with that rapidity of action which a young man is more likely to possess than an old or a middle-aged man, and which was exhibited in so remarkable a degree by Napoleon Bonaparte in his early campaigns, and before he was thirty years of age; on such a supposition Richard Cromwell might, in spite of all the obstacles he had to overcome, have retained the Protectorate.

ESSAY VII.

PRINCE HENRY.

I Now proceed to attempt to give some account of that dark passage of English history referred to at the beginning of the preceding essay.

Europe was then in that stage of its passage from barbarism into semi-civilisation to which may apply the remark of Sismondi- The terrible science of poisons is the first branch of chemistry which is successfully cultivated by barbarous nations ;'1 and the science of poisons formed a considerable part of the science of government of the Borgias and the Medici. It is also to be observed that while the branch of chemistry which relates to poisons was cultivated successfully in that age, the branch of chemistry which relates to the detection of poisons was unknown.

The affair of which I am about to write presents a striking view of the change that had taken place in the character and condition of the English nobility in the course of the hundred and fifty years between the middle of the fifteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth century. Those who prefer a comparatively noiseless way of going to work to the 'thunder of the captains and the shouting,' to the tumult of battle, which is 'with confused

1 Sismondi's Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. i. p. 156; and see Beck's Medical Jurisprudence, p. 759, note, 7th edition: London, 1842.

noise, and garments rolled in blood,' may, like King James I., James the Peaceful and the Just,' prefer such revolutionary plotters as these courtier Howards of the seventeenth century to the warlike and uncourtly Nevills of the fifteenth century. We of the nineteenth century may be thankful that we do not live in the times of either of these plotters or makers of revolutions; the barbarian feudal barons, fierce, imperious, and illiterate, or the equally cruel, though more polished and lettered courtiers of that age just emerging from barbarism, when the terrible science of poisons has began to be successfully cultivated; and when the science of analytical chemistry, by which poisons are detected, was still almost if not totally unknown.

It may be stated at the outset that this case so far differs from that which, though called the Gowrie Conspiracy, was not a conspiracy at all, that it really did involve a conspiracy or plot, and a very formidable as well as a very dark plot. For with all the materials which modern researches have brought to light, we are still unable to present it to the reader as a fully connected whole. There are links wanting in the chain which when complete would represent the plot in all its parts and ramifications. These missing links render the work of collecting and putting together the scattered fragments a work beset with difficulties. However, even these scattered fragments will, when put together, exhibit a picture of the court of James I., which will not only be more true but more strange than any picture drawn by the most skilful advocate or the most skilful romance writer. For never was there a more striking example of the truth of the saying that 'truth is stranger than

fiction,' than the scene which is presented to us when the black curtain which has veiled that strange stage is, as it were, rolled up after the lapse of more than two centuries.

1

One of the strangest features in this conspiracy or plot is this, that King James, who had taken to himself so much credit for the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot and the punishment of its contrivers, was unquestionably to some extent himself a party to this plot, which on the best authority, was second to none but the powder plot; that would have blown up all at one blow, a merciful cruelty; this would have done the same by degrees, a lingering but a sure way; that is, an extensive system of secret poisoning, of which the poisoning of Overbury was only one link, and to which the three hundred examinations taken by Sir Edward Coke afforded a clue. The proof that King James was himself a party to the plot is contained in the fact that he would not permit Coke to follow up this clue; and further that the disgrace of Coke was a consequence of the strong inclination he had shown to follow it up.

It must, however, be at the same time observed that, though James's personal dislike to Prince Henry and to Sir Thomas Overbury may have made him a party to so much of the plot as involved their destruction, in regard to the ulterior objects of the plot, such as the ascendancy of the Popish party and the depression if not destruction of the Protestants as the dominant party in England, and the change of the succession to the crown by the

1 Bacon's Expostulation with Sir Edward Coke, Bacon's Works (Montagu's edition), vol. vii. pp. 300, 301; and Coke's speech at the arraignment of Sir Thomas Monson, State Trials, vol. ii. p. 949.

destruction of Prince Charles and the Princess Elizabeth as well as Prince Henry, it is by no means clear to what extent King James was a party to it.

At that stage of this plot which immediately followed the death of Cecil earl of Salisbury, the Lord Treasurerwhose removal by death, be it observed, was a necessary first step without which nothing could be done-King James was in the hands of three persons: Northampton, Suffolk, and Somerset, two of whom, Northampton and Suffolk, were Papists-three persons who exercised so much power at that time that the kingdom is described as 'groaning under the triumvirate of Northampton, Suffolk, and Somerset.' If Somerset was not also a Papist, he may be regarded as completely under the influence of Papists, since Northampton, who was the only one of the three who possessed any amount of brains, governed Somerset though the influence of Lady Frances Howard, the daughter of his nephew the Earl of Suffolk. It is also to be observed that King James was always really in the power of the minion for the time being. The minion at that time was Somserset, or rather Rochester, for Carr had not been created Earl of Somerset at the beginning of the plot; and so overpowering was Northampton's ambition, or so complete his insensibility to shame, that he did not scruple to sacrifice the honour of a daughter of his house, the ducal house of Howard, to the purpose of obtaining that power over the king which could only be obtained through the reigning minion. A contemporary writer says, 'the first meeting that they had, wherein there was any conference, was at this Earl's

1 Archbishop Abbot's Narrative, in Rushworth, vol. i. p. 456.