asked, Does the fellow live? Sanquhar, imagining this a reproach, immediately returned to England, and employed one Carlisle, to assassinate Turner, which he did, just as he was entering his lodgings. The meanness, as well as atrocity of the crime, excited universal detestation, and Sanquhar, who surrendered himself, was put upon his trial, convicted, and, notwithstanding every solicitation in his favour, was publicly hanged at the Palace-gate of Westminster. But this act of justice, was counterbalanced by one of wanton, unmanly oppression. Lady Arabella Stuart, the king's cousin-german,* was secretly married to the grandson of the earl of Hertford, but James having discovered the transaction, saw treason in it, committed Seymour, her husband, to the tower, and confined the lady at Lambeth, whence she was afterward ordered to repair to Durham. She escaped, however, from her keepers, disguised in male apparel, and embarked on board a French ship, that had been prepared for her reception. Seymour at the same time escaped from the tower, but being prevented from joining his lady, got a passage in a vessel belonging to Newcastle, and was landed on the coast of Flanders. A squa dron was instantly despatched after the fugitives, which unfortunately overtook the vessel that carried the lady Arabella, and she was sent to close confinement in the tower, where, either the rigour of her treatment, or the weight of her sufferings, and the poignancy of her disappointment deranged her intellects, and the daughter of a Darnly sunk insane into a premature grave. About this time, two events took place, which were to have a material effect upon the future fortunes of Britain-the marriage of James' only daughter with the prince palatine, and the death of his eldest and most accomplished son, prince Henry, at the age of eighteen, a youth of the greatest promise, and upon whom the eyes of all the Protestants in Europe were already turned. With the nation he was an universal favourite, as his sentiments were liberal, his conduct exemplary, and his recreations those manly exercises which receive the approbation of the wise, and excellency in which * She was the daughter of his father's youngest brother, engages the admiration of the multitude. Such was the com manding tone of his mind and manners, that he attracted the esteem of foreign sovereigns, was a check upon the licentiousness of the royal favourites, and an object of jealousy to his father. The king, who could not suffer the heir of his diadem to match with less than princely rank, was desirous that he should marry an arch-dutchess of the house of Austria, or a daughter of the duke of Savoy, but the prince was averse to enter into so close an alliance with a Papist, and in the last letter he ever wrote, entreated his father, if he must marry any of these princesses, it might be the youngest, of whose conversion he could have some hope. He openly reprobated the influence Somerset had over his father, and lamented the facility with which he allowed himself to be governed by the most profligate sycophants, and the waste which these occasioned of the public money. While the preparations were going forward for his sister's marriage, and the court was a scene of joyous festivity, Henry was seized with a fever, accompanied with the most violent symptoms, which, in a few days terminated fatally, threw a temporary gloom over the court, and spread throughout the nation, with the exception of the Roman Catholics, a grief, deep, sincere, aud universal. The general opinion at the time was, that he was poisoned either through the arts of the Papists, or the envy of his father. Of this crime the Roman Catholics appear to have been falsely accused, and, for the honour of human nature, we would willingly believe in the innocence of the father; but the proofs that the favourite was not guiltless are too strong to be disregarded, and I am inclined to suspect with Mr. Fox,* that the premature death of this prince was not by the visitation of God. Burnet tells us, that "Colonel Titus assured him he had it from king Charles I. himself, that he knew his brother was poisoned by Somerset ;" and a letter from that king, when prince, to his sister, published by Hearn, seems to corroborate it. He says: "I know you have understood, by our father's secretary's letters, what great changes the poisoning of Overburry has made. I * History, 4th Edition, p. 9. suspect other matters shall be found out, by the which it will appear, that more treacherous purposes were perchance intended against some, and practised against others; but of this you will hear more within a short time." The court mourning was laid aside as soon as etiquette would allow, and the marriage of the princess celebrated with a pomp, splendour, and gayety, calculated to dissipate any feelings of regret the sudden death of the heir apparent might have occasioned. The union of the two crowns, which had proved ruinous to the liberties of Scotland, promised now to prove equally so to her trade, poor as it already was. Hitherto the Scottish merchants had been treated as the most favoured nation by the French, and the duties upon their imports and exports were comparatively trifling; but being considered no longer as an independent state, the same duties were ordered to be levied from them as from the English. In the Low Countries they were similarly treated, and in the Baltic a prohibitory system was adopted. The convention of burghs petitioned James to interfere. In consequence, the staple was removed from Middleburgh to Campvere, and