And to secure the succession to the crown of England. papists that he would connive at them. A letter was also writ to the pope by him, giving assurance of this, which when it came to be published by Bellarmin, upon the prosecution of the recusants after the discovery of the gunpowder plot, Balmerinoch did affirm, that he out of zeal to the king's service got his hand to it, having put it in the bundle of papers that were signed in course, without the king's knowing any thing of it. Yet when that discovery drew no other severity, but the turning him out of office, and the passing a sentence condemning him to die for it, (which was presently pardoned, and he was after a short confinement restored to his liberty,) all men believed that the king knew of the letter, and that the pretended confession of the secretary was only collusion to lay the jealousies of the king's favouring popery, which still hung upon him, notwithstanding his writing on the Revelation, and his affecting to enter on all occasions into controversy, asserting in particular that the pope was antichrist. As he took these methods to manage the popish party, he was much more careful to secure to himself the body of the English nation. Cecil, afterwards earl of Salisbury, secretary to queen Elizabeth, entered into a particular confidence with him: and this was managed by his ambassador Bruce a, younger brother of a noble family in Scotland, who carried the matter with such address and secrecy, that all the great men of England, without knowing 9 of one another's doing it, and without the queen's suspecting any thing concerning it, signed in writing an engagement to assert and stand by the king of Scots right of succession. This great service was rewarded by making him master of the rolls, and a peer of Scotland: and as the king did raise Cecil and his friends to the greatest posts and dignities, so he raised Bruce's family here in England. errors in ment. When that king came to the crown of England That king's he discovered his hatred to the Scotish kirk on governmany occasions, in which he gratified his resentment without consulting his interests. He ought to have put his utmost strength to the finishing what he but faintly begun for the union of both kingdoms, which was lost by his unreasonable partiality in pretending that Scotland ought to be considered in this union as the third part of the isle of Great Britain, if not more. So high a demand ruined the design. But when that failed, he should then have studied to keep the affections of that nation firm to him: and certainly he, being secure of that kingdom, might have so managed matters, as to have prevented that disjointing which happened afterwards both in his own reign, and more tragically in his son's. He thought to effect this by his profuse bounty to many of the nobility of that kingdom, and to his domestic servants: but as most of these e The earl of Seafield told me that king James frequently declared that he never looked upon himself to be more than king of Scotland in name, till he came to be king of England; but now, he said, one kingdom D. He set up episcopacy settling in England were of no further use to him in that design, so his setting up episcopacy in Scotland, and his constant aversion to the kirk, how right soever it might be in it self, was a great error in policy; for the poorer that kingdom was, it was both the more easy to gain them, and the more dangerous to offend them. So the terror which the affections of the Scotch nation might have justly given the English was soon lost, by his engaging the whole government to support that which was then very contrary to the bent and genius of the nation. But though he set up bishops, he had no revenues in Scotland. to give them, but what he was to purchase for them. During his minority, all the tithes and the church lands were vested in the crown: but this was only in order to the granting them away to the men that bore the chief sway. It is true, when he came of age, he, according to the law of Scotland, past a general revocation of all that had been done in his infancy and by this he could have resumed all those grants. He, and after him his son, succeeded in one part of his design: for by act of parliament a court was erected that was to examine and sequester a third part of the tithes in every parish, and so make a competent provision out of them to 10 those who served the cure; which had been reserved in the great alienation for the service of the church. This was carried at first to a proportion of about thirty pounds a year, and was afterwards in his son's time raised to about fifty pounds a year; which, considering the plenty, and way of living in that country, is a very liberal provision, and is equal in (Scotch pounds, I suppose. S. value to thrice that sum in the southern parts of England. In this he had both the clergy and the body of the people on his side. But he could not so easily provide for the bishops: they were at first forced to hold their former cures with some small addition. sign to car farther. But as they assumed at their first setting up little with a demore authority than that of a constant president of ry matters the presbyters, so they met with much rough opposition. The king intended to carry on a conformity in matters of religion with England, and he begun to buy in from the grantees many of the estates that belonged to the bishoprics. It was also enacted, that a form of prayer should be drawn for Scotland: and the king was authorized to appoint the habits in which the divine offices were to be performed. Some of the chief holydays were ordered to be observed. The sacrament was to be received kneeling, and to be given to the sick. Confirmation was enacted; as also the use of the cross in baptism. These things were first past in general assemblies, which were composed of bishops and the deputies chosen by the clergy, who sat all in one house and in it they reckoned the bishops only as single votes. Great opposition was made to all these steps: and the whole force of the government was strained to carry elections to those meetings, or to take off those who were chosen; in which it was thought that no sort of practice was omitted. It was pretended, that some were frighted, and others were corrupted. the bishops, The bishops themselves did their part very ill. Errors of They generally grew haughty: they neglected their functions, and were often at court, and lost all Prince Henry was esteem with the people. Some few that were stricter and more learned did lean so grossly to popery, that the heat and violence of the reformation became the main subject of their sermons and discourses. King James grew weary of this opposition, or was so apprehensive of the ill effects that it might have, that, what through sloth or fear, and what by reason of the great disorder into which his ill conduct brought his affairs in England in his latter years, he went no further in his designs on Scotland. He had three children. His eldest, prince Henry, believed to was a prince of great hopes; but so very little like his father, that he was rather feared than loved by 11 him. He was so zealous a protestant, that, when his father was entertaining propositions of marrying him to popish princesses, once to the archduchess, and at another time to a daughter of Savoy, he in a letter that he wrote to the king on the twelfth of that October in which he died, (the original of which sir William Cook shewed me,) desired, that if his father married him that way, it might be with the youngest person of the two, of whose conversion he might have hope, and that any liberty she might be allowed for her religion might be in the privatest manner possible. Whether this aversion to popery hastened his death or not, I cannot tell 8. Colonel Titus assured me that he had from king Charles If he was poisoned by the earl of Somerset, it was not upon the account of religion, but for making love to the countess of Essex; and that was what the lord chief justice Coke meant, when he said at the earl of Somerset's trial, "God knows "what went with the good "prince Henry, but I have "heard something." D. h Titus was the greatest rogue in England. S. |