CHAPTER II.

FIRST MEASURES OF THE NEW REIGN.

The Orkney Islands, to which Scotland asserted its claim even against the kindred race of the Norwegians, and the Hebrides, which were reputed the home of warriors of extraordinary bravery, were now united in one kingdom with the Channel Islands, which still remained in the possession of England from the days of the old connexion between the Normans of Normandy and that country. The Gael of Scotland, the Gwythel of Erin—and the Irish still appear in most records as savages—the Cymry of Wales and their Cornish kinsmen, who still spoke their old language, now appeared as subjects of the same sceptre. A.D. 1603. The accession of James to the throne exercised an immediate influence on Ireland. Tyrone, the O'Neil, threw aside the agreement which the Queen's ministers had concluded with him against their will, thinking that he no longer required it, since the right heir had ascended the throne. The people seemed willing to espouse the cause of the new King as that of the native head of their race, and a genealogy was concocted in which his descent was traced to the old Milesian kings. The whole circuit of the British Isles was united under the name of Stuart. As a hundred years before the last great province of France had been gradually united to the French crown, and even within human memory Portugal, like the other provinces of the Spanish peninsula, had been added to the crown of Spain, so now a united Britain was formed side by side with these two great powers. James himself noticed the resemblance, and a proud feeling of self-confidence filled his breast, when he reflected that the change had been made without the help of arms, as if by the force of the internal necessity of things. Just as formerly the claim to universal supremacy together with the spread of the Church had greatly increased the importance of the Papacy, so now the claim to hereditary right possessed by James seemed to him of immeasurable value, for by it he had won so great and coveted a prize: it appeared to him the expression of the will of God.

Surprise might be felt that France, which for several centuries had exercised a ruling influence on Scotland, and which in this union of the two crowns might have seen a disadvantage if not a danger for herself, allowed it to take place without obstruction. This conduct may be explained principally by the violent opposition which existed between Henry IV and Spain even after the peace of Vervins, and by the hostile influence incessantly exercised by that power upon the internal relations of his kingdom, in the pacification of which he was still engaged. It would have been dangerous for Henry himself to revive the hatred between England and Scotland, which could only have redounded to the advantage of his foes.

James I however did not intend, and could not be expected to occupy exactly the same position as his predecessor. If he had adopted her views, yet this was a compliance exacted from him by a regard to the succession: he had felt that it was wrung from him. It is intelligible, and he did not attempt to disguise the fact, that he felt the death of Elizabeth to be in some sense his emancipation. He avoided appearing at her obsequies; every word showed that he did not love to recall her memory. In London people thought to please him by getting rid of the likenesses of the glorious Queen, and replacing them by those of his mother. The first matter which was submitted to him whilst still in Scotland, and which engaged him on the journey and immediately after his arrival, was the question whether he should proceed with the war which Elizabeth had planned; whether in fact he should continue her general policy. Henry IV sent without delay one of his most distinguished statesmen, who was moreover a Protestant, Maximilian de Bethune, Duke of Sully, as Ambassador Extraordinary; and Sully did not neglect to explain to the King the plan of an alliance between the States of Europe under the lead of France, that should be able to cope with the Austro-Spanish power, a plan which Sully had entertained all his life. James gave the ambassador, as he wished, a private audience in a retired chamber of his palace at Greenwich, asked many questions, and listened with attention, for he loved far-reaching schemes; but he was far from intending to embark on them. As he had reached the throne without arms, so he wished to maintain himself there by peaceful means.[316] It was natural that the Queen, who had been excommunicated by the Pope, and had carried on a war for life and death with the Spanish crown, should have intended to renew the struggle with all her might: such designs suited her personal position; but his own was different. Deeply penetrated by the idea of legitimacy, he even hesitated whether he should support the Netherlanders, who after all, in his judgment, were only rebels. To the remark that it would be a loss for England herself if the taking of Ostend, then besieged by the Spaniards, were not prevented, he replied by asking unconcernedly whether this place had not belonged in former times to the Spanish crown, and whether the English trade had not flourished there for all that. In these first moments of his reign however the difficulties of his government were already brought into view, together with the opposition between different tendencies latent in it. If he was unwilling to continue the policy of his predecessor, yet he could not absolutely renounce it: there were pledges which he could not break, interests which he could not neglect. In order to meet his objections the argument employed by Elizabeth was adduced, that she supported the Provinces only because the agreements, in virtue of which they had submitted themselves to the house of Burgundy, had been first broken by the other side.[317] The King's tone of mind was such that this argument may well have had an effect upon him. At last he consented to bestow further assistance, although only indirectly. He conceded that one half of the sum which Henry IV paid to the States General should be subtracted from the demands which England had against France, and should be employed by the Netherlanders in recruiting in the English dominions. By this expedient he intended to satisfy the terms of the old alliance between England and the Provinces, and yet not be prevented from coming to an agreement with Spain.

The ambassador of the Archduke and the Infanta, the Duke of Aremberg, was already in the country, but he was afflicted with gout and somewhat averse to transact business in writing; and nothing more than general assurances of friendship were exchanged. In October 1603 one of the Spanish envoys, Don Juan de Tassis, Count of Mediana, made his appearance. Astonishment was created when, on his entrance into the hall where the assembled Court awaited him, he advanced into the middle of the room before he uncovered his head. He spoke Spanish; the King answered in English: an interpreter was required between them, although A.D. 1604. they were both masters of French. But however imperfect their communications were, they yet came to an understanding. The King and the ambassador agreed in holding that all grounds for hostility between Spain and England had disappeared with the death of Queen Elizabeth.

