the first's own mouth, that he was well assured he was poisoned by the earl of Somerset's means. It is certain, that from the time of the gunpowder plot, king James was so struck with the terror of that danger he was then so near, that ever after he had no mind to provoke the Jesuits; for he saw what they were capable of.

powder

And since I name that conspiracy which the pa- The gun. pists in our days have had the impudence to deny, plot. and to pretend it was an artifice of Cecil's to engage some desperate men into a plot, which he managed so that he could discover it when he pleased, I will mention what I my self saw, and had for some time in my possession. Sir Everard Digby died for being of the conspiracy: he was the father of the famous sir Kenelm Digby. The family being ruined upon the death of sir Kenelm's son, when the executors were looking out for writings to make out the titles of the estates they were to sell, they were directed by an old servant to a cupboard that was very artificially hid, in which some papers lay, that she had observed sir Kenelm was oft reading. They looking into it found a velvet bag, within which there were two other silk bags: (so carefully were those relics kept :) and there was within these a collection of all the letters that sir Everard writ during his imprisonment. In these he expresses great trouble, because he heard some of their friends blamed their undertaking: he highly magnifies it; and says, if he had many lives, he would willingly have sacrificed them all in carrying it on. In one paper he says, they had taken that care that there were not above two or three

See what Lord Stafford says of this plot, in his trial. State Trials, vol. ii. page 621. O.

King James

was afraid

suits.

worth saving, to whom they had not given notice to keep out of the way: and in none of those papers does he express any sort of remorse for that which he had been engaged in, and for which he suffered. Upon the discovery of that plot, there was a geof the Je- neral prosecution of all papists set on foot: but king James was very uneasy at it; which was much increased by what sir Dudly Carlton told him upon 12 his return from Spain, where he had been ambassador; (which I had from the lord Hollis, who said to me, that sir Dudly Carlton told it to himself, and was much troubled when he saw it had an effect contrary to what he had intended.) When he came home, he found the king at Theobald's hunting in a very careless and unguarded manner: and upon that, in order to the putting him on a more careful looking to himself, he told the king he must either give over that way of hunting, or stop another hunting that he was engaged in, which was priest hunting: for he had intelligence in Spain that the priests were comforting themselves with this, that if he went on against them, they would soon get rid of him queen Elizabeth was a woman of form, and was always so well attended, that all their plots against her failed, and were never brought to any effect but a prince who was always in woods or forests would be easily overtaken. The king sent for him in private to enquire more particularly into this: and he saw it had made a great impression on him but wrought otherwise than as he intended. For the king, (who) resolved to gratify his humour in hunting, and in a careless and irregular way of life, did immediately order all that prosecution to be let fall. I have the minutes of the council books of the

year 1606, which are full of orders to discharge and transport priests, sometimes ten in a day. From thence to his dying day he continued always writing and talking against popery, but acting for it. He married his only daughter to a protestant prince, one of the most zealous and sincere of them all, the elector palatine; upon which a great revolution happened in the affairs of Germany. The eldest The elector palatine's branch of the house of Austria retained some of the marriage. impressions that their father Maximilian II. studied, to infuse into them, who, as he was certainly one of the best and wisest princes of these latter ages, so he was unalterably fixed in his opinion against persecution for matters of conscience: his own sentiments were so very favourable to the protestant doctrine, that he was thought inwardly theirs. His brother Charles of Grats was on the other hand wholly managed by the Jesuits, and was a zealous patron of theirs, and as zealously supported by them. Rodolph and Matthias reigned one after another, but without issue. Their brother Albert was then dying in Flanders: so Spain with the popish interest joined to advance Ferdinand, the son of Charles of Grats: and he forced Matthias to resign the crown of Bohemia to him, and got himself to be elected king. But his government became quickly severe : he resolved to extirpate the protestants, and began to break through the privileges that were secured to them by the laws of that kingdom.

The affairs

This occasioned a general insurrection, which was 13 followed by an assembly of the states, who, together of Bohemia. with those of Silesia, Moravia, and Lusatia, joined in deposing Ferdinand: and they offered their crown first to the duke of Saxony, who refused it, and then

The disor

ders in Holland.

to the elector palatine, who accepted of it, being en couraged to it by his two uncles, Maurice prince of Orange, and the duke of Bullion. (Bouillon.) But he did not ask the advice of king James: he only gave him notice of it when he had accepted the offer. Here was the probablest occasion that has been offered since the reformation for its full establishment.

The English nation was much inclined to support it and it was expected that so near a conjunction might have prevailed on the king: but he had an invincible aversion to war; and was so possessed of the opinion of a divine right in all kings, that he could not bear that even an elective and limited king should be called in question by his subjects: so he would never acknowledge his son-in-law king, nor give him any assistance for the support of his new dignity. And though it was also reckoned on that France would enter into any design that should bring down the house of Austria, and Spain by consequence, yet even that was diverted by the means of De Luynes; a worthless but absolute favourite, whom the archduchess Isabella, princess of the Spanish Netherlands, gained to oblige the king (of France) into a neutrality by giving him the richest heiress then in Flanders, the daughter of Peguiney, left to her disposal, whom he married to his brother. Thus poor Frederick was left without any assistance. The jealousy that the Lutherans had of the

k The true cause of his want of friends to support his pretensions to the crown of Bohemia, was from an apprehension that king James having but one son living, if the succession of Great Britain had fallen to his wife, it must have

created a power, not only formidable to the house of Austria, but to all the princes in Europe: and the prince of Wales was then thought to be of a very weakly constitution.

D.

ascendant that the Calvinists might gain by this accession had an unhappy share in the coldness which all the princes of that confession shewed towards him; though Saxony only declared for Ferdinand, who likewise engaged the duke of Bavaria at the head of a catholic league to maintain his interests. Maurice prince of Orange had embroiled Holland by the espousing the controversy about the decrees of God in opposition to the Arminian party, and by erecting a new and illegal court by the authority of the states general to judge of the affairs of the province of Holland; which was plainly contrary to their constitution, by which every province is a sovereignty within itself, not at all subordinate to the states general, who act only as plenipotentiaries of the several provinces to maintain their union and their common concerns. By that assembly Barnevelt was condemned and executed: Grotius and others were condemned to perpetual imprisonment: and an assembly of the ministers of the several provinces met at 14 Dort, by the same authority, and condemned and deprived the Arminians. Maurice's enemies gave it out, that he managed all this on design to make himself master of the provinces, and to put those who were like to oppose him out of the way. But though this seem a wild and groundless imagination, and not possible to be compassed; yet it is certain that he looked on Barnevelt and his party as men who were so jealous of him and of a military power, that as they had forced the truce with Spain, so they would be very unwilling to begin a new war; though the disputes about Juliers and Cleves had almost engaged them, and the truce was now near expiring; at the end of which he hoped, if delivered from the