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James proclaimed king of England-Question of the Succession-Sir Robert Carey's ride to Edinburgh-James quits Scotland-His progress to London-His system of punishments and rewards-Cecil's influence--The coronation-Raleigh, Cobham, Grey, and others arrested on charges of conspiracy-The two plots-Trial of Raleigh-His conviction and long imprisonment-Conferences at Hampton Court-Meeting of Parliament-Contest between the King and the House of Commons upon a question of Privilege-Statutes of this session-Wardship-Purveyance-Temper of the Commons-Peace with Spain-James proclaimed king of Great Britain-Character of James.

QUEEN Elizabeth died at Richmond at three o'clock in the morning of the 24th of March. Before ten o'clock of that day James, king of Scotland, was proclaimed as her successor. Cecil, and others of the Council who were favourable to the claim of James to the English throne, were about the queen during her last illness, and lost not a moment in taking the important step of proclaiming him to the people. It was a wise decision; for, although the title of the descendants of Margaret, queen of Scots, was clear, according to the principle of hereditary succession, the statute of the 35th of Henry VIII., gave that king power to dispose of the succession to the crown by will, and in his will he passed over the descendants of Margaret. The parliamentary title was thus placed in opposition to the hereditary claim. There were descendants in existence of Mary, duchess of Suffolk, the younger sister of Henry VIII. To lord Beauchamp, one of these, it may be supposed that Elizabeth alluded, in the speech ascribed to her that she would have no "rascal" as her successor. Other titles to the throne were talked of, however remote, amongst which that of Arabella Stuart was most prominent. The queen's political sagacity would naturally have pointed out the king of

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JAMES PROCLAIMED KING-QUITS SCOTLAND.

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Scotland as the successor whose claim would have been recognised with the least confusion; and she probably would not have hesitated, in her dying hour, however she might have unwillingly entertained the question at previous seasons, had she not had sufficient reason to think meanly of the character of James. He was weak and untruthful. Their natures were essentially opposite. There was no love between them.

Sir Robert Carey, at the moment of Elizabeth's death, received a token from lady Scrope, his sister, that the great queen had passed away after a placid sleep. With the ring that this lady took from the finger of her mistress, Carey posted for Scotland. On Saturday night, after an extraordinary ride of three days and two nights, the alert courtier was on his knees before James to salute him as king of England, with the royal ring as his credential. Carey had obtained the start of the slow messenger of the Privy Council, who arrived in Edinburgh on the following Tuesday. On the 3rd of April, James, having attended the service in the High Church of St. Giles,delivered a farewell harangue to the congregation; and on the 5th he took his departure from Edinburgh. His queen, Anne of Denmark, and his children, were left

behind. Curious was his progress towards London, and very characteristic of his coarse and self-sufficient nature. Men saw the respect for law which was at the foundation of English liberty and order, despised by the man who was coming to rule over them. A cut-purse was taken at Newark, who had followed the court from Berwick; upon which the king sent a warrant to the recorder of Newark to have the thief hanged. The wise perceived the approach of an ignorant despotism in this contempt of the ordinary course of justice: "I hear our new king," writes Harrington, "hath hanged one man before he was tried; 'tis strangely done; now if the wind bloweth thus, why may not a man be tried before he hath offended ?" But James's notion of kingly rewards was as absurd as his notion of kingly punishments. During his journey of thirty-two days from Edinburgh to London, he showered the honour of knighthood on two hundred and thirty-seven gentlemen who were presented to him. Elizabeth bestowed such honours sparingly upon her statesmen and soldiers. James made the noblest title of the old chivalry ridiculous.

Anne of Denmark, queen of James I.
(From Strutt.)

During his progress to London James feasted at many houses, where he beheld the tokens of wealth and luxury to which he was little used. He at last rested at Theobalds, where the adroit Cecil made his arrangements for a long tenure of power. The king entered London on the 7th of May. Mean

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CECIL-THE CORONATION.

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while Elizabeth had been followed to her grave at Westminster by fifteen hundred gentlemen in mourning. Many of her late subjects were looking to her successor for relief from the penal laws, which obstructed Puritan as well as Papist in the exercise of their religion. Before James reached London a petition was presented to him, signed by eight hundred and twenty-five ministers from various counties, desiring the redress of ecclesiastical abuses. In the State Paper Office there is an address to him from the Catholics of England, imploring "the free exercise of their religion, in private if not in public, by sufferance if not with approbation." * Some of the Romanists, however, expected more from the new king than toleration. In a letter dated from Rome, May 14th, of Robert Parsons, the Jesuit, he hopes the king may become a Catholic; says there are prayers for him in the seminaries; and states that the pope is delighted with the king's book, "Basilicon Doron." There can be no doubt that, before the death of Elizabeth, James had promised that the Roman Catholics should be tolerated. Within three months of his arrival in London, some of the leading recusants were assured that the fines for recusancy should no longer be enforced; and in the following year the sum paid as fines was very small. That the king had no large views of toleration was soon evident. He bestowed some honours and lucrative places on a few, upon a principle which he avowed when objection was made to lord Henry Howard, a Catholic, having a seat in the Council; James saying that by this tame duck he hoped to take many wild ones.