After a fresh and long delay—for the Spaniards would have preferred to transfer the conference to some town on the continent—negotiations were first seriously undertaken in May 1604, and then after all in England. The affairs of the Netherlands formed the principal subject of discussion.

The King of Spain demanded that the King of England should abstain from assisting his rebellious subjects. The English explained the reason why the United Netherlanders were not considered rebels. The Spaniards demanded that the fortresses at least, which the Provinces had formerly surrendered to the Queen as a security for the repayment of the loan made by her, should be restored to their lawful owner the King, who would not fail to repay the money advanced. King James answered that he was tied by the pledges of the Queen, and that he must maintain his word and honour.[318] The Spaniards on this started the proposal that the English on their part should break off their traffic with the United Provinces. The English replied that this would be most injurious to themselves. In these transactions James was mainly guided by the consideration that, if he decidedly threw off the Provinces, he would be giving them over into the hands of France, to the most serious injury of England, and without advantage to Spain. On this account principally he thought that he was obliged to maintain his previous relations with them. The English found a very characteristic reason for peace with Spain in the wish to restore their old commercial connexion with that country. The Spaniards were ready to make this concession, but only within the ancient limits, from which the trade with both the Indies was excluded. They argued that their government did not allow this even to all its own subjects; how then could foreigners be admitted to a share in it? Cecil on this remarked that England by its insular position was adapted for trading with the whole world, and could not possibly allow these regions to be closed against her; that she already had relations with countries on which no Spaniard had ever set foot, and that a wide field for further discoveries was still open. At no price would he allow his countrymen to be again excluded from America or the East Indies, to which countries they had just begun to extend their voyages.[319]

The peace which was at length brought about is remarkable for its indefiniteness. The English promised that they would not support the rebellious subjects and enemies of the King of Spain; and it was arranged that an unrestricted trade should again be opened with all countries, with which it had been carried on before the war. At the first glance this looked as if any further alliance with Holland, as well as the navigation to the Indies, was rendered impossible. The Venetian envoy once spoke with King James on the subject, who answered that it would soon be shown that this opinion was erroneous. In fact, as soon as the first ships returned from the East Indies, preparations were at once made for a second expedition. The States General were not interfered with in the enlistment which they had been allowed to begin; for it was maintained that they could not be included under the term rebellious subjects. The only difference made was that similar leave to enlist in the English dominions was granted to the Spaniards also, who for that purpose resorted especially to Ireland. In this way the peace exactly expressed the relations into which England was thrown by the change of government. James, who for his own part would have wished simply to renew the friendly relations which had formerly existed, found himself compelled to stipulate for exceptions owing to the form which the interests of England had now assumed. The Spaniards allowed them, because even on these terms the termination of the war was of the greatest advantage to them, and they did not surrender the hope of changing the peace into a full alliance later on, although their proposals to that effect were in the first instance declined.

And notwithstanding any ambiguity which might arise as to the scope of the treaty with regard to individual questions, the conclusion of peace was in itself of great importance: it implied a change of policy which created the greatest stir. It affected the United Provinces and filled them with anxiety, for in their judgment not only was the action of Spain against them no longer fettered, but the Spanish ambassador in England was sure in time by means of gold and intrigues to acquire an influence which must be fatal to them.

The King thought that he had achieved a great success. His intention was to be as fully acknowledged by the Catholic powers as by the Protestant; to occupy a neutral position between those who were favourable, and those who were opposed, to Spain, and to live in peace with all, without however losing sight of the interests of England. Men could not be blind to the correspondence between this policy and the general tendency of these times. From the epoch of the Absolution of Henry IV and the overthrow of the League, the separation between religious and political interests had begun. Men on either side no longer regarded the ascendancy of Spain as a support or as a danger to religion. The Spanish government itself under the guidance of the Duke of Lerma acquired a peaceful character. Thus King James was made happy by seeing embassies from the Catholic states arrive in England. Not until he stood between the two parties did he feel himself to be in truth a king, and to surpass his predecessor.

This sovereign assumed a similar attitude towards the Catholics of England as well. He could not vouchsafe to them a real toleration; but a few months after his arrival in England he actually carried out what he had already promised, an alleviation of those burdens which weighed most heavily on them. The most grievous was the fine collected every month from those who refused to take part in the Protestant service. James declared to an assemblage of leading Catholics, that he would not enforce this fine so long as they behaved quietly, and did not show contempt towards himself and the State. The Catholics reminded him that their absence from the service of the Church might be interpreted as contempt. He assured them that he would not regard it in this light. The fines, which in late years had amounted to more than £10,000, decreased in the year 1603 to £300, and in 1604 to £200. The King, like his predecessor, would not tolerate Jesuits and Seminarists, but he was content with their banishment; it would have been contrary to his temper to have had them executed. He sought to avoid all the consequences that must have been provoked by the hostility of this element which was still so powerful in the world at large and among his own subjects.

But even within the domain of Protestantism he was now encountered by a similar problem.

