Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 5.djvu/176

236 tion and of the show of learning. He loved to hear discourses on matters of state, and to have great enterprises proposed to him, which he discussed in a spirit of system and method, but without any idea of carrying them into effect for he naturally hated war, and still more to be personally engaged in it was indolent in all his actions, except hunting, and remiss in affairs, all indications of a soft and timid nature, formed to be governed." The king entertained the marquis and his attendants at dinner; when he spoke with contempt of Elizabeth a circumstance which probably arose from the control which he was conscious she had exercised over him, and especially the idea, which he expresses in one of the documents in the negotiations on an alliance with Spain, that she was concerned in the attempts of his Scottish enemies against him and also of a double marriage he desired, between the French and English royal families.

The queen followed James a few weeks after his arrival, having on the eve of her departure quarreled with the earl of Mar, to whom James had committed the care of prince Henry, and whose letter to her, advising her not to treat him with disrespect, excited the passion of that high-spirited woman. She was crowned, along with her husband, on the 25th of July, by archbishop Whitgift, with all the ancient solemnity of that imposing ceremony. He soon after, by proclamation, called upon his subjects to solemnize the 5th of August in honour of his escape from the Gowrie conspiracy.

At the commencement of the following year was held the famous Hamptoncourt conference. On the first day, a few select individuals only were admitted to the king; on the following, four puritan ministers, chosen by the king him- self, appeared and his majesty presided as moderator. He conversed in Latin, and engaged in dispute with Dr Reynolds. In answer to an objection against the Apocrypha started by that learned divine, the king interpreted one of the chapters of Ecclesiasticus, according to his own ideas. He also pronounced an unmeasured attack on presbytery, which he said, " agreed as well with monarchy as God and the devil." "Stay," he added, "I pray, for one seven years, before you demand; and then, if you find me grown pursy and fat, I may perchance hearken unto you. For that government will keep me in breath, and give me work enough." On this occasion, Bancroft, bishop of London, flattered him as "such a king, as, since Christ's time, the like had not been," and Whitgift professed to believe that his majesty spoke under the special influence of the Holy Spirit. With such flattery, is it to be greatly wondered at, that the king esteemed himself an accomplished theological disputant? Indeed, the whole conference seems to have been managed in a most unreasonable manner. It was followed by a proclamation enforcing conformity, and a number of puritans, both clergy and laity, severely suffered.

In March, 1604, the king, the queen, and the prince, rode in splendid procession from the Tower to Whitehall; and, at the meeting of parliament, a few days after, James delivered his first speech to that assembly. One part of it excited general disapprobation that in which he expressed himself willing to favour the Roman catholics a feeling on his part which probably arose from the prospects afforded him of friendship with countries so powerful as France and Spain, and also, perhaps, from some degree of attachment to the Romish faith, as that of his royal ancestors. At this meeting of parliament, the king also brought forward his favourite proposal of a union betwixt England and Scotland, the result of which was the appointment of a committee for drawing up articles of union ; one of the most zealous members of which was Sir Francis Bacon, To this great man James showed strong attachment; and, even if Sir Francis had not proved himself to be devoted with peculiar ardour to the king, it may be supposed that he would have been regarded by the latter with peculiar