THE COURT AND TIMES OF JAMES THE FIRST.*

THE most marked features of the times of James the First are the Romish plots and religious dissensions that sprung up with the progress of puritanism and the frequent struggles of the British Parliament against the encroachments of the royal prerogative; but there are also events of a less prominent character, which impart their peculiar stamp to the same times. Such, more particularly, was the royal foible of favouritism, which gave its whole tone to the court, and materially infected the habits and manners of the people. Such are also the great episodes of the time, the gunpowder-plot, the romantic marriage of the Lady Arabella Stewart and William Seymour, the mysterious fate of Sir Thomas Overbury, the rivalry of the Scotch and English, and the frequent duels that resulted therefrom, the fate of the gallant Raleigh, the ignorance and superstitions of the day, the persecutions and unconstitutional interference of royalty with public and private concerns, and the masques and manners of a licentious court.

Two bulky volumes of a kind of correspondence which took the place of newspapers in those days, could not fail to contain much interesting matter upon most of the leading topics of the day. For there were then professed writers of news, or "Intelligencers," as they were called, who were employed by ambassadors in foreign conntries, and great men at home, to furnish them with a continual account of every event that came under their observation. Such a person appears to have been John Chamberlain, Esq., to whose correspondence Dr. Thomas Birch has been most indebted for his illustrations of the times of James the First, and whom the editor introduces to us as a gentleman and a scholar, who enjoyed the respect of some of the most eminent statesmen of this and the following reign, but evidently in reality the "Intelligencer" of the celebrated diplomatist Sir Dudley Carleton.

We are indebted for some interesting correspondence upon the subject of the double plot to alter the succession, in which the Lords Grey and Cobham, Sir Walter Raleigh, and Sir Griffin Markham were involved, upon the advent of the new king, to Lord Cecil, afterwards Earl of Salisbury. Even upon the authority of these letters of the Secretary of State, and the implacable foe of Sir Walter Raleigh, there seems to have been very little ground for implicating that distinguished man in this conspiracy.

Concerning Sir Walter Raleigh's commitment, this hath been the ground, First, he hath been discontented in conspectu omnium, ever since the king came; and yet, for those offices which are taken from him, the king gave him 3007. a year during his life, and forgave him a good arrearage of debt. Secondly, his inwardness, or rather his governing the Lord Cobham's spirit, made great suspicion that in these treasons he had his part. Whereupon, being sent for

The Court and Times of James the First; illustrated by Authentic and Confidential Letters from various Public and Private Collections. Edited, with an Introduction and Notes, by the Author of "Memoirs of Sophia Dorothea," &c. 2 vols. Henry Colburn.

before four or five of the council, and asked of some particulars, before he was sent to prison, he wrote a letter secretly to the Lord Cobham, advising him, if he were examined of any thing, to stand peremptory, and not to be afraid; for one witness could not condemn him. After which, the Lord Cobham being called in question, he did first confess his own treasons as above said; and then did absolutely, before eleven councillors, accuse Raleigh to be privy to his Spanish course, with further addition and exclamation, that he had never dealt herein but by his own incessant provocation. Whereupon he (Raleigh) was committed to the Tower, where, though he was used with all humanity, lodged and attended as well as in his own house; yet one afternoon, whilst divers of us were in the Tower examining some of these prisoners, he attempted to have murdered himself. Whereof, when we were advertised, we came to him, and found him in some agony, seeming to be unable to endure his misfortunes, and protesting innocently with carelessness of life; and, in that humour, he had wounded himself under the right pap, but no way mortally, being, in truth, rather a cut than a stab, and now very well cured, both in body and mind.

The main accusation, that of Lord Cobham, was subsequently withdrawn, in the most emphatic language. The curious scene enacted at the simulated execution of Grey, Cobham, and Markham, preceded, however, by a real tragedy, is well told in a letter of Sir Dudley Carleton's, but is too much matter of history to be referred to here.

Such details as relate to the gunpowder plot, are chiefly contained in letters of Sir Edward Hoby. This gentleman remarks upon the capture of the conspirators at Lyttleton's house in Worcestershire," One thing is very worthy of note, that as these men would have wrought by powder, so by their own powder, which was casually set on fire at Lyttleton's house, they were much distressed; otherwise, it is thought, that the sheriff had not so easily come by them."

The secret marriage of the Lady Arabella Stewart and of William Seymour, son of Lord Beauchamp, view it as we will, could not but have been disagreeable to the king. The Lady Arabella was, like James I., descended from Margaret, the daughter of Henry VII., she had also been chief mourner at the funeral of Elizabeth. William Seymour also possessed claims to the crown as a descendant of Mary the sister of the Princess Margaret. The marriage, however, appears to have been one of affection, without arrière pensée, the persecution that it entailed was as severe as it was unjust and uncalled for, and the stolen interviews of the unfortunate young couple lend an interest to the event, which the subsequent conduct of Seymour scarcely justifies. Sir Dudley Carleton writes like a heartless courtier when he says, "I cannot get out of parliament affairs, else I should tell you some news of a secret marriage betwixt my Lord Beauchamp's younger son and the Lady Arabella, for which the poor gentleman doth penance in the tower, and the lady's hot blood, that could not live without a husband, must be cooled in some remote place in the country."

