ART. VI. Secret History of the Court of James the First: contain. ing, I. Osborne's Traditional Memoirs. II. Sir Anthony Wel don's Court and Character of King James. III. Aulicus Coquinariæ. IV. Sir Edward Peyton's Divine Catastrophe of the House of Stuarts. With Notes and Introductory Remarks. 8vo. 2 Vols. 11. 4s. Boards. Ballantyne, Edinburgh; London, Longman and Co. 1811. THE THE late re-publication of the Old Chronicles has brought into vogue the study of our early history. By placing them in the libraries of the opulent, access has been facilitated to the original sources of information: a taste for archaiology has gained ground; and numerous readers profit by the opportunity. The middle history of our country is by no means less worthy of re-examination. Those minor tracts, which form, however, essential contributions to the entire knowlege of particular reigns, well deserve to be assembled in separate but connected allotments; so that, without searching through the libraries of various collectors, a reading man may be able to ascertain for himself with what degree of omission, or of partiality, the Rapins and the Humes have digested and arranged the mass of our extant information. The times prior to the Reformation are rapidly fading on our interest. Occasionally, a venerable edifice carries back the imagination to the reign of Henry VII.; and there is much in our laws, and something in our literature, to excite a remoter curiosity but the active parties of the state, or of the people, retain no traces of the affections or the aversions which preceded the Protestant controversy. That event divided every hamlet, when it began; and it continues, under the advocates for established or for independent systems, to marshal the people in opposing ranks. - Utility will be most consulted by selecting for re-impression those tracts which are posterior to the religious schism. No portion of English History more requires a critical revisal than the reign of Elizabeth: who, because she gave stability to the Reformation, has been flattered by the Protestant clergy with immoral extravagance. In 1558, she caused her accession instances, in others of which the rendering should have been one, or a single. In the last two examples, the writer's intention (which we apprehend was to lay some stress on the numeral as well as on the substantives) would be made more visible than it is at present, if they were to be translated "one a scribe," or "one that was a scribe," and "one a widow" or one that was a widow" but in order to comprehend the full force and import of them, they ought, we think, to be rendered "a solitary scribe" and "a solitary widow." to be notified to the Pope, who gave to her envoy, Carne, 1 rude answer, which stigmatized her with bastardy. The refusal of the Pontiff to recognize her title decided her profession of protestantism. Yet such was her pitiless cruelty to the sect which she abandoned less perhaps from conviction than from policy, that one hundred and seventy-five Catholic priests, whose names are detailed in Caulfield's History of the Powder-plot, were put to death during her reign, for no other crime than preaching in this country the religion of their fathers. Her political confidence was early and perseveringly given to William Cecil, afterward Lord Burleigh. The character and the actions of this great statesman are sufficiently known to all readers of the History of this country: who will also be aware that Protestant and Catholic writers would give very different representations of him. Yet they would scarcely, perhaps, suppose that the colouring is so strikingly opposite, as they will perceive it to be by comparing the portrait drawn by our best historians with the delineation which, as a matter of curiosity, we shall now submit to them, derived from the controversial writings of some modern English Catholics. Cecil, say these partizans, first became known as an inferior agent in the capricious oppressions of Henry VIII., who made him keeper of the briefs in the Common Pleas. Having married a daughter of Sir Anthony Cook, preceptor to Edward VI., he was introduced to the Protector Somerset, and employed as his secretary: but when he found his master's credit sinking, he joined the opposite party, and drew up the impeachment which brought his patron to the scaffold. Cecil now became the confidant and assistant of Dudley, was knighted, admitted into the privy-council, and promoted to a situation which enabled him to pay himself for his treachery by extortions from the merchants. Ón the death of Edward VI. he found himself in the Duke of Northumberland's party; but, perceiving that a total failure awaited that nobleman's designs, he deserted to Queen Mary. In his parish-church at Stamford, he then made a voluntary abjuration of the Protestant religion, by which hypocrisy he imposed on Cardinal Pole and other leaders of the Catholics; and through their aid he secured a seat in parliament for Lincolnshire. On the accession of Elizabeth, the ready renegade again became a Protestant, and took part in the scramble for ecclesiastical property, which had rendered the theological arguments of Cranmer and Bucer so convincing in the parliament of England. Cecil obtained a great part of the endowments of Peterborough cathedral, and certain manors in the Soke which belonged to the see of Norwich. Such Such, in brief, is the view which Catholics chuse to take of this celebrated man. The reader who wishes to contemplate it more at large may consult, among other writers, Milner's History of Winchester. Elizabeth's insolence to the parliament of 1571; her intolerance of puritanism in nominating commissioners in 1584 to proceed by torture against the frequenters of prophesyings; her scandalous sale of patents for monopolies, which almost provoked insurrection in 1601; her arbitrary proclamations; her impertinent interference with the marriages of the nobility; all bear the character of an unkind, unprincipled, and inconsiderate despotism. Her chastity has been strangely celebrated: although she publicly took into keeping the Earl of Essex, a handsome but profligate man, who was said to have broken the neck (p. 86.) of his first, and poisoned the husband of his se cond wife. In favor of this paramour, Elizabeth confiscated in 1573 the Irish seigniories of Clanneboy and Ferny, granting to him the half. A rebellion ensued, which overspred the whole province of Ulster, when the lord deputy attempted to inforce this violent seizure of landed property. Of Elizabeth's amours with Seymour, Blunt, Nottingham, and others, several anecdotes occur, at p. 76, 79, &c. of Osborne's Traditional Memoirs, which are the foremost of the rare Tracts that are collected and republished in the volumes before us. Francis Osborne, the author of these Memoirs, was the younger son of Sir John Osborne of Chicksand, in Bedfordshire, and attached himself to the Earl of Pembroke, whom he followed into the party of Cromwell. His son John was appointed, in 1648, by the parliamentary visitors, a fellow of Saint John's College; and to this young man Osborne addressed the "Advice to a Son," which was popular among the students, but reprobated by the "godly" clergy. His style abounds with quaint felicities.