1604.] GRIEVANCES-TEMPER OF THE COMMONS. 317 The superstition was productive of enormous cruelties; but it had its earnest supporters, and amongst others the king himself. The popular belief went wholly in that direction. The legislation of the Parliament of 1604 was not so remarkable as the spirit which it displayed in the resistance of encroachments upon its ancient liberties, and in the demand for reforms of ancient abuses. Amongst those who most strongly maintained the necessity of improvement was Francis Bacon. The grievances of which the Commons had complained, in a petition, were those of purveyance, which fell upon all the people. The burthen of wardships, by which the custody, and therefore the profits, of every estate held under military tenure, was claimed by the crown during the minority of the heir, fell upon the landed proprietors. Purveyance was the relic of a condition of society which had passed away. Before the communications between the producers of food and the consumers in towns were easy, those wants of the sovereign's household which could not be supplied from the royal demesnes were arranged by purveyors,-a body of officers who had the right of claiming provisions in any market for the king's use. They took corn, flesh, every description of food, at their own prices. They had the right of impressing carts and carriages in the same arbitrary manner. Statute after statute had been passed for the regulation of purveyance; but a power so enormous was liable to the grossest abuse. Elizabeth herself called the purveyors "harpies." The evil when James came to the throne had become intolerable; and, according to a speech of Bacon, the purveyors, under their commissions from the Board of Green Cloth, lived at free quarters upon the country; terrifying dealers by their claims of immense quantities of provisions at an insufficient price, out of which they made a profit; cutting down woods without the owner's permission; and even demanding the labourers to work for them at their own grinding rate of payment. The Commons now asked for a total abolition of purveyance. Their petition was not offensive to the king, for he hoped to make good terms for himself by the concession of this remnant of feudal prerogative; but nothing was done. The question of wardship was also postponed, at the desire of the House of Lords. The temper of parliament, as was the temper of the people, was favourable to the quiet rule of the new king. But it was directly opposed to his notion of a divine right which gave him, in the exercise of his prerogative, an absolute power such as he was prompt to claim. He had declared in a book, "The true Law of Free Monarchies," printed before he came to the English throne, that "although a good king will frame all his actions to be according to law, yet he is not bound thereto, but of his own will, and for examplegiving to his subjects." He was told in distinct terms that the loyalty of the people was associated with the care which the sovereign had of their welfare. "If your majesty," says the Apology," shall vouchsafe at your best pleasure and leisure, to enter into your gracious consideration of our petition for the ease of those burthens under which your whole people have of long time mourned, hoping for relief of your majesty, then may you be assured to be possessed of their hearts; and, if of their hearts, of all they can do or have." * The substance of this important paper is given by Mr. Hallam. It is to be found in "Cobbett's Parliamentary History." + 818 PEACE WITH SPAIN. [1604. In August, 1604, a treaty of peace was concluded between James, king of England, the king of Spain, and the archdukes of Austria. The policy of the country was wholly changed in the change of its sovereign. The hostility to Spain was a national sentiment; for it was built on the conviction that no peace would be safe with that power whilst England was Protestant, and was identified with the cause of Protestantism in Europe. Robert Cecil had been bred in the political creed of Elizabeth; but the disposition of James to abandon her policy, and to desire peace with her great enemy in a temper amounting to pusillanimity, compelled Cecil to a subserviency in the negocia tions with Spain very different from the spirit which a minister of Elizabeth would have shown. The old friendship with the Netherlands was abandoned. The king of England engaged to give no further aid to the Hollanders, or other enemies of the king of Spain and the archdukes. The commercial treaty, which was connected with the treaty of peace, contained clauses which the Hollanders felt were to their disadvantage. Enmity was thus to spring -- up between the two countries in which the struggle for the Reformation had been carried on most cordially and strenuously. There was one clause to which Elizabeth would never have consented as long as she had a ship or a cannon, that there was to be “moderation had in the proceedings of the Inquisition" against English traders repairing to Spain. What the people felt with regard to Spain, and to the foreign policy of England, may be collected from the boldness with which Raleigh spoke on his