The investigation of the influence which the Scots and English have exercised on one another in the last few centuries would be a task of essential importance for the history of intellectual life; for in the development of the prevailing spirit of the nation the Scots as well as the English have had a large share. Even under Elizabeth these relations had begun to exist. The growth of English Puritanism especially, which had already given the Queen much trouble, must be regarded as but the dissemination of the forms and ideas that had arisen in the Church of Scotland. But how much stronger must the action of this cause have become now that a Scottish king had ascended the English throne! The union between two populations which so nearly resembled one another in their original composition, and in the direction taken by their religious development, could not be a merely territorial union: it must lead to the closest relation between the spirit of the two peoples.

It was natural from the state of the case, that on the accession of a Scottish king in England the English clergy who leaned to the Scottish system should embrace the hope of being emancipated to some extent from that strict subordination to their bishops which they endured with reluctance. On the first arrival of James, whilst he was still on his way to London, they laid before him an address signed by eight hundred of the clergy, in which they besought him, in accordance with God's word, to lighten the rigour of this jurisdiction and of their condition in general, and in the first place to allow them to set before him the feasibility of the alteration. They had nourished the hope that the King might be prevailed on to reduce the English episcopate to the level of the Scottish, in the shape in which he had just restored it.[320]

But the tendencies which the King brought with him out of Scotland ran in an altogether different direction. He had often been personally affronted by the Presbyterians: he hated their system; for in his opinion equality in the Church necessarily led to equality in the State. His intention was rather by degrees to develop further on the English model those beginnings of episcopacy which he had introduced into Scotland. In December 1603 he convened, as the Puritans wished, an assembly of the Church at Hampton Court, to which he also invited the leading men among the opponents of uniformity. But he opened the conference at once with a thanksgiving to Almighty God 'for bringing him into the promised land where religion was purely professed, where he sat among grave, learned, and reverend men, not, as before, elsewhere, a king without state, without honour, without order, where beardless boys would brave him to his face.' He declared that the government of the English Church had been approved by manifold blessings from God himself; and he said that he had not called this assembly in order to make innovations in the same, but in order to strengthen it by the removal of some abuses. In the conference which he opened he held the office of moderator himself. Certainly the suggestions of the Puritans were not altogether without result. When they expressed the wish to see the Sunday more strictly observed, to have a trustworthy and faithful translation of the Bible provided, and to have the Apocrypha excluded from the canonical scriptures, they met with a favourable reception; but the King would neither allow the confessions of faith to be tampered with, nor the ceremonies which had been brought under discussion to undergo the least diminution. He thought that they were older than the Papacy, that the decision of deeper questions of doctrine ought to be left to the discussion of the Universities, and that the articles of the faith would only be encumbered by them. And every limitation of episcopal authority he entirely refused to discuss. The bishops themselves were amazed at the zeal with which the King espoused the cause of ecclesiastical jurisdiction, and allowed their justification of it even on a point of great importance for the constitution, the imposition of the oath ex officio.[321] They even exclaimed that God had bestowed on them a king, the like of whom had not been seen from the beginning of the world. It had been the intention and custom of other princes to limit the jurisdiction of the clergy, and to diminish their possessions. How much had they suffered from this even under Elizabeth! On the contrary it was one of the first endeavours of James I to put an end for ever to these attacks. For as in Scotland the abolition of bishoprics had been attended with a diminution of the authority of the crown, he had reason to be deeply convinced of the identity of episcopal and monarchical interests. In the heat of the conference at Hampton Court he laid down as his principle, 'No bishop no king.'

But in all this did King James fall in with the spirit of the English constitution? Did he not rather at this point intrude into it the sharpness of his Scottish prejudices? The old statesmen of England had acknowledged the services of the English Puritans in saving the Protestant confession in the struggle with Catholicism. The Puritans only wished not to be oppressed. He confounded them altogether with their Scottish co-religionists with whom he had had to contend for the sovereignty of the realm.

In less than two months from the Hampton Court Conference the Book of Common Prayer was re-issued with some few alterations, with regard to which the King expressly stated that they were the only alterations which were to be expected; for that the safety of states consisted in clinging fast to what had been ordained after good consideration. This was soon followed by a new collection of ecclesiastical laws, in the shape which they had taken under the deliberations of Convocation. In them the royal supremacy was insisted on in the strongest terms, and that over the whole kingdom, Scotland included. The same competence with regard to the Church was therein assigned to the King which had belonged to the pious kings of Judah and to the earliest Christian emperors: their authority was declared to be second only to that of Heaven. Henceforward no one was to be ordained without promising to observe the Book of Common Prayer and to acknowledge the supremacy.[322] And this statute had a retrospective application, even to those who were already in possession of an ecclesiastical benefice. The King and Archbishop Bancroft ordered that a short respite should be given to those who were inclined to acquiesce; but that those who made a decided resistance should without further ceremony be deprived of their benefices.

On this the whole body of Puritans necessarily became agitated. A number of clergymen sought out the King at Royston in December 1604. While they announced to him their decision rather to resign their benefices than to submit to these ordinances, they called his attention to the danger to which the souls of the faithful would be subjected by this severity. In February a petition in favour of those ministers who refused to subscribe was presented to the King by some of the gentry of Northamptonshire. He expressed himself about this with great vehemence at a sitting of the Privy Council. He said that he had from his cradle suffered at the hands of these Puritans a persecution which would follow him to his grave. But in England the tribunals were quite ready to come to his assistance. In the Star Chamber it was declared a proceeding of seditious tendency to assail the King with joint petitions in a matter of religion.

