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1625

and charac

ter

CHARACTER OF JAMES.

315

in constitution, he was taken away from a world which he had almost ceased even to attempt to guide. The last years of his life had not been happy; nor was the promise of the future brighter. He had raised expectations which it would be impossible to satisfy, and it was certain that any credit which might accrue to him would be attributed by the popular voice to others than himself. It is but just to

ascribe to him a desire to act rightly, to see justice done to all, to direct his subjects in the ways of peace and concord, and to prevent religion from being used as a cloak for polemical bitterness and hatred. But he had too little tact, and too unbounded confidence in his own not inconsiderable powers, to make a successful ruler, whilst his constitutional incapacity for taking trouble in thought or action gave him up as an easy prey to the passing feelings of the hour, or to the persuasion of others who were less enlightened or less disinterested than himself. His own ideas were usually shrewd ; and it is something to say of him that if they had been realised both England and Europe would have been in far better condition than they were. The Pacification of Ireland and the effort which he made to effect a more perfect union with Scotland were the acts which did him most credit. If in late years his attempts at putting an end to the war in Germany had covered him with ridicule, and if his efforts to form a great Continental alliance as the basis of war seemed likely to end in failure, it was not because his views were either unwise or unjust, but because either the obstacles in his way were too great, or he was himself deficient in the vigour and resolution which alone would have enabled him to overcome them. Keenness of insight into the fluctuating conditions of success, and firmness of will to contend against difficulties in his path, were not amongst the qualities of James.

His funeral.

The irony of flattery which in his lifetime had named him the British Solomon, was continued after his death. Williams, to whom the best points of the late King appeared so admirable, in contrast with the rash, headstrong violence of his successor, proclaimed in his funeral sermon the comparison between James and the wisest of the Hebrew kings.

Either by the wish of Charles or by James's own desire, the body of the first of the Scottish line in England was not to lie apart, as Elizabeth lay in her own glory. The vault in which reposed the remains of Henry VII. and Elizabeth of York was opened, and the occupants of the tomb were thrust aside, to make room for the coffin in which was the body of him who was proud of being their descendant. To unite England and Scotland in peace justly seemed to James to be as great an achievement as to unite the rights of York and Lancaster, and to close the long epoch of civil war. The comparison which was thus invited could not but bear hardly upon the memory of the late sovereign. Henry, by his mingled vigour and prudence, laid the foundation of the strong monarchy of the Tudors; James sowed the seeds of revolution and disaster.1

'There is an account of the opening of the tomb in Dean Stanley's Memorials of Westminster Abbey. Curiously enough, James was defied even in the tomb. Close by the coffin of the author of the Counterblast to Tobacco was found a pipe, probably dropped by a workman

CHAPTER LL

MILITARY AND DIPLOMATIC PROJECTS OF THE NEW REIGN.

THE news that Charles had taken his father's place was received with general satisfaction. "The joy of the people," as a conMarch 27. temporary expressed it, "devoured their mourning."

General satisfaction with the

new reign.

Of the character of the new King, silent and reserved as he was, little was known, and still less had reached the public ear of his questionable proceedings in the negotiation of the marriage treaty. It was enough that, ever since his return from Madrid, he had been the consistent advocate of war with Spain.

Ville-aux-
Clercs'

When Ville-aux-Clercs went back to France with the marriage treaty, Richelieu asked him what he thought of Charles, "He is either an extraordinary man," was the shrewd reply, "or his talents are very mean. If his reticence Charles. is affected in order not to give jealousy to his father, it is a sign of consummate prudence. If it is natural and unassumed, the contrary inference may be drawn." 2

opinion of

cence.

The extreme reserve of the young King was doubtless closely connected with that want of imaginative power which His reti- lay at the root of his faults. With all his confidence in his own thoughts, he failed to give to his ideas an expression which was satisfactory to others or even to himself. He did not like to be contradicted, and his father's rapid utterance had swept away his slow conceptions as with a torrent before he could find out what he really meant to say. Tilman to D'Ewes, April 8, Ellis, ser. 2, iii. 243. 2 Mémoires de Brienne, i. 399.

The man who is too vain to bear contradiction and not sufficiently brilliant or wise to overpower it, must of necessity take refuge in silence.

His defects as a ruler

1

Unfortunately the defect which hindered Charles from being a good talker hindered him also from being a good ruler. The firm convictions of his mind were alike proof against arguments which he was unable to understand, and unalterable by the impression of passing events, which slipped by him unnoticed. The wisest of men, the most decisive of facts, were no more to him than the whistling of the storm is to the man who is seated by a warm fireside. They passed him by ; or, if he heeded them at all, it was only to wonder that they did not conform to his own beneficent intentions. “I cannot,” he said on one occasion, “defend a bad, nor yield in a good cause." Conscious of the purity of his own motives, he never ceased to divide mankind into two simple classes-into those who agreed with him, and those who did not; into sheep to be cherished, and goats to be rejected. Such narrowness of view was no guarantee for fixity of purpose. When the moment came at last for the realities of life to break through the artificial atmosphere in which he had been living, when forms unknown and unimagined before crowded on his bewildered vision, it was too late to gain knowledge the acquisition of which had been so long deferred, or to exercise that strength of will which is only to be found where there is intelligent perception of the danger to be faced.

How far he

The same explanation will probably in a great measure account for the special fault which has, more than any other, cost Charles the respect of posterity. The truthful man must be able to image forth in his own mind the impression his engagements leave upon those with whom they were was untruth- made; and must either keep them in the sense in which they are understood by others, or must openly and candidly show cause why it is wrong or impossible so to keep them. The way in which Charles gave and broke his promises was the very reverse of this. He looked too much

ful.

Laud's Diary, Feb. 1, 1623.

1625

CHARACTER OF CHARLES.

319

into his own mind, too little into the minds of those with whom he was bargaining. When he entered into an engagement he either formed no clear conception of the circumstances under which he would be called upon to fulfil it, or he remembered too clearly this or that consideration which would render his promise illusory, or would at least, if it had been spoken out, have prevented those with whom he was dealing from accepting his word. When the time came for him to fulfil an engagement he could think of nothing but the limitations with which he had surrounded it, or with which he fancied that he had surrounded it, when his word had been given. Sometimes he went still farther, apparently thinking that it was lawful to use deception as a weapon against those who had no right to know the truth.

Beginning of

the new

reign.

March 28. The Privy Council.

Of the defects in Charles's character, the nation was as yet profoundly ignorant. All that was known of him was to his advantage. James died a little before noon. After some hours spent in private, the young King-he was but in his twenty-fifth year-came up from Theobalds to St. James's. The next morning he gave orders that all his father's officers of state should retain their places. With the exception of the Catholic lords, Wotton and Baltimore, who were excluded, the new Privy Council was therefore identical with that which had existed at the close of the last reign. For though the names of Suffolk, Wallingford, Middlesex, Bristol, and Bacon were also removed, those who bore them had long ceased to appear at the board. The only addition to the number was Sir Humphrey May, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, a man of some ability and of a very conciliatory disposition.1

The remainder of the week was passed by Charles in seclusion at St. James's. Buckingham, who was alone admitted to Charles and share his privacy, 'lay' on the 'first night of the Buckingham. reign in the King's bedchamber, and three nights. after in the next lodgings.'2 There is nothing to show that

1 Proceedings of the Privy Council, March 28; Chamberlain to Car. leton, April 9, S. P. Dom. i. 5, 46. Council Register, March 29. 2 Neve to Hollonde, April 5, Court and Times, i. 3.

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