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throne through the exile of their father. James's son and grandson attempted to recover their kingdoms, but their efforts were unsuccessful, and the last of their House, who was an ecclesiastic, and known as Cardinal York, lived a recipient of the bounty of the House of Brunswick e.

From the time that England and Scotland came under the same ruler by the succession of James VI. to the throne lately occupied by Elizabeth, the arms of the two countries have been borne on the same shield, with the addition of the harp for Ireland. The roses, both red and white, the fleur-de-lis, the thistle, and the harp (all crowned), appear as badges, and the royal supporters have usually been the lion and the unicornf, as seen at the present day.

He died in 1808.

Charles I. occasionally employed an antelope and a stag, both ducally collared and chained.

JAMES VI. of Scotland and I. of Great Britain, was the only child of Mary, queen of Scots, by Henry, Lord Darnley, and was born in the castle of Edinburgh, June 19, 1566. Early in the following year his father was murdered; in a few months more his mother was obliged to resign her crown, and James was proclaimed king while an infant of little more than a twelvemonth old, July 24, 1567.

His infancy had a rapid succession of governors, three of whom perished by violence, and in his 14th year he assumed the reins of power, but it was only to give them into the hands of worthless favourites, who

The earl of Murray, his uncle, was the first; Matthew, earl of Lenox (the king's grandfather), succeeded him; then came Erskine, earl of Mar, who was followed by James Douglas, earl of Morton, a mere tool of the English ministers; Mar alone of the four died a natural death.

quarreled among themselves", yet kept such a correspondence with the English court as obliged their young and needy king to witness the judicial murder of his mother without an effort either to save or to avenge her. His own liberty was abridged, and his life apparently endangered, through hatred caused by their misconduct, as at the Raid of Ruthven, in 1582, and the Gowrie Plot, in 16001.

Though Elizabeth deferred the indication of her successor to the latest hour of her life, her courtiers felt assured that it could be no other than James of Scotland, and they paid their court to him so assiduously in her declining years as to cause her abundant anxiety; at length she died, and James, in his thirty-seventh year, became king of England, without the shadow of opposition.

He was scarcely established in his new kingdom, however, when discontents began to appear. He had, while in poverty in Scotland, made promises both to the Romanists and to the Puritans of something like toleration; but he at once joined himself to the Established Church, which gave them occasion to charge him with insincerity, and, apparently, to unite for the purpose of dethroning him. This scheme failed, as did the revolting Gunpowder Plot, and the rest of his reign was passed

See pp. 289, 292.

See pp. 292, 321.

Some writers have supposed that the whole was a base contrivance of Cecil to get rid of Ralegh and others, who had courted the friendship of James as eagerly as he had himself, and were likely to prove successful rivals in the distribution of honours and rewards. Without accepting this solution, it is still difficult to conceive what objects could be common to Romish priests, Puritans, and professed free-thinkers, or atheists, as they were then termed; yet such men were found among the conspirators, and James's lenity has been taken as a presumption of their innocence; only the priests and one gentleman suffered death.

in coercing his Scottish subjects into a temporary reacceptance of episcopal government, and in quarrels with his English parliaments; the latter were often hastily dissolved, and their members imprisoned, but they remonstrated freely on matters both of Church and State, impeached his ministers, controlled his foreign policy, and exhibited unmistakable tokens of that puritanical, republican spirit which led his unhappy successor to the scaffold. Commerce, however, flourished; the newly opened trade with India was steadily pursued, and many attempts were made by Hudson, Baffin, and others to discover a north-western passage; America, too, began to be systematically settled by the English.

James's conduct towards foreign states was weak and discreditable. There is no reason to doubt that he was a sincere Protestant; but his exalted notions of the kingly dignity led him to side with the Romanists rather than the Protestants, from dislike to the republican form of government1. On the same ground he eagerly sought alliances for his sons with the royal families of France and Spain, regardless of the apprehensions of his people on the score of religion; and to attain his ends he did not hesitate to sign treaties promising a toleration of Romanism, which was directly contrary to the statutes of his kingdom, and could only have been carried out by his exer

He told his parliament, that as it was blasphemy to question what the Almighty could do by His power, so it was sedition to inquire what a king could do by virtue of his prerogative; and he suffered Dr. Cowell, a civilian, in his book "The Interpreter," to ascribe to the kings of England the absolute power of the Roman emperors; the commons resented this, and James was obliged to forbid the circulation of the work.

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1 He was easily persuaded that the Hollanders were an ill example for a monarch to cherish."

cising the power he was so unwise as sometimes to claim, of being superior to all law; his project failed, as regarded Spain, and he was involved in a war against that power (reluctantly undertaken, though the dominions of his son-in-law, the Elector Palatine, were at stakeTM,) at the time of his death, which occurred at his hunting-seat of Theobalds, near Cheshunt, March 27, 1625. He was buried in Henry VII.'s chapel, Westminster.

James married, in 1590, Anne of Denmark, daughter of Frederic II. She was born in 1574, was handsome, active, and intriguing, but seems to have had far less influence over her husband than his unworthy favourites, Carr and Villiers, exercised. She was fond of pomp

A quarrel concerning Church property in Bohemia, between the Romanists and the Protestants, occasioned the latter to attempt to throw off the rule of the house of Austria; the Elector Palatine was chosen king by the insurgents, but the attempt miscarried, and in the end he lost even his paternal states, dying broken-hearted in the year 1632.

Robert Carr, a younger son of a family on the Scottish border that had suffered in the cause of Mary of Scotland, was early received as the king's page, and was knighted at his coronation in England. The high offices of lord-treasurer and lord-chamberlain were soon bestowed on him, he was made a knight of the Garter, and created viscount Rochester and earl of Somerset. He at length contracted an infamous marriage with Frances, daughter of the earl of Suffolk, the divorced wife of the earl of Essex, and from this circumstance his ruin may be dated. He and his wife were convicted in 1616 of the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury, who had opposed their union, though it seems probable that she only was guilty. Somerset was imprisoned until 1621, and being then released, lived in comparative poverty to the time of his death, in 1645, his wretched wife, who had confessed herself a murderess, having died in 1632.

George Villiers, the son of a Leicestershire knight, was born in 1592. He was early sent abroad, and on his return in 1615, he attracted James's notice, was made a gentleman of the chamber, and so grew in favour, that in less than three years he was appointed master of the horse, knight of the Garter, chief justice north of Trent, Lord Whaddon, Viscount Villiers, and earl of Buckingham. He afterwards attained the higher dignities of marquis and duke, and was as great a favourite with Charles I. as he had been with his father. His conduct, however, had a very unhappy influence on the relations between the former monarch and his people; he was