Towards the end of February 1605 the bishops cited the clergy of Puritan views to appear at St. Paul's in London in order to take the oath. There were some members of this party who held it lawful to conform to the Anglican Church because it at least acknowledged the true doctrine. These had time for reflection given them; the rest who persevered in an opposition of principle were deprived of their offices without delay.

These proceedings for the first time recalled most vividly to men's minds the memory of the late Queen. People said that, though she disliked the Puritans, she had never consented to persecute them on religious grounds, for that she well knew how much she owed to them in every other respect. They saw a proof of the King's incapacity in his departure from her example and pattern. They thought him to blame for remitting in favour of Catholic recusants the execution of the penal laws enrolled among the statutes of the realm. And the foreign policy of the King awakened no less disapproval. It was felt as an injury, that he had put an end by the peace to the hostilities against Spain, which had now become even popular. Even the severe edicts issued against the piracy, which had found support in different quarters, produced in many places an unfavourable impression. The King was obliged to compensate the admiral for the losses which he affirmed that he had suffered in consequence.[323] And how much greater were the apprehensions for the future which were connected with this policy! It was remarked that he sacrificed the interests of religion and of the country to those of the Catholics and the Catholic powers.

But there was now an organ of political opposition in the country in which all these hostile feelings found their expression. The resentment of injured interests, the resistance of the Puritans, and the excitement of the capital, impressed themselves on the Parliament.

All previous governments had exercised a systematic influence upon the election of members of the Lower House, and had encroached on their freedom. When the first elections under King James were about to be held he declared himself against the exercise of any such influence. He ordered that the elections should be conducted with freedom and impartiality, without regard to the bidding of any one and without the interference of strangers; and that the electors should be allowed to return the most deserving candidates in each county. He thought that, as he avoided unpopular measures, men would voluntarily meet his wishes. It appeared to him sufficient, if, in issuing the writs, he coupled with them the admonition to avoid all party spirit, and especially to abstain from electing such as from blind superstition on the one hand, or from fickleness or restlessness on the other, wished to disturb the uniformity of religion.[324] But in politics personal gratitude is only a feeble motive. The elections followed the current of opinion which had been set in motion by the Hampton Court Conference. In the very first Parliament of King James many Puritans obtained entrance into the House: the new line which this Parliament struck out influenced the whole subsequent period.

The speech with which King James opened the session on the 19th of March 1604, immediately before the conclusion of the first year of his reign, has been often and often reproduced. It is full of the ideas with which his mind was principally occupied, of the union of both kingdoms in one great whole, and of the establishment of religious uniformity. He thought that in neither of the two kingdoms ought the memory of their special privileges to be kept alive, for they were pure monarchies from the first: no privilege could separate them from their head. He explicitly called the Puritans an ochlocratic sect.

It is extraordinary that, while he sought to win men's affections, it was his fortune to use expressions which were sure to provoke the strongest religious and political antipathies.

Parliament acknowledged his succession to be rightful and lawful, and granted to him, as to his predecessors, tonnage and poundage, i.e. the right of levying customs, for his life: it arranged according to his wishes for the withdrawal of many sentences which had been pronounced against his interest; but in other matters it offered him from the very first persistent opposition. Contrary to what might have been expected, the first point concerned the validity of the elections.

In Buckinghamshire the King's officers had annulled an election on the ground of illegality, and had held a second. The Lower House found that this was improper, on the ground that the right of deciding in matters concerning the election of representatives belonged from ancient times to the House of Commons alone. They declined to confer on this subject with the Privy Council, or with the Upper House. Ill-will and jealousy were excited against those of higher rank who had wished to bring one of their own party into the House of Commons, and the tempers of the members seemed to be becoming no little inflamed. At last, by the personal mediation of the King,[325] the Lower House was induced to allow both of the elected candidates to be unseated, and a third to be elected in their place. Even this it agreed to reluctantly; but it was at least its own resolution, and not the result of official influence: and the Speaker issued his writ for a new election. One of the foremost principles of parliamentary life, that the scrutiny of elections belonged to the Parliament alone, was in this manner indubitably established afresh.

Even his ideas on the union of the two kingdoms, which were nearest to his heart, were shared by few members of the Lower House; and he was obliged to raise the question by a new and urgent address. A commission of both Houses was indeed nominated to deliberate together with the Scots on the execution of the plan. The commission however was so numerous, and so large a number was required to be actually present for the transaction of business, that it was evident beforehand that no result would be achieved; especially as it was confidently to be expected that the Scots would appoint just as numerous a commission on their side.[326] And the King was already aware that the opposition against him was not confined to the Lower House, but in this matter at least was most widely diffused. The proclamation was already drawn up by which he intended to declare himself King of Great Britain. The judges were consulted by the Upper House, but their sentence favoured the view that this alteration could not take place without disadvantage to the State.

The grant of a subsidy was most urgently needed by the King, whose purse had been emptied by the expenses of taking possession and by his prodigality; but the tone of feeling was so unfavourable that he forbore to apply for it, as he would not expose himself to a refusal which was certain beforehand.

A petition in favour of some indulgence for the Puritans was drawn up in complete opposition to the King's views, although it seems not to have been carried through or sent in. A rigorous bill against the Jesuits and recusants on the other hand actually passed through the House. Lord Montague, who spoke against it, was brought before the House of Lords to answer for some expressions which he used on that occasion, and which savoured of Catholic principles.