the port of Stralsund was re-opened to their trade; but they do not appear to have been replaced upon their former footing. Among the plans which his majesty had recommended for advancing the prosperity of his ancient kingdom, the improvement of the fisheries was particularly pointed out; but this year he imposed, by virtue of his own prerogative, an excise upon herrings, which was so rigorously exacted by one captain Mason, an Englishman, that the people, particularly on the coast of Fife, threatened to leave off the trade rather than pay it. At their complaints the privy council interfered, and the collecting was stopped. The laws against the Jesuits and seminary priests were severe, but those which enacted the penalty of death had remained a dead letter in the statute book, nor could they with decency have been executed, when the Popish lords were treated with so much lenity by the king. The general aversion of the people, however, to the bishops, and the persuasion every-where openly expressed, that they were favour * Balfour. MSS. quoted by Guthrie, vol. ix. p. 20. able to, and intended introducing Popery, demanded some = signal display of zeal on the part of the prelates to counteract these untoward feelings and remarks. They therefore apprehended Ogilvy, a Jesuit, at Glasgow, and informed the king of the circumstance, requesting directions how to proceed. He sent down a commission to the secretary, deputytreasurer, and advocate, to proceed to the examination and trial of the accused. When interrogated:-When he came into Scotland? upon what errand? and with whom he associated? he frankly answered the two first questions, that he had arrived in June, and came to save souls; but he honourably declined the last, declaring he would utter nothing that might implicate another; nor could promises nor threatenings shake his resolution. The commissioners, enraged at his stedfast fidelity, endeavoured to extort a confession by depriving him of his natural rest for several nights, and in the delirium thus occasioned, he made some incoherent discoveries; but as soon as allowed a little sleep, and tired nature was restored, he retracted what he had said in a state of mental confusion, and firmly persisted in refusing to name any person with whom he had associated, or any place whither he had resorted. The king, on being informed that nothing satisfactory could be obtained from him without torture, prohibited it from being used with a man of his profession, who, if he were only a Jesuit, and had said mass, they should banish the country, and prohibit his return under pain of death; but along with this humane declaration he transmitted a series of questions, which were dangerous to a Jesuit if he answered with sincerity, but useless if he had recourse to the evasions or mental reservations familiar to his order. He replied with sincerity. He acknowledged the supremacy of the pope in spirituals, and his power to excommunicate Christian princes; and he pronounced the oath, imposed on Roman Catholics in England, treason against God. He would not, however, answer any of the interrogatories respecting the power of the pope to depose kings, or absolve the subjects of an excommunicated monarch from their oath of allegiance, and declined the question of:-Whether it was lawful to murder a king who was put without the pale of the Romish communion? as one which the church had not yet decided. His refusal to answer questions criminating himself was most iniquitously construed, as a declining of the authority of the king and council, and he was convicted of high treason, and executed that same afternoon. Moffat, another member of the society, was apprehended nearly about the same time, but he took a wiser course, or at least a safer one; he condemned without hesitation all the positions about which Ogilvy had scrupled, and was allowed quietly to leave the country, James, with affected humanity, declaring, that he would never hang a priest for his religion.* any Next year, 1614, the archbishop of St. Andrews dying, Spotswood, archbishop of Glasgow, was advanced to the primacy, and Law, bishop of Orkney, succeeded him as archbishop of Glasgow. Considerable inconvenience having arisen as was alleged from the high commission being divided into two courts, with separate and distinct jurisdictions, they were both united, and, by a new mandate from the king, any of the archbishops, with four of the other members, were authorized to hold a court in of the districts of Scotland. The turbulent, restless, and irreclaimable marquis of Huntly, was among the first who appeared before this tribunal, after its being remodelled. Notwithstanding his numerous professions, he still remained devoted to the Popish religion, and desired his officers to prevent his tenantry from attending upon the sermons of some Protestant clergymen, who had been sent to labour for their conversion. For this offence he was called before the high commission, and by them committed to the castle of Edinburgh. He had not remained there three days, when the chancellor granted a warrant to set him at liberty. The bishops who were in town, highly offended at this proceeding, waited upon his lordship, and complained of his conduct; but he asserted the dignity of his office, and his constitutional power to liberate any person committed to prison by authority of the high commission. To intimidate him, he was threatened with the displeasure of the church; but he replied: He cared not whether the church were pleased or not. Spotswood, p. 523. Arnot's Criminal Trials. |