We have the first mention of Sir Thomas Overbury's having fallen into disgrace, for having ventured to remonstrate with the favourite (Lord Rochester,) respecting his intimacy with the Countess of Essex in a letter of the Rev. Thomas Lorkins, to Sir Thomas Puckering, Bart., dated June 24, 1613. The next intimation from the same hand, bearing date August 29th of the same year is to the effect, that "Sir Thomas Overbury is like to run a short course, being sick unto death. The lieutenant of

the Tower, and the physicians that were there about him have subscribed their hands, that they hold him a man past all recovery."

Sir Thomas Overbury, it is well known, died the day before the divorce of the Earl and Countess of Essex was pronounced (Sept. 24, 1613) and in less than two months, Robert Carr having been created in the interim, Earl of Somerset, married the divorced lady, who it is related impudently appeared at the nuptials with her hair flowing to her waist, the custom of a virgin bride. Upon this subject we have only the following short notice in a letter from John Chamberlain to Mrs. Alice Carleton, which also contains an allusion to the bride's hair.

The marriage was upon Sunday, without any such bravery as was looked for. Only some of his followers bestowed cash upon themselves, the rest exceeded not, either in number or expenses. She was married in her hair, and led to the chapel by her bridemen, a Duke of Saxony that is here, and the Earl of Northampton, her great uncle. The Dean of Westminster preached, and bestowed a great deal of commendation on the young conple, on the Countess of Salisbury, and on the Mother Vine, as he termed her, the Countess of Suffolk. The dean of the chapel coupled them, which fell out strangely the same man should marry the same person, in the same place, upon the selfsame day, (after six or seven years, I know not whether) the former party yet living: All the difference was, that the king gave her away the last time, and now her father. The king and queen were both present, and tasted wafers and hippocrass, as at ordinary weddings. I hear little or no commendation of the masque made by the lords that night, either for device or dancing, only it was rich and costly. The masquers were the Duke of Lennox, the Earls of Pembroke, Montgomery, Dorset and Salisbury, the Lord Walden with his three brethren, Sir Thomas, Henry, and Sir Charles Howard; Lord Scroope, Lord North, and Lord Hay. The next day, the king, prince, bridegroom, and others, at the ring, and yesterday there was a medley mask of five English and five Scots which are called the high dancers, amongst whom Sergeant Boyd, one Abercromby, and Auchtunouty, that was at Padua and Venice, are esteemed the most principal and lofty, but how it succeeded I know not.

Speaking of the discovery of Sir Thomas Overbury's murder, Sir Simonds D'Ewes in his autobiography says:-

It came first to light by a strange accident of Sir Ralph Winwood, knight, and one of the secretaries of state, his dining with Sir Gervase Elwise, lieutenant of the Tower, at a great man's table, the Earl of Shrewsbury's, not far from Whitehall. For that great man commending the same Sir Gervase to Sir Ralph Winwood, as a person, in respect of his many good qualities, very worthy of his acquaintance, Sir Ralph answered him, that he should willingly embrace his acquaintance, but that he could first wish he had cleared himself of a foul suspicion the world generally conceived of him, touching the death of Sir Thomas Overbury. As soon as Sir Gervase heard this, being very ambitious of the secretary's friendship, he took occasion to enter into private conference with him, and therein to excuse himself to have been forced to connive at the said murder, with much abhorring of it; he confessed the whole circumstances of the execution of it in general, and the instruments to have been set on work by Robert, Earl of Somerset, and his wife.

Sir Ralph Winwood having gained the true discovery of this bloody practice from one of the actors, beyond his expectation, parted from the lieutenant of the Tower in a very familiar and friendly manner, as if he had received good satisfaction by the excuse he had formed for himself, but soon after acquainted the king's majesty with it, who having at that time fixed his eyes upon the delicate personage and features of Mr. George Villiers, he was the more easily induced to suffer the Earl of Somerset to be removed from his court and presence to the Tower of London.

All the circumstances of the case, indeed, tend to prove that this was no discovery, but a charge purposely got up against the favourite, for as Losely remarks, "King James was wearye of him. Buckinghame had supplied his place." The enemies of Somerset had played off George Villiers against him with success, while Somerset had on his own part not only contrived to excite the enmity of his less fortunate fellow courtiers, but it is evident, from a letter lately published (Halliwell, “Letters of Kings of England," vol. 2, p. 126), that he had by his conduct for some time tried the patience of his inconstant master.

It was made to appear on this trial that Lady Essex had used sorcery to estrange the affections of her husband, and to gain those of Rochester. There is an allusion to this in a letter of Mr. John Castles to Mr. James Miller at Southampton (November, 1615), wherein the writer says,

I have sent you two letters of the countess's, urged at Turner's (Mrs. Turner who procured the poison) arraignment. You will see by them, how abusively her lust wronged those great judgements that spake for her separation from that noble Essex, upon whom she practised magiam maleficam. If Cornelius Agrippa were again to compile his book "De Beneficiis," I doubt not but he might have from her magicians such arcana to increase and recommend it, that Bohemian ladies would more value him than to suffer him, as they did, to die like a poor beggarly knave.