trial. Indignantly repelling the charge that he had been bribed with Spanish gold to engage in a conspiracy, he alluded to the warfare in which he had battled so long against a power that once aimed at universal monarchy, but was now reduced to comparative insignificance. Spain never forgave Raleigh's efforts for her humiliation, nor his public mention of them when she was suing for peace. "I was not so bare of sense but I saw that if ever this state was strong and able to defend itself, it was now. The kingdom of Scotland united, whence we were wont to fear all our troubles; Ireland quieted, where our forces were wont to be divided; Denmark assured, whom before we were wont to have in jealousy; the Low Countries, our nearest neighbours, at peace with us; and instead of a Lady, whom time had surprised, we had now an active King, a lawful successor to the crown, who was able to his own business. I was not such a madman as to make myself in this time a Robin Hood, a Wat Tyler, or a Jack Cade. I knew also the state of Spain well; his weakness, and poorness, and humbleness at this time. I knew that he was discouraged and dishonoured. I knew that six times we had repulsed his forces, thrice in Ireland, thrice at sea, and once at Cadiz on his own coast. Thrice had I served against him myself at sea, wherein for my country's sake I had expended of my own properties 40007. I knew that where before-time he was wont to have forty great sails at the least in his ports, now he hath not past six or seven; and for sending to his Indies he was driven to hire strange vessels ;-a thing contrary to the institutions of his proud ancestors, who straitly forbad, in case of any necessity, that the king of Spain should make their case known to strangers. I knew that of fiveand-twenty millions he had from his Indies, he had scarce any left; nay, I knew his poorness at this time to be such that the Jesuits, his imps, were fain to beg at the church doors; his pride so abated, as, notwithstanding 1604.] JAMES PROCLAIMED KING OF GREAT BRITAIN. 319 his former high terms, he was glad to congratulate the king, my master, on his accession, and now cometh creeping unto him for peace.' With such a power the king of England might have concluded an honourable peace, without sacrificing the principle for which Elizabeth had fought for twenty years. She would not have forsaken the United Provinces, for any temptation which the Most Catholic king could have held out to shake her good faith and her constancy. Previous to the accession of James, the sovereign, in the unaltered style of ancient feudal assumption, had the title of "King of England, Scotland, France, and Ireland." On the 24th of October, 1604, James was proclaimed "King of Great Britain, France, and Ireland." We cannot reflect upon him for retaining the absurd title of king of France, for the folly was kept up for two centuries longer. His vanity was abundantly gratified in being king of Great Britain and Ireland-an absolute king, as he believed; and not only a king, but a master of all learning, and especially of theological learning, of whom his Chancellor declared, at the Hampton Court conference, that never since our Saviour's time had the king and the priest been so wonderfully united in the same person. He was not altogether so royal a personage as Elizabeth, or her majestic father. His figure was ungainly; his habits were slovenly; he was by nature a coward. Not deficient in a certain talent which he rarely put to a right use "the wisest fool in Christendom," he had no sense of that public responsibility which attached to his high office. He was a king for himself alone. He estimated the cost of war as the principal inducement to remain at peace. But the wise economy which was opposed to the martial 320 CHARACTER OF JAMES. [1604. tendencies of the people that he was called to govern, was not an economy for the public good. He wasted his revenues upon silly baubles for personal ornaments, and in lavish grants to unworthy favourites. He almost wholly neglected the business of the state; for he was hunting, bolstered up on an ambling palfrey; or he was writing pedantic treatises which nobody read; or he was going in progress, to be flattered and feasted; or he was moving by easy journeys from his palace of Richmond to his palace of Windsor, or in triumphal procession in his state-barge from Greenwich to Whitehall. There were some refinements in his court, for the plays that were acted before him were often those of Shakspere; and at a later period Jonson wrote "Masques at Court," and Inigo Jones supplied the decorations. In a short time the palace became a scene of profligacy, in which even the mask of decency was not attempted to be put on. Yet this was the king who was to try his hand at making England an absolute monarchy by divine right. Lord Thomas Howard, who had been a powerful instrument in forwarding the accession of James, wrote to Harrington, "Your queen did talk of her subjects' love and good affection, and in good truth she aimed well. Our king talketh of his subjects' fear and subjection, and herein I think he doth well too, as long as it holdeth good." |