It is quite clear that the very first Parliament of King James set itself systematically in opposition to him. He desired union, clemency to the Catholics, and punishment of the Puritans; and he required subsidies: on all these subjects an opposite view prevailed in Parliament. And the divergence was not confined to single points. The maintenance of that extended prerogative which had been once established, had been endured under a sovereign who was a native of the country, had deserved well of her subjects, and was thoroughly English in her sentiments. But similar pretensions appeared insufferable in a king of foreign birth, who pursued ideas that were British rather than English, or rather who had combined for himself a number of tendencies arising out of the position in which, grand as it was, he stood alone among English sovereigns. We perceive that by this time the notion had been definitely formed of reviving the rights of Parliament which had fallen into abeyance in the late reigns.[327] Even under the Tudors Parliament had exercised a very considerable influence, but had more or less submitted to the ruling powers. Under the new government it thought of winning back the authority which it had wrung from more than one Plantagenet, and had possessed under the house of Lancaster. Already members were heard to assert that the legislative power lay in their hands; and that, if the King refused to approve the laws for which they demanded his sanction, they would refuse him the subsidies which he needed.

And this resolution was strengthened by the ill-feeling which the treatment of the Puritan ministers excited. The Parliament had been adjourned from August 1604 until February 1605: but the King feared that these clergymen, who had been assailed just at that time, might apply to the Lower House in which so many Puritans had seats.[328] He therefore prorogued it afresh in the hope of getting rid A.D. 1605. of certain persons who were especially hostile, or of bringing them over to his own side.

Instead of this, new grievances were constantly accumulating. In the absence of regular subsidies the King helped himself to money by a voluntary loan, which gave great offence, and in this matter also led people to contrast the late Queen's conduct with that of James. She had, so people said, conducted the war in Spain, afforded help to the Netherlands, and maintained garrisons on the Scottish border, three measures which had cost her millions; of all this there was no mention under the present King. On the contrary he had additional revenues from Scotland; for what reason did he require extraordinary subsidies?[329] Men complained of his movements to and fro in the country, and of the harshness with which the right of the court to transport and cheap entertainment on these occasions was enforced; of his hunting, by which the tillage was injured; most of all, of his intended advancement of the Customs Duties, for this would damage trade and certainly would benefit only the great men who were interested in the farming of the Customs. The King had once thought of dissolving Parliament, but afterwards renounced the idea. As it was, when Parliament was summoned for November 1605, a stormy session lay before it, owing to the attack made by the Parliamentary and Puritan party upon the behaviour of the King in ecclesiastical and political questions, as well as upon the financial disorder which was gaining ground.

An event intervened which gave an entirely different direction to the course of affairs.

CHAPTER III.

THE GUNPOWDER PLOT AND ITS CONSEQUENCES.

Two men of rank, Markham and Brook, who had before held communications with him, and had cherished bright expectations, but found themselves passed over in the composition of the new government, now imagined that they might rise to the highest offices if they could succeed in detaching the King from those who surrounded him, and in getting him into their own hands, perhaps within the walls of the Tower or even in Dover Castle. They conspired for this object with some Catholic priests, who could not forgive the King for having deceived their expectations of a declaration of toleration at the commencement of his reign. They intended to call out so great a number of Catholics ready for action, that there could be no doubt of the successful issue of a coup-de-main. A priest was then to receive the Great Seal and above all things to issue an edict of toleration. We are reminded of the combination under Essex, when even some Puritans offered their assistance in an undertaking directed against the government. One of their leaders, Lord Grey de Wilton, a young man of high spirit and hope, was now induced to join the plot. But on this occasion the Catholics were the predominant element. The priests thought that the pretence of the necessity of supporting the King against the effect of a Puritan rising would best contribute to set the zealous Catholics in motion; and it is undeniable that other persons of high rank were also connected with these intrigues. The principal opponents of Cecil and his friends, whose hostile influence on Elizabeth had at an earlier A.D. 1603. period been feared by the minister, were Lord Cobham, the brother of Brook, and Sir Walter Ralegh. Cobham, who like most others had looked for the overthrow of Cecil on the accession of the King, fell into an ungovernable fit of disappointed ambition when Cecil was more strongly confirmed in his position; and his anger was directed against the King himself, from whom he now had nothing to expect, and who had brought with him a family which made the hope of any further alteration appear impossible. He had let fall the expression in public that the fox and his cubs must be destroyed at one blow. Negotiations, aiming at the renewal of the Lady Arabella's claims, had been opened with the ambassador of the Archduke, who then perhaps felt anxiety lest King James, under the influence of Cecil, should adhere to the policy of his predecessor. In order to effect a revolution, Cobham launched into extravagant schemes which embraced all Europe.

The affair might have been dangerous, if a man of the activity, weight, and intelligence of Walter Ralegh had taken part in it. Ralegh does not deny that Cobham had spoken to him on the subject, but he affirms that he had not heeded the idle words, and had even forgotten them again:[330] and in fact nothing has been brought to light which proves his complicity, or even his remote participation, in this plot. Still without doubt he was among the opponents of the government. If it is true, as people say, that he made an attempt by means of a letter to the King to procure the fall of Cecil, it is easily conceivable that the latter and his friends availed themselves of every opportunity to involve him in the accusation. Ralegh defended himself with so much courage and vigour, that the listeners who had come wishing to see him condemned went away with a tenfold stronger desire that he might be acquitted. He himself did not deny that he might be condemned by the cruel laws of England: he reminded the King however of a passage in the old statutes, in which for that very reason mercy and pity were recommended to him. The accused were all condemned. Brook and the priests paid the penalty of death: Markham, Cobham, and Grey were reprieved when they were already standing on the scaffold—reprieved moreover by an autograph mandate of James, which was entirely due to an unexpected resolution of the King, who wished to shine by showing mercy as well as by severity. The first of these lived henceforward in exile: the second continued to live in England, but weighed down by his disgrace: Grey and Walter Ralegh were imprisoned in the Tower. We shall meet with Ralegh once more: he never lost sight of the world, nor the world of him.

