humiliate himself and the nation at the feet of Spain. The King replied by warning the House not to meddle with matters which did not concern them, and denied their right to freedom of speech. The Commons solemnly protested, and James seized their official journal, and with his own hands tore out the record of the protest (1621).

Yet, notwithstanding his arbitrary character, James was easily managed by those who would flatter his vanity. For this reason he was always under the control of worthless favorites like Carr, Earl of Somerset, or Villiers, Duke of Buckingham. These men were the secret power behind the throne, and they often dictated the policy of the Crown.

420. The Gunpowder Plot (1605). The King's arbitrary spirit angered the House of Commons, many of whom were Puritans (§ 378). They believed that the King secretly favored the Roman Catholics; and for this reason they increased the stringency of the laws against persons of that religion. To vindicate himself from this suspicion, the King proceeded to execute the new statutes with rigor. As a rule, the Catholics were loyal subjects. We have seen that when Spain threatened to invade the country, they fought as valiantly in its defense as the Protestants themselves (§§ 399, 400). Many of them were now ruined by enormous fines, while the priests were driven from the realm.

One of the sufferers by these unjust measures was Robert Catesby, a Catholic gentleman of good position. He, with the aid of a Yorkshire man, named Guy Fawkes, and about a dozen more, formed a plot to blow up the Parliament House on the day