Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 3.djvu/18

4 kind. His queen had always struggled against the rule of state by which the heir-apparent of Scotland was taken out of the hands of his own mother, and placed in those of a state guardian. Prince Henry, now ten years old, had been placed as a mere infant in the care of the earl of Mar, in Stirling Castle, where he was educating under the learned Adam Newton; and James had himself written a book, which he called "Basilicon Doron; or, His Majesty's Instructions to his Dearest Son, the Prince," for his especial guidance. But queen Anne preferred the dictates of nature to those of state policy, and never ceased to importune the king for the society of her children, of whom now she had three—Henry, Elizabeth, and Charles. Weak as was James in many respects, he was, like most weak men, excessively stubborn; and on this head he stood firm against all the entreaties of his house. He contended that in Scotland it had always been the policy of the nobles to possess themselves of the heir, and then destroy the reigning king, that they might hold the power through a long minority. That, owing to such causes, there had been no fewer than seven successive minorities of the kings of Scotland, stretching from the reign of Robert III. to his own time, and that he himself had been thus set up against his own mother. That he owed his life and crown to the very plan which he was now enforcing. These were strong reasons, but nature in the mother was still stronger; and, foiled as he had been till now, no sooner was James in England, and the earl of Mar summoned to attend him, than Anne presented herself at Stirling, and demanded her son of the countess of Mar. That lady, however, was inexorable in the discharge of her high trust, and a great contention arose betwixt the faction of the queen and that of the king. Despatches were forwarded to James both from the countess of Mar and from the queen. For a time he refused to yield, but finding that the agitation of the queen had led to the premature birth of a son, which was dead, and to the serious illness of the queen, he gave way; and Anne, when sufficiently restored, set out with the prince Henry and the princess Elizabeth, the second son Charles being left behind at the queen's palace of Dunfermline, under the earl of Fife.

The progress of Anne of Denmark was one continuous fête, as thronged as that of her husband, and certainly much more poetical. Lady Bedford and lady Harrington had voluntarily travelled to Edinburgh to pay their respects to her; and at Berwick a number of other ladies, attended by the earls of Sussex and Lincoln, and Sir George Carew, were in waiting for her, with the required dresses and jewels. From York, where silver cups heaped with gold angels were presented to her majesty and to the young prince and princess, and where, on her departure, the corporation, all in their robes, escorted her out of the city, she advanced, through Grimstone, Newark, and Nottingham, to Dingley, near Leicester, at which place the little princess Elizabeth separated from her, and was conducted to Combe Abbey, near Coventry, the seat of the Harringtons, to be educated under the care of the ladies Harrington and Kildare.

At Althorpe, the seat of Sir Robert Spenser, the queen was received on the eve of Midsummer-day, with "The Masque of the Fairies," the first of the splendid series of Ben Jonson, who from that day became the queen's especial poet; and whatever were the faults of Anne of Denmark, she was the friend and advocate of genius. As the queen advanced there came before her satyrs, queen Mab with all her fairy suite, and the son of Sir Robert, a boy of twelve years, leading a dog as a present to the prince, and followed by a troop of other boys dressed as forester's. Then came a troop of hunters, and another of morris-dancers, all making suitable addresses in verse. Thence the queen went to Sir Hatton Fermor's, where the king met her, and there was a great flocking thither of courtiers and gentry; and so they progressed from house to house till they reached Windsor, where the king held a solemn chapter of the garter, and made prince Henry, the duke of Lennox, and other nobles, knights of that order.

After this the court removed to Westminster for the coronation, which took place on the 25th. The weather had been intensely hot, and it now set in as rainy. To spoil the pleasure of the people, the plague was raging fiercely in the city, and the inhabitants were by proclamation forbidden to enter Westminster. No queen-consort had been crowned since Anne Boleyn, nor had any king and queen been crowned together since Henry VIII. and Catherine of Arragon, and therefore the restriction was the more mortifying. Queen Anne went to the coronation "with her seemly hair down hanging on her princely shoulders, and on her head a coronet of gold. She so mildly saluted her new subjects, that the women, weeping, cried out with one voice, 'God bless the royal queen! Welcome to England, long to live and continue!'"

That week there died in London and the suburbs eight hundred and fifty-seven persons of the plague. On the 5th of August James ordered morning and evening prayers and sermons, with bonfires all night to drive away the pestilence, not forgetting to order that all men should praise God for his Majesty's escape that day three years before, from the Gowry conspiracy; and on the 10th of August he commanded that a fast, with sermons of repentance, should be held, and repeated every week on Wednesday so long as the plague continued.

James's pride was soon gratified by the flocking in of ambassadors from all the great nations of Europe, soliciting his alliance; and on the first intimation of their approach he appointed Sir Lewis Lewknor master of the ceremonies, to receive and entertain these distinguished persons. This was the first establishment of such an office in England. First arrived, from Holland and the United Provinces, prince Frederick of Nassau, son of the prince of Orange, attended by the three able diplomatists, Valck, Barnevelt, and Brederode. James, with equally high notions of the royal prerogative, had not the sympathy of Elizabeth with the struggles of protestantism abroad, and therefore regarded the revolted Netheranders as rebels and traitors, and did not fail amongst his courtiers to pronounce them so; and more particularly as they owed the English crown large sums for their assistance, which they appeared in no hurry to pay. He, therefore, framed various excuses to defer their audiences till the arrival of the envoy of the archduke of Austria, count Aremberg, who was not long in appearing, bringing the agreeable news that the archduke had liberated all English prisoners, as the subjects of a friendly power. Two days after Aremberg's arrival, the celebrated Rhosny, afterwards still better known as the duke of Sully, reached London. Aremberg was in no condition to negotiate on any positive terms till he received instructions from Spain; and Rhosny seized time by the forelock, by distributing amongst the courtiers sixty thousand crowns, a considerable sum of which found its