This conspiracy which, although wrongly as we have seen, bears the name of Ralegh, was an attempt to put an end in some way or other to the government, in the shape in which it had been erected by the union of English statesmen with the Scottish King. Its movers wished to effect this object by getting rid either of the statesmen, or even of the King himself. But on the contrary they only succeeded in establishing the government so much the more firmly; and it then under the joint influence of both its components entered on the course which we have described. But if it was so seriously endangered at its commencement, its progress also could not be free from hostile attacks. The Puritans threw themselves into the ranks of the Parliamentary Opposition. The Catholics were brought into a most singular position.

In public they found themselves far better off under James than they had been under Elizabeth. Far greater scope was allowed to the local influence of Catholic magnates in protecting their co-religionists. The penal laws, which as regards pecuniary payments were virtually abolished, were moreover no longer vigorously enforced in any other respect. Not only were the chapels of the Catholic ambassadors in the capital numerously attended, but in some provinces, especially in Wales, Catholic sermons were known to be delivered in the open air, and attended by thousands of hearers.[331] At times the opinion revived that the King was inclined to go A.D. 1604. over to Catholicism. He repudiated the supposition with some show of indignation. But, as we stated, the Queen incontestably sympathised with the Papacy. She even refrained from attending the Anglican service, and formed relations with the Nuncio in Paris, from whom she received communications and presents. Though Pope Clement on a former occasion had issued breves which made the obedience of Catholics to a new government dependent on the profession of Catholicism by the sovereign, yet these were virtually recalled by a later issue. When the English ambassador in Paris complained to the Nuncio there of the above-mentioned participation of Catholic priests in a conspiracy against the King, the Nuncio laid before him a letter of the Pope's nephew, Cardinal Aldobrandini, in which he declared it to be the Pope's pleasure that the Catholics in England should be obedient to their king, and should pray for him.[332] Thus it exactly fell in with the King's views to be a Protestant, as was absolutely necessary for his authority in England and Scotland, and yet at the same time not to have the Catholics against him, and to be able to reckon the Pope of Rome among his friends.

It is evident that this state of affairs, as it was inconsistent with the laws of England, could not be permanently maintained. Even men of moderate views in other respects disapproved the middle course taken by the King: for they thought it necessary to concede nothing to the adherents of the Papacy, if they were to be saved from the necessity of conceding everything. The Catholics desired a public declaration of toleration. But this could only have emanated from Parliament: the King had not the courage, and his ministers had not the wish, to make a serious proposal to that effect. On the contrary, when the Protestant spirit of the capital displayed itself so unmistakably in consequence of the severities with which the Puritans were threatened, the King and his Privy Council, while affirming that they were merely executing the laws, announced their intention of introducing a like severity in the treatment of the Catholics. James I appeared to feel himself insulted if any one threw a doubt on his wish to allow the laws to operate in both directions. And as the Parliament which was so zealously Protestant was expected to reassemble in the autumn of 1605, the laws against the Catholics began to be applied without forbearance. A renewed persecution was first set on foot against the priests, who it is true were not punished with death, at least in the vicinity of the Court, but were thrown into prison, where they not infrequently succumbed to the rough treatment which they had undergone. But even the laity daily suffered more and more from the violence of the spies who forced their way into their houses. They complained loudly and bitterly of the insecurity of their position, which had already gone so far that often no tenants could be found for their farms; and they considered that the least evil, for to-day they lost their possessions, to-morrow they would lose their freedom, and the day after their life.[333] There had now for a long time been two parties among them, one of which submitted to what was inevitable, while the other offered a violent resistance. With the fresh increase of oppression, the latter party obtained the upper hand. They mocked at the hope, in which men indulged themselves, of a change of religion on the part of the King, who on the contrary was in their view an irreclaimable Protestant, and assumed an air of clemency to the Catholics, only to draw the rein tighter hereafter. A brief from the Pope exhorted them to acquiesce: but even the Pope could not persuade them to allow themselves to be sacrificed without further ceremony. Some of the most resolute once more applied to the Spanish court at this time as they had done before. But in that quarter not only had peace been concluded, but the hope of effecting a close alliance with England had been conceived. A deaf ear was turned to all their applications.

While they were thus hard pressed and desperate, the thought of helping themselves had, if not originated, at least ripened, in the breast of one or two of the boldest of them. They conceived a plan which in savage recklessness surpassed anything which was devised in this epoch so full of conspiracies.

