cillorsa sent to him to warn him to desist from an alleged attempt to seize the queen's person, Sunday, Feb. 8; he then marches into the city, accompanied by the earls of Rutland and Southampton (Roger Manners and Henry Wriothesley) and William, lord Sandys, and “a multitude of armed men," but not being joined by the citizens, returns by water to Essex house, and at ten at night surrenders to the earl of Nottingham, He is tried (Lord Buckhurst being lord steward) on a charge, among other things, of endeavouring to "raise himself to the royal dignity," Feb. 19, is found guilty, and is executed Feb. 25o.

John Pybush, a seminarist, is executed, after seven years' imprisonment, Feb. 18; two others, and a widow lady who had assisted a priest, are executed Feb. 27.

A body of Spaniards land in Ireland, and fortify Kinsale, Sept.

The parliament meets October 27, and sits till Dec. 19.

They were Sir Thomas Egerton. Henry Somerset, earl of Worcester, Sir William Knollys, and Sir John Popham. When he went into the city he left them in the care of Sir John Davyes, Francis Tresham and Owen Salysburye, "many of the rebels then assembled, crying aloud, Kill them! kill them !" but they were released after a confinement of a few hours, and before his return.

b Charles Howard, formerly lord Howard of Effingham. See p. 319. The earl of Southampton was tried with him and was found guilty, but his life was spared. Indictments were also found against William, lord Sandys, and Edward, lord Cromwell, Sir Edmund Bayneham, and 30 other knights and gentlemen, among whose names appear those of several of the Gunpowder Plot conspirators, as Catesby, Tresham, and Christopher and John Wright, but comparatively few of them were brought to trial; they were instead imprisoned, and paid heavy fines. On Feb. 28, a young man, named Woodcock, was hanged for speaking in condemnation of the arrest of Essex. On Feb. 20, Sir Edmund Bayneham and two others were found guilty, and on March 5, Sir Christopher Blunt and four others were condemned, of whom Sir Gellis Merrick and Henry Cuffe were executed March 13, and Sir Christopher Blunt and Sir Charles Danvers, March 18.

Payment of black mail (stated to be common in the northern parts) forbidden [43 Eliz. c. 13].

A.D. 1602. Sir Richard Levison and Sir Richard Monson are sent with a fleet against the Spaniards; they fail in capturing the Indian ships, but burn a fleet of galleys at Coimbra.

Sir Robert Mansel destroys a squadron of Spanish galleys in the English Channel.

A proclamation issued for pulling down newly built houses in and within three miles of London and Westminsterd.

The Spaniards in Kinsale are obliged to capitulate, June; Tyrone soon after makes his submission, and is pardoned.

A.D. 1603. Anderson, a seminary priest, is executed, Feb. 17.

The queen dies at Richmond, March 24; she is buried in the chapel of Henry VII. at Westminster, April 28.

"Little was done," says Stow, "and small effect followed, more than of other the like proclamations beforetime made," [see p. 290,] "and also an act of parliament to that purpose" [35 Eliz. c. 6, "against new buildings," passed in 1593]; "these cities are still increased in building of cottages and pestered with inmates, to the great infection and other annoyances of them both." The law, however, was not suffered entirely to remain a dead letter, commissions of inquiry being frequently issued, particularly in the time of Charles I., which raised large sums by composition with the offenders; which practice was revived under the Commonwealth.

THE STUARTS.

Badges of the Stuarts.

THE royal House of Stuart was, equally with the Plantagenets, descended from our Anglo-Saxon kings, and in the person of James VI. it succeeded to the throne of Great Britain free from the stain of either the Lancastrian or the Tudor usurpation. From Margaret, the sister of Edgar Atheling, was descended Robert Bruce; his daughter Margery married Robert the Steward, and their son became king of Scotland, as Robert II., in 1371. Seven kings and one queen of his house reigned in Scotland alone, and five more in Great Britain, their rule extending over a period of 343 years (A.D. 1371-1714), of which the last twenty-six years are, as embracing the reigns of the limited monarchs, William and Mary, and Anne, strikingly distinguished from the long preceding period, which, though unbroken by usurpation, was generally of a stormy character, from the ill-defined nature of the regal rights and a See vol. i. p. 351. See vol. i. p. 395

duties, and harassed during much of the time by contests with England, often caused by the intrigues of France, whose unequal alliance was more disastrous to Scotland than her hostility could have been.

The reign of Charles I. is especially memorable for a fierce outbreak ostensibly in the cause of civil and religious liberty, in the course of which the whole fabric of government, in Church and State, both in England and in Scotland, suffered a total, though happily but temporary, subversion. This struggle between the Church and its Puritan opponents was, like preceding convulsions, providentially overruled for good, but the character of the parties to it is too often misrepresented. The reverence for authority, which was the great actuating motive of the royal party, has been unjustly described as a love of slavery, and the Puritans have been held up as the champions of liberty, while they were in reality bent on destroying all reasonable government, without which true freedom is impossible, and the whole course of their conduct shews that the maxim of No bishop, no king," ascribed to James I., is perfectly just. It was absolutely necessary to curb them if either Church or State was to be preserved, and their stubbornness rendered mild measures unavailing; those taken would probably not have been so severely condemned as they have been, had they succeeded; though harsh in themselves, they were not unusual in their day, and they were justified in the consciences of those who employed them by the duty of

·

How little the Puritans were inclined to grant to others the liberty of conscience which they had so loudly demanded for themselves, was shewn by innumerable instances during the period of their unhappy ascendancy. See Notes and Illustrations.

upholding insulted authority, and cannot fairly be said to have sprung from any purpose of persecution.

Several of the Stuart rulers were remarkable for their talents and their literary acquirements, but they are still better known for the uninterrupted series of calamities which befel them. Robert II. was a prince of mild character, whose authority was entirely disregarded by his nobles; his son, Robert III., was a mere tool in the hands of his brother, the duke of Albany, and through his machinations he lost both of his sons, dying himself of grief; James I. passed many years in an English prison, and was at last murdered by his nobles; James II. was killed at the siege of Roxburgh; James III. was slain when fleeing from a field where he had been defeated by his own son; that son (James IV.) fell at Flodden-field; James V. was foiled in an invasion of England, and died soon after; his daughter Mary ended her unhappy life on the scaffold; the death of James VI. (or I.) was supposed to be accelerated by grief at the misfortunes of his daughter and son-in-law (the Elector Palatine); Charles I., after a long civil war, was publicly put to death by his subjects, and his sons fared little better; Charles II. regained the throne after years of exile, but by his ill government prepared the way for the expulsion of his brother, James II., who died a pensioner of France. Mary II. and Anne can hardly be regarded as more fortunate, as they only obtained the

James I., James V., and Mary were poets, and their works are yet read with pleasure; James VI. wrote on many subjects, both in prose and verse, and with very considerable difference of merit; and if the claim of the authorship of "Eikon Basilike" put forward for Charles I. could be satisfactorily established, he also would rank among distinguished writers.