CHAP. IV. 1624. Dec. His defence of his con duct. than we have heard of the very similar transaction between Calvert and Morton, or than we heard, till within the last few years, of the sums of money which passed from hand to hand whenever an officer in the army thought fit to sell his commission. Buckingham afterwards declared that in accepting this office he was solely actuated by consideration for the public welfare. In the approaching war, it would be highly inconvenient if one part of the coast were to be under the jurisdiction of the Lord High Admiral, and another part under the jurisdiction of the Warden of the Cinque Ports; and future generations, by reducing the Warden's office to a dignified sinecure, were to afford testimony to the Duke's foresight in this particular. But however this may be, there is no reason to doubt his sincerity. For, about the same time Buckingham refused to accept an office of still greater dignity which James pressed upon him. He declines It was proposed that he should be named Lord Lieu the LordLieutenancy of Ireland. 1625. March 2. Williams. tenant of Ireland, and should execute the functions of government by deputy. It is said that his refusal to decorate himself with the title caused great annoyance to his enemies, who hoped to profit by the disrepute into which his acceptance of the offer would have brought him.1 In truth, it was not so much from the number of Advice of offices which he held that Buckingham was likely to lose the popularity which he had gained in the preceding spring, as by the superiority which he assumed over the holders of all offices. Williams, whose cautious prudence always led him to avoid extreme follies, but whose want of tact was continually leading him to forget that good advice is not always palatable, contrived 1 Pesaro's despatch, Nov. 18, Dec. 1, 1624. A SICKLY YEAR. to give dire offence to his patron by recommending him to retire from his dangerous prominence. The Marquis of Hamilton, the Lord Steward of the Household, had just died, and Williams at once wrote to Buckingham advising him to give up the Admiralty and to become Steward of the Household. In time of war, it was a necessity for the Admiral' either to be employed abroad personally, or to live at home in that ignominy and shame as' his Grace' would never endure to do.'1 It was good advice enough, but hardly likely to commend itself to a man who fancied himself equally capable of commanding a fleet and of governing a state. Williams had only succeeded in injuring himself. 159 CHAP. IV. 1625. March. men of Hamilton was but one of the many men of note Deaths of who had fallen victims to that sickly winter. In the note. Low Countries, Southampton, the patron of Shakespeare in early life, sunk under the fatigue of his duties. as colonel of one of the regiments which had gone out in the summer to maintain the cause of Dutch independence. At home Caron, for thirty years the representative of the States in England; Chichester, the soldier statesman, who had ruled Ireland so wisely; and Nottingham, the Admiral whose flag had floated over the fleet which drove the Armada to its destruction, sunk one after another into the grave. the King. Rife as disease had been, no apprehension had been Illness of entertained of any danger to the King's life. At the beginning of the year he had recovered from the severe attack of the gout from which he had suffered at the time of Ville-aux- Clerc's visit in December, and he 1 Williams to Buckingham, March 2, 1625; Cabala, 280. This is the true date. Hacket, fancying the letter related to the death of Lennox, supposed it to have been written the year before. IV. March. CHAP. was again able to take his usual interest in current affairs. On the 1st of March he was at Theobalds, in 1625. his favourite deer park. On the 5th he was attacked by a tertian ague, and, although those around him did not think that anything serious was the matter, he was himself prepared for the worst. Hamilton's death affected him greatly, the more so as there were wild rumours abroad that he had been poisoned, or that he had been converted on his death-bed to the Roman Church, rumours which, however destitute of truth, made some impression at the time on the popular mind. To James the loss of Hamilton was the loss of a personal friend. 