Among the families which sheltered the mission-priests on their arrival in England, and who were moved by them to throw off their reserve in the profession of Catholicism, the Treshams and Catesbys were especially prominent in Northamptonshire. They belonged to the wealthiest and most important families in that county; and the penal laws had borne upon them with especial severity. The Winters of Huddington, who also were very zealous Catholics, were related to them. It is easy to understand, how the young men who were growing up in this family, such as Thomas Winter and Robert Catesby, acknowledging no duty to the Protestant government, retorted the oppression which they experienced from it with bold resistance and schemes of violence. In these they were joined by two brothers of the same way of thinking, John and Christopher Wright, stout and soldier-like men, belonging to a family which came originally from York. They all participated in the attempt of the Earl of Essex, for above all things they were eager for the overthrow of the existing government: and Robert Catesby was set at liberty only on payment of a heavy fine, which he could hardly raise by the sale of one of the most productive of the family estates. They were among those who, when Queen Elizabeth lay on her death-bed, proclaimed most loudly their desire for a thorough change, and were arrested in consequence.[334] They had expected toleration at least from the new government: as this was not granted them they set to work at once on new schemes of insurrection. Christopher Wright was one of those who had invited Philip III to support the Catholics. When the Constable of Castile came to Flanders to negotiate the peace, Thomas Winter visited him in order to lay their wish before him. Though they met with a refusal from him as well as from his master they found nevertheless a support which was independent of the approval of individuals. In the archducal Netherlands a combination of a peculiar kind, favourable to their views, had been formed, in consequence of the permission to recruit in the British dominions, which by the terms of the peace had been granted to Spain as well as to the Netherlands. An English regiment, about fifteen hundred strong, had been raised, in which the chaplains were all Jesuit fathers; and no officers were admitted but those who were entirely devoted to them. An English Jesuit named Baldwin, and a soldier of the same opinions, Owen by name, were the leading spirits among them. There was here, so to speak, a school of soldiers side by side with a school of priests, in which every act of the English government provoked slander, malediction, and schemes of opposition. Pope Clement was blamed for not threatening James with excommunication as Elizabeth had formerly been threatened; and the necessity for violent means of redress was canvassed without disguise. These views were repeated in congenial circles in Paris and reacted also upon their friends in England. Robert Catesby had been most active in the enlistment of the regiment. Christopher Wright on his journey to Spain was attended by one of the most resolute officers of this regiment, Guy Fawkes. The latter returned with Winter to England, and was pointed out by Owen as a man admirably qualified to conduct the horrible undertaking which was being prepared for execution. It must remain a question in whose head the thought of proceeding to it at this moment originated: we only know that Catesby first communicated it to another, and then with the aid of this comrade to the rest of the band. To this another member had been added, who was connected, if only in a remote degree, with one of the most distinguished families among the English nobility. I refer to Thomas Percy, a kinsman of the Earl of Northumberland, who through his influence had once received a place in the court establishment of King James of Scotland, and had then been the medium for forming a connexion between this prince and the Catholics. He was enraged because the assurances which he then thought that he might make to the Catholics in the name of the King, had not been fulfilled by the latter. In the spring of 1604, just at the time when the peace between England and Spain was concluded, by which no stipulations were made for the Catholics, they met one day in a lonely house near S. Clement's Inn, and bound themselves by a sacred and solemn oath to inviolable secrecy. It had been their intention once more to submit to the assembled Parliament an urgent petition in the name of the Catholics: but the resolutions of the House had sufficed to convince them that nothing could be gained by this step. Quite the contrary: it was apparent that the next session would impose far heavier conditions on them. An attack on the person of the King, or of his ministers, in the shape in which it had so often been resolved upon, could not do much even if it were successful: for the Parliament was always in reserve with its Protestant majority to establish anti-Catholic statutes, and the judges to execute them. Catesby now disclosed a plan which comprehended all their opponents at once. The King himself and his eldest son, the officers of state and of the court, the lords spiritual and temporal, the members of the House of Commons, one and all at the moment when they were collected to reopen Parliament, were to be blown into the air with gunpowder in the hall where they assembled—there where they issued the detested laws were they to be annihilated; vengeance was to be taken on them at the same time that room was to be made for another order of things in Church and State.

This project was not altogether new. Already under Elizabeth there had been a talk of doing again to her what Bothwell had done or attempted to do to Henry Darnley: but men had perceived even at that time that this would not conduce to their purpose, and had hit upon a plan of blowing the Queen and her Parliament into the air together. Henry Garnet, the superior of the Jesuits, had been consulted on the subject; and he had declared the enterprise lawful, and had only advised them to spare as many of the innocent as possible in its execution.[335] The scheme which had been started under Elizabeth was resumed under King James, when men saw that his accession to the throne did not produce the hoped-for change. On this occasion also scruples were felt on the ground that many a Catholic would perish at the same time. To a question on the subject submitted to him without closer description of the case Garnet answered in the spirit of a mufti delivering his fettah, that if an end were indubitably a good one, and could be accomplished in no other way, it was lawful to destroy even some of the innocent with the guilty.[336] Catesby had no compassion even for the innocent: he regarded the lords generally as only poltroons and atheists, whose place would be better filled by vigorous men.

