CHAPTER I. JAMES I. As soon as Elizabeth breathed her last, Lady Scrope, a daughter of her relative, the late Lord Hunsdon, communicated the intelligence to her brother, Sir Robert Carey, who had been on the watch; and who, anticipating Cecil and the other lords of the council, stole out of the palace at Richmond, where the queen had expired at three o'clock on the morning of Thursday, the 24th of March, and posted down to Scotland, in order to be the first to hail James Stuart as king of England. This tender relative arrived at Edinburgh on the night of Saturday the 26th, four days before Sir Charles Percy and Thomas Somerset, Esq., who were despatched by the council; but it was agreed with James to keep the great matter a secret, until the formal despatch from London should reach him. Sir Robert Carey had scarcely taken horse for the north when Cecil, Nottingham, Egerton and others, met in secret debate at Richmond at an early hour, before the queen's death was known; and these lords "knowing above all things delays to be most dangerous," proceeded at once to London, and drew up a proclamation in the name "of the lords spiritual and temporal, united and assisted with the late queen's council, other principal gentlemen, the lord mayor, aldermen, and citizens of London, a multitude of other good subjects and commons of the realm." This proclamation bore thirty-six signatures, the three first being those of Robert Lee, lord mayor of London, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Lord Keeper, Egerton; the three last, those of Secretary Sir Robert Cecil, Sir J. Fortescue, and Sir John Popham. It was signed and ready about five hours after Elizabeth's decease; and then those who had signed it went out of the council chamber at Whitehall, with Secretary Cecil at their head, who had taken the chief direction of the business, and who in the front of the palace read to the people the proclamation, which assured them that the queen's majesty was really dead, and that the right of succession was wholly in James king of Scots, now king of England, Scotland, France, and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, &c. They then went to the High Cross in Cheapside, where Cecil again read the proclamation, and when he had done, "the multitude with one consent cried aloud,-' God save King James!"" for all parties, or rather the three great religious sects, High Churchmen, Puritans, and Papists, all promised themselves advantages from his accession. Cecil next caused three heralds and a trumpeter to proclaim the said tidings within the walls of the Tower, where the heart of many a state-prisoner leaped for joy, and where the Earl of Southampton, the friend of the unfortunate Essex, joined the rest in their signs of great gladness.* Of the other thirteen or fourteen conflicting claims to the succession which had been reckoned up at different times during Elizabeth's reign, not one appears to have been publicly mentioned, or even alluded to; and the right of James was allowed to pass unques→ tioned. Such had been the able management of Cecilsuch was the readiness of the nation to acknowledge the Scottish king, or their laudable anxiety to avoid a disputed succession and civil war. There was one person, however, whose claim excited uneasiness in the cautious mind of Cecil,-this was the Lady Arabella Stuart, daughter of the Earl of Lennox, younger brother of James's father, Darnley, and descended equally from the stock of Henry VII.† This Stow.-Weldon. - Osborne. - Memoirs of Sir Robert Carey. + James's claim, however, was not at all through his father Lord Darnley, but through his mother, who, as the grand-daughter of James IV. by his wife Margaret, eldest daughter of Henry VII., was, after Elizabeth, the next representative of that king. The Lady Arabella and her young lady was by birth an Englishwoman, a circumstance which had been considered by some as making up for her defect of primogeniture, for James, though nearer, was a born Scotchman and alien. Cecil for some time had had his eye upon the Lady Arabella, and she was now safe in his keeping. Eight hundred dangerous or turbulent persons, indistinctly described as "vagabonds," were seized in two nights in London, and sent to serve on board the Dutch fleet. No other outward precautions were deemed necessary by the son of Burghley, who calmly waited the coming of James and his own great reward, without asking for any pledge for the privileges of parliament, the liberties of the people, or the reform of abuses which had grown with the growing prerogative of the crown. But these were things altogether overlooked, not only by Cecil and Nottingham and those who acted with them, but also by the parties opposed to them, the most remarkable man among whom was Sir Walter Raleigh, who, like all the other courtiers or statesmen, looked entirely to his own interest or aggrandisement. Between the spiritual pride and obstinacy of his clergy, the turbulent, intriguing habits of his nobles, and his own poverty, James had led rather a hard life in Scotland. He was eager to take possession of England, which he looked upon as the very Land of Promise; but so poor was he that he could not begin his journey until Cecil sent him down money. He asked for the crown jewels of England for the queen his wife; but the council did not think fit to comply with this request: and, on the 6th day of April, he set out for Berwick, without wife or jewels. On arriving at that ancient town he fired off, with his own hand, a great piece of ordnance, an unusual effort of courage on his part. On the same day he wrote to his "right trusty and right well-beloved cousins and counsellors, the lords and others of his privy council at London," thanking them for the money which they had uncle Lord Darnley were descended from the same Margaret Tudor, but by her second marriage with Matthew Stuart, Earl of Lennox. sent, telling them that he would hasten his journey as much as conveniently he might,-that he intended to tarry awhile at the city of York, and to make his entry therein in some such solemn manner as appertained to his dignity, and that, therefore, he should require that all such things as they in their wisdom thought meet should be sent down to York. The body of Elizabeth was still above ground, and it would have been regular in him to attend her funeral in person. He assured the lords that he could be well contented to do that, and all other honour he might, unto "the queen defunct; " and he referred it to their consideration, whether it would be more honour for her to have the funeral finished before he came, or to wait and have him present at it. Cecil and his friends knew what all this meant, and hastened the funeral: there was no rejoicing successor present; but fifteen hundred persons in deep mourning voluntarily followed thebody of Elizabeth to Westminster Abbey. The king was a slow traveller. Seven days after, or on the 13th of April, he had got no farther than Newcastle, whence he wrote another letter, commanding coins of different denominations to be struck in gold and silver. He gave minute directions as to arms, quarterings, and mottoes. By the 15th of April he had reached the house of Sir William Ingleby at Topcliff; and from that place he wrote a curious letter, to the lord keeper, the lord treasurer, the lord admiral, the master of the horse, and the principal secretary for the time being. All his circumlocution and care could not conceal his ill-humour at their not coming to meet him, and their still delaying to send the crown jewels. It is said that James, in conversing with some of his English counsellors about his prerogative, exclaimed joyously, "Do I make the judges? Do I make the bishops? Then, God's wounds! I make what likes me law and gospel!" Though he had hardly ever had the due and proper authority of a king in his own country, he had long indulged in a speculative absolutism, and, as far as his cowardice and indolence allowed him, he came fully prepared to rule the people of England as a despot. To enliven his journey he |