Page:The Queens of England.djvu/472

 426 THE QUEENS OF ENGLAND. may it be denied that he had some excuses for this, in the straits through which he had passed in his youth. Alternately swayed between the two contending forces ; his person now seized by the nobles, the presbytery now governing by his name ; he came at last to see his only safety in making ready use of either, as occasion happened to serve. Artifice and falsehood became thus his cherished councilors ; and his whole idea of government merged into mere temporizing habits of deceit, such as he afterwards dignified by the name of king- craft. That he was in the condition of a king de facto, he owed to the presbyterians, who placed him on the throne, but only from the papists' opposing faction could he obtain ad- mission of • the more coveted rights of a king de jure. It thus fared with him alike in religion as in politics ; and if he hated anything more than the presbyter who claimed a power of controlling the actions of his prince, it was the Jesuit who preached the right of the pope to release subjects from their allegiance. He had no firm ground in either where r on to make a stand, for enmity or friendship. Straightfor- wardness, directness, self-support or self-reliance, were things entirely unknown to him. His mind like his body, shuffled on by circular movements, and had need of the same sup- ports, ilence his favoritism which grew from this want and weakness, had nothing of man's friendship in it. It was the adhesion of the parasitic plant, incapable of self-sustaining life ; and it showed the same creeping fondness for corrupt and rotten alliances. From the days of Arran to those of Somer- set and Buckingham, his tastes were in this respect the same. The habits they engendered were as plainly visible in him now, as when hereafter on a wider scene they challenged the disgust of Europe. We have remarked how carefully he warned his councilors against attributing his marriage to any personal liking of his own, and he took as open pains at all times to avow indifference or aversion to the female sex. Nothing gave him greater pleasure than to have it pointedly noticed to him in the presence of the whole court, as it was in one of Ben Johnson's masques, that he was indifferent and cold to the fascinations of women. He disliked their societv and despised their attainments. He loved ribaldry, swearing and buffoonery too well, and was too passionately fond of the chase, to admit of any rivalry or restraint to these more delightful indulgences. But he preserved a seemly intercourse