The History of England - Vols. 1 to 6 (346 page)

39

http://oll.libertyfund.org/title/792

Online Library of Liberty: The History of England, vol. 5

small the hopes of success, a new parliament must be summoned, and this dangerous expedient, for such it was now become, once more be put to trial.

When the commons were assembled, they discovered an

1614. 5th April. A

extraordinary alarm, on account of the rumour, which was spread parliament.

abroad concerning
undertakers.q
It was reported, that several persons, attached to the king, had entered into a confederacy; and having laid a regular plan for the new elections, had distributed their interest all over England, and had undertaken to secure a majority for the court. So ignorant were the commons, that they knew not this incident to be the first infallible symptom of any regular or established liberty. Had they been contented to follow the maxims of their predecessors, who, as the earl of Salisbury said to the last parliament, never, but thrice

in six hundred years, refused a supply;r
they needed not dread, that the crown should ever interest itself in their elections. Formerly, the kings even insisted, that none of their household should be elected members; and, though the charter was afterwards declared void, Henry VI. from his great favour to the city of York, conferred a peculiar privilege on its citizens, that they should be exempted from this trouble.
s
It is well known, that, in ancient times, a seat in the house being considered as a burthen, attended neither with honour nor profit, it was requisite for the counties and boroughs to pay fees to their representatives. About this time, a seat began to be regarded as an honour, and the country-gentlemen contended for it; though the practice of levying wages for the parliament men was not altogether discontinued. It was not till long after, when liberty was thoroughly established, and popular assemblies entered into every branch of public business, that the members began to join profit to honour, and the crown found it necessary to distribute among them all the considerable offices of the kingdom.

So little skill or so small means had the courtiers, in James’s reign, for managing elections, that this house of commons showed rather a stronger spirit of liberty than the foregoing; and instead of entering upon the business of supply, as urged by the king, who made them several liberal offers of grace,
t
they immediately resumed the subject, which had been opened last parliament, and disputed his majesty’s power of levying new customs and impositions, by the mere authority of his prerogative. It is remarkable, that, in their debates on this subject, the courtiers frequently pleaded, as a precedent, the example of all the other hereditary monarchs in Europe, and particularly mentioned the kings of France and Spain; nor was this reasoning received

by the house, either with surprize or indignation.u
The members of the opposite party, either contented themselves with denying the justness of the inference, or they disputed the truth of the observation.
w
And a patriot member in particular, Sir Roger Owen, even in arguing against the impositions, frankly allowed, that the king of England was endowed with as ample a power and prerogative as any prince in

Christendom.x
The nations on the continent, we may observe, enjoyed still, in that age, some small remains of liberty; and the English were possessed of little more.

The commons applied to the lords for a conference with regard to the new impositions. A speech of Neile, bishop of Lincoln, reflecting on the lower house, begat some altercation with the peers,
NOTE [H]
and the king seized the opportunity of dissolving immediately, with great indignation, a parliament, PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)

40

http://oll.libertyfund.org/title/792

Online Library of Liberty: The History of England, vol. 5

which had shown so firm a resolution of retrenching his

6th June.

prerogative, without communicating, in return, the smallest

supply to his necessities. He carried his resentment so far as even to throw into prison some of the members, who had been the most forward in their opposition to his

measures.z
In vain did he plead, in excuse for this violence, the example of Elizabeth and other princes of the line of Tudor, as well as Plantagenet. The people and the parliament, without abandoning for ever all their liberties and privileges, could acquiesce in none of these precedents, how ancient and frequent soever. And were the authority of such precedents admitted, the utmost, that could be inferred is, that the constitution of England was, at that time, an inconsistent fabric, whose jarring and discordant parts must soon destroy each other, and from the dissolution of the old, beget some new form of civil government, more uniform and consistent.

In the public and avowed conduct of the king and the house of commons, throughout this whole reign, there appears sufficient cause of quarrel and mutual disgust; yet are we not to imagine, that this was the sole foundation of that jealousy which prevailed between them. During debates in the house, it often happened, that a particular member, more ardent and zealous than the rest, would display the highest sentiments of liberty, which the commons contented themselves to hear with silence and seeming approbation; and the king, informed of these harangues, concluded the whole house to be infected with the same principles, and to be engaged in a combination, against his prerogative. The king, on the other hand, though he valued himself extremely on his king-craft, and perhaps was not altogether incapable of dissimulation, seems to have been very little endowed with the gift of secrecy; but openly, at his table, in all companies, inculcated those monarchical tenets, which he had so strongly imbibed.

Before a numerous audience, he had expressed himself with great disparagement of the common law of England, and had given the preference, in the strongest terms, to the civil law: And for this indiscretion he found himself obliged to apologize, in a

speech to the former parliament.a
As a specimen of his usual liberty of talk, we may mention a story, though it passed some time after, which we meet with in the life of Waller, and which that poet used frequently to repeat. When Waller was young, he had the curiosity to go to court; and he stood in the circle, and saw James dine; where, among other company, there sat at table two bishops, Neile and Andrews. The king proposed aloud this question, Whether he might not take his subjects money, when he needed it, without all this formality of parliament? Neile replied,
God forbid you
should not: For you are the breath of our nostrils.
Andrews declined answering, and said, he was not skilled in parliamentary cases: But upon the king’s urging him, and saying he would admit of no evasion, the bishop replied pleasantly:
Why then I think
your majesty may lawfully take my brother Neile’s money: For he offers it.
b

The favourite had hitherto escaped the enquiry of justice; but he 1615. Somerset’s fall.

had not escaped that still voice, which can make itself be heard amidst all the hurry and flattery of a court, and astonishes the criminal with a just representation of his most secret enormities. Conscious of the murder of his friend, Somerset received small consolation from the enjoyments of love, or the utmost kindness and indulgence of his sovereign. The graces of his youth gradually disappeared, the gaiety of his manners was obscured, his politeness and obliging behaviour were changed into sullenness and silence. And the king, whose affection PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)

41

http://oll.libertyfund.org/title/792

Online Library of Liberty: The History of England, vol. 5

had been engaged by these superficial accomplishments, began to estrange himself from a man, who no longer contributed to his amusement.

