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

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 Denmark, a Papist at heart, whose private boudoir was filled with pictures and images of the Madonna and the saints, had already received one hundred thousand dollars in solid cash from the Spanish court, besides much jewelry, and other valuable things. To negotiate with Government in England was to bribe, even