![[James I]](123images/james.jpg "James I")
The reading this week is chapters 10-11 of Lacey Baldwin Smith, This Realm of England: 1399 to 1688, and these documents.
Document I
To tell you frankly what I have learnt about him, he is for his age the premier Prince who has ever lived. He has three qualities of the soul in perfection. He apprehends and understands everything. He judges reasonably. He carries much in his memory and for a long time. In his questions he is lively and perceptive, and sound in his answers. In any matter which is being debated, be it religion or any other thing, he believes and always maintains what seems to him to be true and just. He is learned in many tongues, sciences and affairs of state, more so, I dare say, than any others of his realm. In brief, he has a marvellous mind, filled with virtuous grandeur and a good opinion of himself.
Nurtured in fear, he has this one deficiency, that he does not very often dare to contradict the great lords, though, none the less, he loves to be thought bold and resolute. He has a heart so big that there is nothing so wearisome that he will not attempt for the sake of virtue and in order to surpass others. Having learned lately that my lord Doun had been two days and two nights without sleeping, he then passed three. But if at any time he finds himself surpassed in such tedious exercises, he abhors them thereafter. He hates the dance and music in general, like all fopperies of the court, be they amorous talk or curiosities of dress, being especially unable to abide the sight of ear-rings. His manners, as a result of the failure to instruct him properly, are aggressive and very uncivil, both in speaking, eating, clothes, games, and conversation in the company of women. He never stays still in one place, taking a singular pleasure in walking up and down, but his carriage is ungainly, his steps erratic and vagabond, even in his own chamber. He loves the chase above all the pleasures of the world, living in the saddle for six hours on end, running up hills and down dales with loosened bridle. He has a feeble body even if he is not delicate. In sum, to put it in a word, he is an old young man ... I have noted in him only three defects which may possibly be harmful to the conversation of his estate and government. The first is his ignorance and failure to appreciate his poverty and lack of strength, overrating himself and despising other Princes. The second that he loves indiscreetly and obstinately, despite the disapprobation of his subjects. The third, that he is too idle and too little concerned about business, too addicted to his pleasure, principally that of the chase, leaving the conduct of business to the Earl of Arran, Montrose and the Secretary. ...
Document II
He is sufficiently tall, of a noble presence, his physical constitution robust, and he is at pains to preserve it by taking much exercise at the chase, which he passionately loves, and uses not only as a recreation, but as a medicine. For this he throws off all business, which he leaves to his Council and his Ministers. And so one may truly say that he is Sovereign in name and appearance rather than in substance and effect. This is the result of his deliberate choice, for he is capable of governing, being a Prince of intelligence and culture above the common, thanks to his application to and pleasure in study when he was young, though he has now abandoned that pursuit altogether. He is a Protestant, as it is called; that means a mixture of a number of religions; in doctrine he is Calvinistic, but not so in politics and in police; for Calvin denies authority not merely spiritual but temporal as well, a doctrine that will always be abhorred by every Sovereign.
...
The King is a bitter enemy of [Roman Catholicism]. ... He frequently speaks of it in terms of contempt. He is all the harsher because this last conspiracy against his life [the Gunpowder Plot, 1605] seems to him, as it is in fact, the most horrible and inhuman that ever was heard of. He said himself that the murder of a King had happened before, the extinction of a house had been dreamed of before, but the ruin of a whole kingdom along with the King and his offspring, that was without parallel; and yet it is understood that the Jesuits had a hand in it.
His Majesty is by nature placid, averse from cruelty, a lover of justice. He goes to chapel on Sundays and Tuesdays, the latter being observed by him in memory of his escape from a conspiracy of Scottish nobles in 1600. He loves quiet and and repose, has no inclination to war, nay is opposed to it, a fact that little pleases many of his subjects, though it pleases them still less that he leaves all government to his Council and will think of nothing but the chase. He does not caress the people nor make them that good cheer the late Queen did, whereby she won their loves: for the English adore their Sovereigns, and if the King passed through the same street a hundred times a day the people would still run to see him; they like their King to show pleasure at their devotion, as the late Queen knew well how to do; but this King manifests no taste for them but rather contempt and dislike. The result is he is despised and almost hated. In fact his Majesty is more inclined to live retired with eight or ten of his favorites than openly, as is the custom of the country and the desire of the people.
Document III
The state of monarchy is the supremest thing upon earth, for kings are not only God's lieutenants upon earth and sit upon God's throne, but even by God himself they are called gods. There be three principal [comparisons] that illustrate the state of monarchy: one taken out of the word of God, and the two other out of the grounds of policy and philosophy. In the Scriptures kings are called gods, and so their power after a certain relation compared to the Divine power. Kings are also compared to fathers of families; for a king is truly parens patriae, the politic father of his people. And lastly, kings are compared to the head of this microcosm of the body of man
...
I conclude then this point touching the power of kings with this axiom of divinity, that as to dispute what God may do is blasphemy . . . so is it sedition in subjects to dispute what a king may do in the height of his power. But just kings will ever be willing to declare what they will do, if they will not incur the curse of God. I will not be content that my power be disputed upon, but I shall ever be willing to make the reason appear of all my doings, and rule my actions according to my laws
Document IV
It may be that the remains of his last attack of gout have added to his usual aversion for audiences ... In his Majesty's lethal sickness it would certainly have been desirable, as a symptom and sign of life, if he had recognized his own will in the good resolutions of others. But I must repeat, however sadly, that all good sentiments are clearly dead in the king. He is too blind in disordered self love and his wish for quiet and pleasure, too agitated by constant mistrust of everyone, tyrannized over by perpetual fear for his life, tenacious of his authority as against the parliament and jealous of the prince's obedience, all accidents and causes of his fatal and almost desperate infirmity of mind, so harmful to the general welfare. Nevertheless if the king was ever capable of improvement, or if his actions hitherto were merely dissimulation ... who knows if some unexpected but very necessary change might not come over the king.
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