'I shall never see London more,' he said, as he gave directions for the funeral; and he gravely reproved his attendants who sought to cheer him with the popular saying, 'An ague in the spring is physic for a king.' He had never been a good patient, and he now refused to submit to the prescriptions of his physicians, who would consequently be all the more likely to take offence if irregular treatment were applied.2 March 12. His appa rent recovery. Lady Buckingham's doctoring. On the 12th James was believed to be convalescent, and was preparing to move to Hampton Court for change of air. Anxious to improve his condition still further, he remembered or was reminded that when Buckingham had been ill in the spring, he had been benefited by some remedies recommended by a country doctor living at Dunmow. Under the directions, it would seem, of Buckingham's mother, a messenger was despatched to Dunmow, and the result was a posset drink given by the Duke himself, and some plaster applied to the King's stomach and wrists by the Countess, with all the zeal which elderly ladies are apt to throw 1 Chamberlain to Carleton, Feb. 26; S. P. Dom., clxxxiv. 47. 2 Chamberlain to Carleton, March 12; ibid. clxxxv. 48. Chambermayd to Elizabeth, March 27; S. P. Dom., Charles I., i. 2. THE KING'S LAST ILLNESS. 161 CHAP. IV. 1625. March 14. worse. into the administration of remedies suggested by themselves. The remedies may have been, and probably were, harmless. But they were given just as the hour came round for the returning fit, and this time the fit The King was worse than ever. The regular physicians found out what was going on, and were highly indignant. They refused to do anything for the patient till the plasters were removed. After this fit the King's condition again improved. But on the 21st he again asked for Lady Buckingham's remedies, and, though Buckingham appears to have remonstrated, the wilful patient insisted on having his way. The next fit was a very bad one. Again the physicians remonstrated. One of the number, Dr. Craig, used exceedingly strong language, and was ordered to leave the Court. But Craig's tongue was not tied, and it soon became an article of belief with thousands of not usually credulous persons that the King had been poisoned by Buckingham and his mother.1 The next day, when the fit was over, Pembroke was March 22. about to leave Theobalds. But James could not bear to part with him. "No, my lord," he said, remembering the rumours that had been spread of Hamilton's change of religion; "you shall stay till my next fit be passed; and if I die, be a witness against those scandals that may be raised of my religion, as they have been of others." Williams The King had asked for Bishop Andrewes. But March 23. Andrewes was too ill to come, and Williams had been sent for. sent for to administer spiritual consolation to the sick On the road he met Harvey, the discoverer of man. 1 State Trials, ii. 1319; Fuller, Church History, v. 568. The evidence is worthless in itself, and the only ground for supposing it to have any value is cut away when once it is understood that Buckingham had no object in poisoning the King. Except in the single matter of the relief of Breda, he had had his way in everything. CHAP. IV. the circulation of the blood, who expressed his fears that the patient would not recover. Williams found 1625. the King's spirits low; and the next morning he ob tained the Prince's leave to tell his father that his end was near. James bore the tidings well. "I am satisfied," he said; " and I pray you assist me to make ready to go away hence to Christ, whose mercies I call for, and I hope to find them." Till the end came, Williams was by the sick man's side whenever he was awake, ‘in praying, in reading, most of all in discoursing about repentance, faith, remission of sins, and eternal life.' On the 24th, James, after making at some length a confession of his faith in the presence of his son and the principal attendants on his person, received the Communion from the hands of Williams. After this his strength March 27. gradually sunk, and on the 27th he died.1 March 24. James receives the Communion. His death and charac ter. James was in his fifty-seventh year when, already an old man in constitution, he was taken away from a world which he had almost ceased even to attempt to guide. The last years of his life had not been happy. Nor was the promise of the future brighter. He had raised expectations which it would be impossible to satisfy, and it was certain that any credit which might accrue to him would be attributed by the popular voice to others than himself. It is but just to ascribe to him. a desire to act rightly, to see justice done to all, to direct his subjects in the ways of peace and concord, and to prevent religion from being used as a cloak for polemical bitterness and hatred. But he had too little tact, and too unbounded confidence in his own not inconsiderable powers, to make a successful ruler, whilst his constitutional incapacity for taking trouble in thought or action. gave him up as an easy prey to the passing feelings of 1 Hacket, i. 222. Conway to Carleton, March 31. Court and Times of Charles I., i. I. |