History of the United Netherlands, 1603-04 | Page 3

her successor to a needy Scotch lord, who certainly did
not intend to adorn his own person therewith. "The hat was ever held
out," said a splenetic observer, "and it was filled in overflowing
measure by the new monarch."
In a very short period he had given away--mainly to Scotchmen--at
least two millions of crowns, in various articles of personal property.
Yet England was very poor.
The empire, if so it could be called, hardly boasted a regular revenue of
more than two millions of dollars a year; less than that of a fortunate
individual or two, in our own epoch, both in Europe and America; and
not one-fifth part of the contemporary income of France. The hundred
thousand dollars of Scotland's annual budget did not suffice to pay its
expenses, and Ireland was a constant charge upon the imperial
exchequer.
It is astounding, however, to reflect upon the pomp, extravagance, and
inordinate pride which characterized the government and the court.
The expenses of James's household were at least five hundred thousand
crowns, or about one quarter of the whole revenue of the empire. Henry
IV., with all his extravagance, did not spend more than one-tenth of the
public income of France upon himself and his court.
Certainly if England were destined to grow great it would be in despite
of its new monarch. Hating the People, most intolerant in religion,
believing intensely in royal prerogative, thoroughly convinced of his
regal as well as his personal infallibility, loathing that inductive method
of thought which was already leading the English nation so proudly on
the road of intellectual advancement, shrinking from the love of free
inquiry, of free action, of daring adventure, which was to be the real
informing spirit of the great British nation; abhorring the Puritans-- that
is to say, one-third of his subjects--in whose harsh, but lofty. nature he
felt instinctively that popular freedom was enfolded--even as the
overshadowing tree in the rigid husk--and sending them forth into the
far distant wilderness to wrestle with wild beasts and with savages

more ferocious than beasts; fearing and hating the Catholics as the
sworn enemies of his realm; his race, and himself, trampling on them as
much as he dared, forcing them into hypocrisy to save themselves from
persecution or at least pecuniary ruin--if they would worship God
according to their conscience; at deadly feud, therefore, on religious
grounds, with much more than half his subjects--Puritans or
Papists--and yet himself a Puritan in dogma and a Papist in Church
government, if only the king could be pope; not knowing, indeed,
whether a Puritan, or a Jesuit whom he called a Papist-Puritan, should
be deemed the more disgusting or dangerous animal; already preparing
for his unfortunate successor a path to the scaffold by employing all the
pedantry, both theological and philosophical at his command to bring
parliaments into contempt, and to place the royal prerogative on a level
with Divinity; at the head of a most martial, dauntless, and practical
nation, trembling, with unfortunate physical timidity, at the sight of a
drawn sword; ever scribbling or haranguing in Latin, French, or broad
Scotch, when the world was arming, it must always be a special wonder
that one who might have been a respectable; even a useful, pedagogue,
should by the caprice of destiny have been permitted, exactly at that
epoch to be one of the most contemptible and mischievous of kings.
But he had a most effective and energetic minister. Even as in Spain
and in France at the same period, the administration of government was
essentially in-one pair of hands.
Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury, ever since the termination of the
splendid triumvirate of his father and Walsingham, had been in reality
supreme. The proud and terrible hunchback, who never forgave, nor
forgot to destroy, his enemies, had now triumphed over the last passion
of the doting queen. Essex had gone to perdition.
Son of the great minister who had brought the mother of James to the
scaffold, Salisbury had already extorted forgiveness for that execution
from the feeble king. Before Elizabeth was in her grave, he was already
as much the favourite of her successor as of herself, governing Scotland
as well as England, and being Prime Minister of Great Britain before
Great Britain existed.
Lord High Treasurer and First Secretary of State, he was now all in all
in the council. The other great lords, highborn and highly titled as they
were and served at their banquets by hosts of lackeys on their

knees--Nottinghams, Northamptons, Suffolks--were, after all, ciphers
or at best, mere pensioners of Spain. For all the venality of Europe was
not confined to the Continent. Spain spent at least one hundred and
fifty thousand crowns annually among the leading courtiers of James
while his wife, Anne of