Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 3.djvu/555

] minister of the first of all crowned heads." Somerset, moved to a firmness of demeanour and language unusal even in him, declared that he dared not break the law. James replied, "I will make you fear me as well as the law. Do you not know that I am above the law?" "Your majesty," replied Somerset, with commingled dignity and affected humility, "may be above the law, but I am not; and I am only safe while I obey the law." The king, not used to being thwarted, much less to language of so plain a sort, turned from him in a rage, and the next day issued a decree depriving him of his posts in the household and of his command in the guards.



This most impolitic conduct James followed, on the 1st of February of the present year, by a still more absurd and ludicrous, but equally mischievous reception. It was that of Cocker, an English Benedictine monk, who, being more deeply implicated in treason than his friends cared to confess, had narrowly escaped with his life in the trials of the popish plot. This man the elector of Cologne had appointed his resident at the English court—probably at the suggestion of James, and in defiance of public opinion; and James now insisted that he should receive a public introduction to court, in the habit of his order, and attended by six other monks in a like costume. Thus James took a pleasure in violating the laws and insulting public opinion at every turn, to show that he was independent of both; and he now prepared to commence in earnest the destruction of the church.

Before advancing to this dangerous experiment, however, he deemed it necessary to tighten the discipline of the army, which had shown no little disgust of his proceedings, and left it doubtful whether it would stand by him in the momentous crisis.

Many of James's soldiers had deserted, and it was found