Page:History of the Kings & Queens of England and Scotland.pdf/4

 pardoned by the king. The fifth of November, the day on which the plot was discovered, is still ob- served as a holiday at the public offices. The nation, which had formed a high opinion of the king’s sagacity, in the discovery of the gunpowder- plot, soon changed its opinion in consequence of the folly which he displayed in giving himself up to the guidance of unworthy favorites, one of the first of whom was Robert Carr, Earl of Somerset, and after- wards George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham. The greatest stain upon the character of James, is his treatment of the celebrated Sir Walter Raleigh, who, after being many years confined upon a charge of conspiracy, was released to take the command of a voyage of discovery, which proving unsuccesful, he was on his return taken up and executed upon his old sentence.

The king’s prodigality having exhausted his ex- chequer, he was obliged to apply to parliament for supplies, when the Commons took occasion to make encroachments on the royal prerogative, which ori- ginated the struggle, that ended in the death of his successor. The king having engaged in war to assist his son-in-law, the Elector-palatine, who had taken up arms against the Emperor, expeditions were fitted out for Holland, and France, which proved unsuccessful. What effect James’s misfor- tunes had upon his constitution is uncertain, but soon after the failure of these expeditions he was seized with a tertian ague, of which he died on the 27th of March, 1625, in the fifty-ninth year of his age, and twenty-second of his reign over England; having reigned thirty-six years over Scotland pre- vious to his accession to the English throne. Eminent men in this reign:—Villiers, Duke of Buckingham; Herbert, Earl of Pembroke; and Lord Chancellor Bacon.