The progress to distinction of the new favourite was not always smooth. The "Intelligencer," writes to Sir Dudley Carleton by date of April 20th, 1616.

Sir George Villiers hath been crazy of late, not without suspicion of the small pox, which, if it had fallen out, actum erat de amicitiâ. But it proves otherwise, and we say there is much casting about how to make him a great man, and that he shall be now made of the garter, but non credo. His great friend and favourite, Sir John Grimes, a known courtier, died about a fortnight since, and was solemnly buried in the night at Westminster, with better than 200 torches; the Duke of Lennox, the Lord Fenton, the Lord of Rothsay, and all the grand Scottish men accompanying him; in an apish imitation whereof, as it was suggested, certain rude knaves thereabout buried a dog with great solemnity in Tothill Fields, by night, with good store of links, which was so heavily taken, that divers of them have been whipped by order from the council, though, upon examination, the matter proved not so much in derogation of the Scots, seeing some of them were found to be ring-leaders in that foolery.

It is not a little singular that frequent reference to the occasional craziness of the new favourite occur in this correspondence, and coming also from divers sources, would show that there must have been some grounds for the imputation. Already, in December of first year's favouritism, the "Intelligencer" writes,

There is a sourd bruit, as if the blazing star (then Lord Viscount Villiers), at last were towards an eclipse, and that there is some glimpse or sparkling of a less comet of the Lord of Montgomery's lighting. There hath been, of late, both big words and looks from him and the Lord Hay towards the present favourite, which is taken for ominous, and, withal, he hath been crazy ever since he went to Newmarket.

The wish was here, however, father to the thought. The "Intelligencer" was mistaken.

Letters of John Chamberlain and of the Rev. Thomas Lorkin, record at length the great features of Sir Walter Raleigh's death. As is the case

with regard to what Nelson said at Trafalgar, and Wellington at Waterloo, no two authorities agree as to the precise words uttered by the unfortunate man previous to laying his head upon the block. "When the hangman," says Mr. Chamberlain, "asked his forgiveness, he desired to see the axe; and feeling the edge, he said, that was a sharp medicine, to cure him of all his diseases and miseries."

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They then cleared the scaffold," the Rev. T. Lorkin relates, "which being done, he takes up the axe and feels the edge, and finding it sharp for the purpose, This is that,' saith he, that will cure all sorrows,' so kissing it, laid it down again."

It is needless to enter here upon such matter as bears upon the long controverted question as to Raleigh's guilt or innocence. The editor is strongly in favour of the latter. Certain it is, that his accuser, Stukeley, was at the time generally looked upon with ill favour.

Stukeley, (says the Rev. T. Lorkin) notwithstanding, hath been at court since, offering to his majesty by way of his own justification, to take the sacrament upon it, that what he laid to Sir Walter Raleigh's charge was true; and to produce two other witnesses, free from all exception, that would do the like. "Why, then," replied his majesty, "the more malicious he to utter those speeches at his death." But Sir Thomas Badger, who stood by and heard it, "Let the king," said he, "take off Stukeley's head, as he hath done the others, and let him at his death take the sacrament, and his oath upon it, and I'll believe it; but otherwise I shall credit Sir Walter Raleigh's bare affirmative before a thousand of his oaths." And it is strange to see how every man at court declines that Stukeley's company as treacherous.

It is not a little remarkable that this very Stukeley (Sir Lewis) was committed close prisoner to the gatehouse, in little more than two months after Sir Walter Raleigh's execution "for clipping of gold."

He had received out of the exchequer, some week before, 500%. in recompense for the service he had done in the business of Sir Walter Raleigh; and began, as is said, to exercise the trade upon that ill-gotten money-the price of blood. The manner of the discovery was strange, if my occasions would suffer me to relate the particulars. Upon examination, he endeavoured to avoid it from himself, by casting the burthen either upon his son, or man. The former plays least in sight, and cannot be found. The servant was committed to the Marshalsea, who, understanding, as they say, that his master would shift over the business to him, is willing to set the saddle on the right horse, and accuses his master.

This was indeed an era of executions. Bold spirits kept ever and anon declaiming against the usurpation of the royal prerogative with ominous frequency and audacity, and that notwithstanding that torture, "by express command of the king," and death not uncommonly brought about by his majesty's influence over the judges, were employed to silence them. Such were the cases of young Owen, of the family of that name at Godston, Oxfordshire, and of Ogilvie, executed at Glasgow for traitorous speeches. Nor were these the only subjects for capital punishment. In March 1612, Legat the Arian, was burnt in Smithfield, very early, "he said little, but died obstinately." "There was another fanatical felon," says the same authority, John Chamberlain, "condemned for blasphemous heresies, and sent down to Lichfield where he was to be burnt as on Friday last, if he have not recanted."

What a picture of the state of society during this dissolute reign does July.-VOL. LXXXIII. NO. CCCXXXI,

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