In June, the queen of James, and his eldest son prince Henry, arrived in England. The coronation took place on the 25th of July, amidst the gloom and consternation of the people of London, for the plague was making the most fearful ravages in the city. The sight of the pageant was confined to the nobility and the court. On this account, as alleged, a parliament was not summoned, according to the usual course upon the accession of a new sovereign. Ambassadors came from the United Provinces, from the archduke of Austria, and from Henry IV., to congratulate the new king of England. To all of them James made professions of peace. Sully, the minister of France, was there to sustain the influence of his master. He did so by the power of gold, and not by the sympathies of friendship, as in the time of the great queen. Sully wore mourning for Elizabeth when he first appeared at James's court; but he was soon told that such a tribute of respect was disagreeable, and that at Whitehall her name must no longer be mentioned.

At the death of Elizabeth, the rivalry which had sprung up between Robert Cecil and Raleigh was to have its triumph, in the confirmed favour of James to the minister with whom he had for some time been in secret communication. The wily Secretary of State was far too strong for the bold Captain of the Guard. The adroit politician, weak of body but close and circumspect, would be secure of his advantage over the accomplished soldier and navigator, even if James had not manifested a personal dislike for Raleigh. It was unnecessary for Cecil to have written, within a week of the queen's death, that the Council had "stayed the journey of the captain of the guard, who was conducting many suitors to the king." If they had met, James would

* "Calendar of State Papers," edited by Mrs. Green, p. 5.

"Calendar of State Papers," p. 2.

+ Ibid. p. 8.

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RALEIGH, COBHAM, AND OTHERS ARRESTED.

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probably have insulted the man whose most ardent passion was to diminish the power of Spain, while James would have laid England and Scotland at her feet. So Raleigh was deprived of his offices; and within a few months

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was under a charge of high treason. Hume, in a very brief relation of "the discovery of a conspiracy to subvert the government, and to fix on the throne Arabella Stuart, a near relation of the king by the family of Lennox, and descended equally from Henry VII.," mixes up the accounts of two alleged conspiracies. He says Roman Catholic priests; lord Grey, a puritan; lord Cobham, a profligate man; and Raleigh, a freethinker; were engaged in "a

Coronation of James I.

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conspiracy;" and he asks "what cement could unite men of such discordant principles, in so dangerous a combination?" The Roman Catholic conspiracy was wholly different from that in which Raleigh, Cobham, and Grey were accused of engaging; and was known as the treason of the priests," or the "Bye," -the cant word by which it was designated upon the trials of the accused. Its object was to seize the person of the king. The other treason was known as the "Main ;" and its purposes were so ill defined, that, half a century afterwards, it was described, by Rushworth, as "a dark kind of treason; the author of the "Historical Collections" adding, "in his time the veil still rested upon it." Subsequent investigations have not withdrawn the veil. Cobham, a very weak man, though possessed of great power from his position, had taken part with Raleigh in his jealousy of the earl of Essex; and James, who considered that Essex had been sacrificed through his anxiety to promote that claim to the succession which Elizabeth did not recognise, held them both in great dislike. Cecil, who was equally united with them in jealousy of Essex, had propitiated the king of Scotland; and to him was confided the chief power of the government when James came to the English throne. There is little in these alleged treasons that deserves any minute relation, except as they involve the trial and conviction of one of the most remarkable men in the history of our country. The mind of Raleigh never was exhibited in a more heroic attitude than in his conduct on this memorable trial.

On the 17th November, 1603, a Special Commission was held at Winchester, the plague then raging in London and other parts. Sir Walter Raleigh had been indicted on the previous 21st of August, upon a charge of high treason; the overt acts alleged being that he had conferred with lord Cobham as to advancing Arabella Stuart to the crown of England, dispossessing the king; and that it was arranged that lord Cobham should go to the king of Spain and the archduke of Austria, to obtain six hundred thousand crowns for the support of Arabella's title. It was also alleged in the indictment that Cobham communicated the plan to George Brooke, and that they both said "there never would be a good world in England till the king and his cubs were taken away;" that Cobham wrote to count Aremberg for the six hundred thousand crowns, which Aremberg promised to give; and that Raleigh was to receive eight thousand crowns. Raleigh pleaded Not Guilty.

The conduct of the Attorney-General upon this trial, was such as made even Cecil remonstrate against his unfairness. Coke's brutality to the prisoner remains as a perpetual warning to the bar and the bench, that if the character of the gentleman is ever publicly dissociated from that of the lawyer in the administration of justice, the greatest learning, the most elevated rank, will not save the trickster or the bully from the contempt of his own generation and of future times. Coke began by declaring that the treason of Raleigh was "the treason of the main, the others were the bye," and then went on to mix him up, as the historian has done, with both treasons. "I pray you, gentlemen of the jury," said Raleigh, "remember I am not charged with the bye, which was the treason of the priests." To this quiet observation Coke replied, "You are not; but your lordships will see that all these treasons, though they consisted of several points, closed in together, like Samson's

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