The sagacious courtiers observed the first symptoms of this disgust: Somerset’s enemies seized the opportunity, and offered a new minion to the king. George Villiers, a youth of one-and-twenty, younger brother of a good family, returned at this time from his travels, and was remarked for the advantages of a handsome person, genteel air, and fashionable apparel. At a comedy, he was purposely placed full in James’s eye, and immediately engaged the attention, and, in the same instant, the affections of that monarch.
c
Ashamed of his sudden attachment, the king endeavoured, but in vain, to conceal the partiality, which he felt for the handsome stranger; and he employed all his profound politics to fix him in his service, without seeming to desire it. He declared his resolution not to confer any office on him, unless entreated by the queen; and he pretended, that it should only be in complaisance to her choice, he would agree to admit him near his person. The queen was immediately applied to; but she, well knowing the extreme, to which the king carried these attachments, refused, at first, to lend her countenance to this new passion. It was not till entreated by Abbot, archbishop of Canterbury, a decent prelate, and one much prejudiced against Somerset, that she would condescend to oblige her husband, by

asking this favour of him.d
And the king, thinking now that all appearances were fully saved, no longer constrained his affection, but immediately bestowed the office of cupbearer on young Villiers.

The whole court was thrown into parties between the two minions; while some endeavoured to advance the rising fortunes of Villiers, others deemed it safer to adhere to the established credit of Somerset. The king himself, divided between inclination and decorum, encreased the doubt and ambiguity of the courtiers; and the stern jealousy of the old favourite, who refused every advance of friendship from his rival, begat perpetual quarrels between their several partizans. But the discovery of Somerset’s guilt in the murder of Overbury, at last decided the controversy, and exposed him to the ruin and infamy which he so well merited.

An apothecary’s ’prentice, who had been employed in making up the poisons, having retired to Flushing, began to talk very freely of the whole secret; and the affair at last came to the ears of Trumbal, the king’s envoy in the Low Countries. By his means, Sir Ralph Winwood, secretary of state, was informed; and he immediately carried the intelligence to James. The king, alarmed and astonished to find such enormous guilt in a man whom he had admitted into his bosom, sent for Sir Edward Coke, chief justice, and earnestly recommended to him the most rigorous and unbiassed scrutiny.

This injunction was executed with great industry and severity: The whole labyrinth of guilt was carefully unravelled: The lesser criminals, Sir Jervis Elvis, lieutenant of the Tower, Franklin, Weston, Mrs. Turner, were first tried and condemned: Somerset and his countess were afterwards found guilty: Northampton’s death, a little before, had saved him from a like fate.

It may not be unworthy of remark that Coke, in the trial of Mrs. Turner, told her, that she was guilty of the seven deadly sins: She was a whore, a bawd, a sorcerer, a witch,

a papist, a felon, and a murderer.e
And what may more surprize us, Bacon, then PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)

42

http://oll.libertyfund.org/title/792

Online Library of Liberty: The History of England, vol. 5

attorney-general, took care to observe, that poisoning was a popish trick.
f
Such were the bigotted prejudices which prevailed: Poisoning was not, of itself, sufficiently odious, if it were not represented as a branch of popery. Stowe tells us, that, when the king came to Newcastle, on his first entry into England, he gave liberty to all the prisoners, except those who were confined for treason, murder, and
papistry.
When one considers these circumstances, that furious bigotry of the catholics, which broke out in the gunpowder conspiracy, appears the less surprising.

All the accomplices in Overbury’s murder received the punishment due to their crime: But the king bestowed a pardon on the principals, Somerset and the countess. It must be confessed that James’s fortitude had been highly laudable, had he persisted in his first intention of consigning over to severe justice all the criminals: But let us still beware of blaming him too harshly, if, on the approach of the fatal hour, he scrupled to deliver into the hands of the executioner, persons whom he had once favoured with his most tender affections. To soften the rigour of their fate, after some years’

imprisonment, he restored them to their liberty, and conferred on them a pension, with which they retired, and languished out old age in infamy and obscurity. Their guilty loves were turned into the most deadly hatred; and they passed many years together in the same house, without any intercourse or correspondence with each other.
g

Several historians,
h
in relating these events, have insisted much on the dissimulation of James’s behaviour, when he delivered Somerset into the hands of the chief justice; on the insolent menaces of that criminal; on his peremptory refusal to stand a trial; and on the extreme anxiety of the king during the whole progress of this affair.

Allowing all these circumstances to be true, of which some are suspicious, if not palpably false,
i
the great remains of tenderness, which James still felt for Somerset, may, perhaps, be sufficient to account for them. That favourite was high-spirited; and resolute rather to perish than live under the infamy to which he was exposed. James was sensible, that the pardoning of so great a criminal, which was of itself invidious, would become still more unpopular, if his obstinate and stubborn behaviour on his trial should augment the public hatred against him.
k
At least, the unreserved confidence, in which the king had indulged his favourite for several years, might render Somerset master of so many secrets, that it is impossible, without farther light, to assign the particular reason of that superiority, which, it is said, he appeared so much to assume.

The fall of Somerset, and his banishment from court, opened the Rise of Buckingham.