-Speaking of the puritans, who opposed the discipline and ceremonies of the church, he says, "they made religion an umbrella to impiety." He paints the Scots who followed James the First into England, as persons by whom nothing was unasked, and to whom nothing was denied," Of Northumberland, he says: "Endeavour failed to find him. smutted with the gunpowder-plot." The execution of the Duke of Norfolk is justly reprehended (p. 39.) in the following terms: "Nor was the amorous rather than traitorous blood of the Duke of Norfolk, spilt on the scaffold for her sake, more consonant to justice or the affections of her subjects, though quietly endured, as a number of other particulars which happened in her time, that were not able to make answer or give perfect account, some to justice, others to discretion," U 3 That That part of Osborne's Memoirs which relates to the times of Elizabeth is not considerable; and it does not afford any new and striking particulars respecting them. Hume begins his reign of Elizabeth by transcribing Burnett's and Rapin's panegyrics: but he finds out, in the course of the narrative, that he has too implicitly followed party-statements; and he closes the reign and fills the appendix with severe censure. As, however, he published the history originally in numbers, he could not correct the earlier part of the account, and render it consistent with the latter. From the fortunes which have attended the reputation of Elizabeth, sovereigns may learn this great lesson, that it is favourable to their popularity and lasting celebrity to accomplish innovations in religion. The victorious sect never fails to blazon the praise of its patrons, and to provide for equivocal actions the most applicable colouring of applause. A nimbus of piety is thrown around their bloody locks, and their statues stand enshrined in holy niches, venerated by successive generations of worshippers, who dare not examine their claims to canonization. If Elizabeth has been over-rated, her successor James I. had perhaps, until Hume wrote, been undervalued. His literary frailties incurred a contempt, and his moral frailties excited an abhorrence, which were in some respects more than commensurate with the amount of his offences. It suited the enemies of Charles I. to blacken the founder of the Stuart dynasty: and they described a man whose faults often grew out of a benevolent facility, as the tyrant of his people and the poisoner of his son. His pacific policy, his religious tolerance, his attention to talent, his eager munificence, his clemency, his indulgence of pleasure, his love of spectacles, plays, and art, are qualities which, in a Duke of Florence, would be enumerated as virtues: -but the historian has a different rule of right for the great and the petty prince. "Principini, Fortezze e canoni.” He is thought to have disgraced the British throne who would have adorned the house of Medici: his very pusillanimity fayoured the growth of our national liberties; and his prodigality to favourites covered the country with splendid villas. James, however, had certainly an unmanly sensibility to male beauty, analogous to that of the Roman Emperor Hadrian, and was continually falling in love with the fairer faces of the young no bility. bility. Osborne enumerates among his successive favorites, James Hay, (p. 218.) Philip Herbert, afterward Earl of Montgomery, (p. 232.) Robert Cane, the Earl of Somerset, (p. 242.) Villiers, (p. 275.) and others. The attachment to Villiers was so far fortunate for the public that he was a young man of accomplishment, and was really disposed, as Lord Bacon's correspondence with him proves, to employ his influence over the King for the good government of the state. Osborne thus describes the loungers of the age of James the First: sheltered ambulatories for wet weather are too rare in London, now that the churches are inaccessible: - Exeter 'Change is a miserable likeness of the Palaisroyal. It was the fashion of those times, and did so continue till these (wherein not only the mother, but her daughters are ruined) for the principall gentry, lords, courtiers, and men of all professions, not meerly mechanick, to meet in Paul's church by eleven, and walk in the middle ile till twelve, and after dinner from three to six; during which time, some discoursed of businesse, others of newes. Now, in regard of the universall commerce, there happened little that did not first or last arrive here: And I being young, and wanting a more advantagious imployment, did, during my aboad in London, which was three-fourth parts of the yeare, associate my self at those houres with the choycest company I could pick out, amongst such as I found most inquisitive after affaires of state; who being then my selfe in a daily attendance upon a hope (though a rotten one) of a future preferment, I appeared the more considerable, being as ready to satisfy, according to my weak abilities, their curiosity, as they were mine: who, out of a candid nature, were not ordinarily found to name an author, easily lost in such a concourse, where his own report was not seldome within few minutes returned to him for newes by another. And these newesmongers, as they called them, did not only take the boldnesse to weigh the publick, but most intrinsick actions of the state, which some courtier or other did betray to this society; amongst whom divers being very rich, had great summes owing them by such as stood next the throne, who, by this meanes, were rendered in a manner their pensioners, so as I have found since little reason to question the truth of what I heard then, but much to confirme me in it; wherefore the bolder to insert a report then current, which was, the King thought Northumberland too intimate with his sonne Henry, who, in vindication of this earles persecution, cast a malignant aspect upon the houses of Suffolke and Salisbury, thought no wales avertible but by his death.' II. To the Memoirs of Osborne, succeeds a reprint of the Court and Character of James by Sir Anthony Weldon. He was one of the clerks to the board of Green Cloth under James the First, and accompanied the King into Scotland: but, having written a satirical account of that province, which was handed U 4 about, |