Page:English Historical Review Volume 35.djvu/148

 140 HE VIEWS OF BOOKS Jaiiuaiy says Pett, speaking of himself as a young man, * to take any pains to get something to apparel myself, which by Grod's blessing I performed and that in very good fashion, endeavouring to keep company with men of good rank far better than myself ' (p. 6). C. H. Firth. T?ie Political Works of James I, reprinted from the edition of 1616, with an Introduction by Charles Howard McIlwain. (Cambridge, Massachusetts : Harvard University Press, 1918.) Professor McIlwain has collected in this volume the ' Basilikon Doron ', the ' Trew Law of Free Monarchies ', the ' Apologie for the Oath of Allegiance ', the ' Premonition to all Christian Monarches, Free Princes and States ', the * Defence of the Right of Kings ', and five speeches, four delivered in parliament, and one in the Star Chamber. To some 350 large pages of text he has added a useful bibliography and an elaborate and learned introduction, in which he explains the position of James in the history of political thought. Does the work of the British Solomon deserve such pious care after the lapse of three centuries ? Professor McIlwain answers this question by the remark that the royal writings would probably not have passed without notice even had they been anonymous ', although, on the other hand, * we may be equally sure that, without the authorship of a king, they would hardly have elicited replies from such opponents as du Pen'on and Bellarmine '. The interest excited throughout Europe by the tracts when they were published, and the profound influences they exercised in England after the death of Charles I, give them an importance which is not entirely adventitious. Their latest editor seems to doubt if they were entirely the king's own composition, and James must have relied upon the civil lawyers for some of his informa- tion, but they bear the uniform mark of the king's somewhat grotesque personality, and their unvarying egotism shows that he mastered and adapted any material which may have been supplied to him. His political theory was formed before his accession to the English throne, for it is fully expounded in the ' Basilikon Doron ' and in the * Trew Law of Free Monarchies ', both of which were written some five years before the death of Elizabeth. Archbishop Spot tiswoode thought that the ' Basilikon Doron ' was a powerfvil factor in facilitating the accession of James to the crown of England, but he can scarcely be regarded as a competent authority upon the state of feeling in England at the end of Elizabeth's reign, and the work was not easily accessible until after the queen's death. Professor McKwain's admiration for the work of the late Dr. Figgis leads him to omit any summary of the development of the doctrine of the divine right of kings ; he justly remarks that Dr. Figgis's book is The omission detracts from the value of his own able discussion, for his readers may reasonably expect to have their memoiies i-efreshed by a statement on so essential an element in any estimate of the poUtical thought of James. The editor's own interest lies very largely in the theological or ecclesiastical side of the political controvci'sy. English political theory, he argues, ' arose out of the strife between the adherents
 * indispensable to any one who hopes to understand the theory of James I '.