Without delay, before the end of December 1604, the conspirators proceeded to make their preparations. Percy, who was still numbered among the retainers of the court, hired a house which adjoined the Houses of Parliament. They were attempting to carry a mine through the foundation walls of that building—a design that says more for their zeal than for their intelligence, and one which could hardly have been effected—when a vault immediately under the House of Lords happened to fall vacant, and, as they were able to hire it, offered them a far better opportunity for the execution of their scheme. They filled it with a number of powder-barrels which are said to have contained the enormous quantity of 9,000 pounds of powder, and they confidently expected to bring about the great catastrophe with all its horrors on November 5, 1605, the day which after many changes had been appointed for the opening of Parliament. Their intention was, as soon as the King and the Prince of Wales had perished, to gain possession of the younger prince or of the princess, and to place one or other on the throne, with A.D. 1605. a regency under a protector during their minority.[337] All preparations had been made for bringing an effective force into the field; and its principal leaders were to assemble at Dunchurch in Warwickshire under pretence of hunting. The English regiment in Flanders was to be brought over and was to serve as the nucleus of a new force. There is no doubt that Owen was thoroughly conversant with their plans. Many other trustworthy people were admitted into the secret, and supported the project with their money. One of these was sent to Rome in order to convince the Pope of the necessity of the undertaking and to move him to resolutions in support of it. On All Saints' Day Father Garnet interrupted his prayer with a hymn of praise for the deliverance of the inheritance of the faithful from the generation of the ungodly.

But warnings had already come to the government, especially from Paris, where the priests of the Jesuit party ventured to express themselves still more plainly than in London. The warning was conveyed with the express intimation that 'somewhat is at present in hand among these desperate hypocrites.'[338] What an impression must now have been produced when one of the Catholic lords, who at an earlier period had followed this party, but had for some time withdrawn from it, Lord Mounteagle, communicated to the first minister a letter in which he was admonished in mysterious language to hold aloof from the opening of Parliament. It may be that the King, as he himself relates, in deciphering the sense of a word hit upon the supposition that a fate similar to that of his father was being prepared for him; or it may be that the ministers had, as they affirm, come upon the traces of the matter; but however this may have been, on the evening before the opening of Parliament the vaults were examined, when not only were the powder-barrels found among wood and faggots, but also one of the conspirators, Guy Fawkes, who was busy with the last preparations for the execution of the plot. With a smiling countenance he confessed his purpose, which he seemed to regard as the fulfilment of a religious duty. The pedantic monarch thought himself in the presence of a fanatical Mutius Scaevola.

The rest of the conspirators who were in London, alarmed by the discovery, hastened to the appointed rendezvous at Dunchurch; but the news which they brought with them caused general discouragement. With a band of about one hundred men, they set off to make their escape to Wales, the home of most of the Catholics, hoping to receive the promised reinforcements and the support of the population on their way. They once actually attempted to assure themselves of the latter; but on declaring that they were for God and the country, they received the answer that they ought also to be for the King. No one joined them, and many of their comrades had already dispersed when they were overtaken at Holbeach by the armed bands of Worcestershire under the Sheriff. Percy and Catesby, as they stood back to back, were shot dead by two balls from the same musket; the two Wrights were killed, and Thomas Winter taken prisoner.[339]

The authority of government triumphed over this most frantic attempt to break through it, as it had triumphed in every similar case since the time of Henry VII.

It was perhaps the most remarkable feature in this last, that it was directed especially against the Parliament. During the Wars of the Roses, it had only been necessary to drive the then reigning prince out of the field, or to chase him away, in order to create a new parliamentary rule. The attempts against Queen Elizabeth rested on the hope of producing a similar result by her death: but it was apparent in her last years that her death would be useless, and the comparatively free elections after that event returned a Parliament of the same character as the preceding. Even under the new reign the Protestant party secured their ascendancy in the elections; and the only possibility of an alteration for the future was to be found in the annihilation of the Parliament, not so much of the institution—at least this was not mooted—but of the men A.D. 1606. who composed it and gave it its character. The violent attempt on the Parliament is a proof of its power. The Gunpowder Plot was directed against the King, not in his personal capacity as monarch, but as head of the legislative authority. It was felt that this power itself with all its component parts must be destroyed without scruple or mercy, if an order of things in the State corresponding to the views of the hierarchical party was ever again to obtain a footing.

The necessary and inevitable result of the conspiracy was that Parliament, which did not enter on the session until January 1606, still further increased the existing severity of its laws. The great body of Catholics had not in any way participated in the plot; but yet, as it had originated among them, and was intended for the redress of their common grievances, they were all affected by the reaction which it produced. The Catholic recusants were to be subjected to the former penalties: they were sentenced to exclusion from the palace and from the capital; they were forbidden to hold any appointment in the public service either in the administration of justice, or as government officials, or even as physicians; they were obliged to open their houses at any moment for examination; the solemnisation of their marriages and the baptism of their children were henceforth to be legal only if performed by Protestant clergymen. It is evident that the Papal See would have preferred to restrain the agitation of the Catholics at this juncture; but as the latter appealed to the principle which had been impressed on them by their missionaries, that men had no duties to a king who was a heretic, the Parliament thought it necessary to impose on them an oath which concerned the authority of their Church as well as that of the State. Not only were they to be compelled to acknowledge the King as their legitimate prince, to defend him against every conspiracy and every attack, even when made under the pretext of religion, and to promise to reveal any such to him; they must also renounce the doctrine that the authority of the Church gave the Pope the right of deposing a king, and absolving his subjects from their oath of allegiance; and they must condemn as impious and heretical the doctrine that princes excommunicated by the Pope could be dethroned or put to death by their subjects.[340] Attention was directed to the English regiment in the service of the Archduke; and it was thought dangerous that so many malcontents should be assembled there, and should practise the use of arms, in order perhaps to turn them some day against their country. It was enacted that the Oath of Supremacy should be imposed on every one who took service abroad before his departure, with a pledge that he would not be reconciled to the Papacy: even securities for the observance of the oath were to be exacted.