Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 3.djvu/64

50 Northampton acted as her bridesmen, each conducting her by a hand; whilst twenty bridesmaids of her own age, dressed in white and embroidery, followed, bearing her train. The princess appeared smiling as she ascended the platform in the royal chapel, but from some cause, most probably an hysterical excitement, she began to titter, and being unable to restrain herself, soon burst into a loud laugh. The company were startled, and many regarded it as an ill omen, which the events of a few years appeared to confirm. When the bride departed with her husband, the queen sunk into a state of indisposition which threatened serious consequences, and was ordered by her physicians to seek the waters of Bath.

From the death of Cecil we may date the reign of favourites, which continued so long as the king lived. That cautious and able minister was too fond of power himself to allow it to pass into the hands of much weaker men. James, whilst Cecil lived, had indeed no lack of favourites, on whom he lavished affluence and honours; but his cunning minister had the address to prevent him giving them places of real power and responsibility. James therefore, so long as Cecil remained, was content to make his favourites his companions, and left Cecil to conduct public affairs; but no sooner was Salisbury in his grave, than James became the slave of his favourites, who in reality ruled both him and the kingdom.

The first of these was Robert Carr, or Ker, a young border Scot of the Kers of Fernihurst. He had been some years in France, and being a handsome youth, "straight-limbed, well-formed, strong-shouldered, and smooth-faced," he had been led to believe that if he cultivated his personal appearance, and a gaiety and courtliness of address, he was sure of making his fortune at the court of James. Accordingly he managed to appear as page to lord Dingwall at a grand tilting match at Westminster, in 1606. According to chivalric usage, it became his duty to present his lord's shield to his majesty; but in manoeuvring his horse on the occasion it fell, and broke his leg. That fall was his rise. James was immediately struck with the beauty of the youth who lay disabled at his feet, and had him straightway carried into a house near Charing Cross, and sent his own surgeon to him. As soon as he could get away from the tilt-yard, he hastened to him himself. He renewed his visits daily, waiting upon him himself, and displaying to the whole court the greatness of his sudden regard for him. "Lord!" says Weldon, "how the great men flocked then to see him, and to offer to his shrine in such abundance, that the king was forced to lay a restraint, lest it might retard his recovery."

The lad's fortune was made; and though James, in conversing with him, found that he was very ignorant—the whole of his education having been directed to his outside—that did not abate his regard, but he condescended to be at once his nurse and schoolmaster. "The prince," says Harrington, "leaneth on his arm, pinches his cheek, smooths his ruffled garments. The young man doth study much art and device; he hath changed his tailors and firemen many tunes, and all to please the prince. The king teaches him Latin every morning, and I think some one should teach him English too, for he is a Scotch lad, and hath much need of better language."

James found that Carr had been his page in Scotland, and that his father had suffered much in the cause of his mother, Mary Stuart; these were additional causes of favour. On Christmas-day, 1607, he knighted him and made him a gentlemen of the bed-chamber, so as to have him constantly about his person. Such was his favour that every one pressed around him to obtain their suits with the king. He received rich presents; the ladies courted his attention; the greatest lords did him the most obsequious and disgusting homage. Carr, however, had an eye to pleasing the public, and therefore, Scotchman as he was, he turned the cold shoulder to his countrymen, and associated with and favoured the English; probably, too, finding this the most profitable. Those about him were almost wholly English; and his affairs were in the hands of one Sir Thomas Overbury, a man of an evil look, and with a countenance said to be shaped like that of a horse. The dark ability of this man supplied the lack of talent in his patron, and became a mine of wealth to Overbury himself. Even Cecil and the earl of Suffolk strove to avail themselves of his services; and when Cecil quitted the scene, Carr, through Overbury's management, carried all before him. In March, 1611, he was created viscount Rochester, in April, 1612, he became a member of the privy council, and was invested with the order of the garter. The earl of Suffolk succeeding to Cecil's post of lord treasurer, Carr stepped into Suffolk's office of lord chamberlain, at the same time discharging the duties of the post of secretary by the aid of Sir Thomas Overbury. The favourite's favourite, however, was no favourite of the king, who was jealous of having so much of the time and confidence of Carr occupied by Overbury, and this feeling was probably much heightened by the queen, who had an instinctive aversion to the man. On one occasion the queen succeeded in obtaining his expulsion from court, for alleged discourtesy to her, but he soon returned; and though the king appointed Sir Ralph Winwood and Sir Thomas Lake to occupy jointly the office of secretary of state, yet Carr, by the king's favour and Overbury's ability, remained lord paramount in the court; Overbury himself being the avenue to every favour. On the 21st of April, 1613, he boasted to Sir Henry Wotton of his good fortune, and his flattering prospects, yet that very day saw him committed close prisoner to the Tower. Adept as he was in all court intrigues, he had yet committed an irremediable blunder, and awoke a spirit of vengeance which nothing but his blood could quench. This spirit lived in the bosom of a beautiful girl of not yet twenty years of age.

Lady Frances Howard, the daughter of the earl of Suffolk, had been married at the age of thirteen to the Earl of Essex, the son of Elizabeth's unfortunate favourite, who was only a year older. It was a match promoted by the king out of regard, as he said, for the memory of the young earl's father. The ceremony being performed, the bride returned to the care of her mother, and the boy bridegroom proceeded, under care of a tutor, on his travels. At the end of four years he returned, and claimed his wife, whom he found the beauty and pride of the court. But whilst he was enraptured with her loveliness, he was mortified to find that she treated him with every mark of aversion. It was only by the stern command of her father that she consented to live