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THE

Waldie's.

SELECT CIRCULATING LIBRARY.

CONTAINING

THE BEST POPULAR LITERATURE

INCLUDING

MEMOIRS, BIOGRAPHY, NOVELS, TALES, TRAVELS, VOYAGES, &c.

V. 15-16

PART I-1841.

PHILADELPHIA:

PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY A. WALDIE & CO.

1841.

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Memoirs of the Court of England the court, some slight compensation may be found for the absence of more important events,

DURING THE

REIGN OF THE STUARTS,

INCLUDING THE PROTECTORATE.

BY JOHN HENEAGE JESSE.

PREFACE.

It is a fact, which cannot have escaped observation, that while French Literature abounds with private memoirs and personal anecdote, our own is deplorably deficient in agreeable chronicles of this nature. To the author, or rather compiler, of this work, the want appeared to be less owing to the absence of materials, than to a requisite diligence in bringing them to light; in a word, that there existed a supply of latent stores in our own language (buried, as it were, among voluminous records and forgotten pamphlets) sufficient to form a succinct social history of distinguished characters, who figure more or less in every por

tion of our annals.

With this view of the subject, it occurred to to the author that the private history of the Reigns of the Stuarts and of the Protectorate,their families, and others intimately connected with the Court, would present a series of agreeable and instructive anecdotes; would furnish the means of introducing the reader to the principal personages of their day, and of exhibiting the monarch and the statesman in their undress; while, at the same time, it would afford an insight into human character, and a picture of the manners of the age.

It could not escape the author, that some of the anecdotes contained in the present volumes, have already appeared in more than one popular work of modern date. But it would have been impossible for him to follow out his intended plan, and to give a complete and distinct form to his sketches, without partially treading in the footsteps of other writers; in those instances, however, where he has been compelled to make use of the same materials, his researches, whenever it was practicable, have been extended to the fountain-head.

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The author now ventures to put forth the present volumes as a portion only of his labours. Should others agree with him in thinking that work like the present has, in any degree supplied a desideratum in our literature, he will consider himself fully repaid for the trouble it has cost him; at the same time, he is free to confess that he would have been as well pleased, had the task fallen into abler hands.

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The peaceable career of James, and his unwarlike character, are the more remarkable, when we reflect on the eventful history of the unhappy and turbulent race from whence he sprang. With the Stuarts, misfortune had been hereditary. For six generations, his immediate ancestors, with the single exception of a broken heart, had met with violent and untimely ends. His fell by the hand of an assassin; and it is singular mother had suffered on the scaffold, and his father that James should have stood between two crowned heads, his mother and his heir, who times of the sovereign suffering by the hands of were the first and almost only instances in modern the executioner. It would appear indeed as if Providence had conferred a peculiar blessing on and familiar with bloodshed, had with difficulty the peace-maker. His ancestors, fond of war retained possession of their birthrights, while drawn sword, became master of a kingdom threeJames, who even shuddered at the sight of a fold the value of his inheritance. We must remember, however, that in James the love of peace was less the effect of principle than of constitutional infirmity.

The slight differences which occurred during this reign to ruffle the quiet tenor of public feeling, arose almost entirely from subjects of a religious or parliamentary nature. It was solely the fault of James that his career at home was not in every respect as peaceable as it was abroad. His endeavours to encroach on public liberty caused, in a great degree, the opposition of his parliament: his attempts to conciliate all parties, in matters of religion, ended in his satisfying none. The great source of interest which his reign produces, is derived from the gradual advances which were effected in parliamentary liberty. With little to engage their attention abroad, the Commons began to be jealous of their privileges, and the nation at large of its rights; these are the circumstances which throw a peculiar, and almost the sole political interest over the reign of James. It is as curious as it is instructive to watch the birth of that spark, which burst forth in the wild rage for liberty in the succeeding reign. James had really less of the despot in him than Elizabeth; but the nation could bear the golden chains of the one, while it contemned the clumsy fetters of the other.

James the First was born in Edinburgh castle, 19th June, 1566. The apartment in which he first saw the light was, within the last few years, and probably still is, a guard-room for soldiers. In those who are influenced by local associations, that apartment must still excite no slight degree of interest; less, perhaps, as the birthplace of James, than as being identified with the sorrows of Mary Stuart. The clouds of misfortune had gathered fast around that beautiful but imprudent woman. She had irretrievably disgusted her nobility by her impolitic preference of the arrogant Italian Rizzio, and her people by her open exercise of the Romish faith; her misunderstandings with her husband, the weak and showy Lord Darnley, had produced positive hatred and conseqent misery on both sides. The ministers of the Puritan or Reformed Church, were daily in

truding their conscientious brutality in her presence, or promulgating their rebellious tenets among her subjects; and, within a very short period, the blood of her favourite servant Rizzio had been actually shed before her face,—a remarkable scene of violence, when we consider that her own husband, who ought to have been the first to cherish the wife who was shortly to become a mother, and the Lord Chancellor, who should have been foremost to protect the laws actors in that detestable outrage. and the person of his queen, were the principal

ly anxious to baptise the heir to the throne, acThe queen and the Puritan clergy were equalfaiths. An assembly of the church, which hapcording to the ceremonials of their respective pened to be convened at Edinburgh at the time, while they sent to congratulate the unfortunate subject. The superintendent of Lothian, a man mother, expressed their great solicitude on the of a milder nature than his fellows, was their deleher usual sweetness, but returned no answer as gate on the occasion. Mary received him with regarded the principal object of his mission. She sent, however, for the royal infant in order to introduce the superintendent to his future king.

The minister fell on his knees and breathed a short prayer for his welfare; he then took the babe in his arms and playfully told him to say amen for himself, which the queen, says Archbishop Spotswood, "took in such good part as continually afterwards to call the superintendent her Amen." This story, in after life, was repeated to James, who, from that period, always addressed the superintendent by the same familiar

name.*

Immediately after the birth of the prince, Sir James Melvil was despatched by Mary to convey the intelligence to her sister, the Queen of England. The account which Melvil gives of this mission is perhaps the most amusing part of his memoirs. Elizabeth was in high spirits, enjoying herself at a ball at Greenwich, when the event was announced to her. Notwithstanding her habitual self-command, and the fact that the possibility of such an event must have been long a source of anxiety, the jealous feelings of the woman prevailed, and her chagrin was but too evident. The dancing instantly ceased, and the upon her hand, and remaining for some time queen sat down in her chair, leaning her head speechless. "The Queen of Scots," she said to one of her ladies who inquired the cause of her melancholy, "is the mother of a fair son, while I am but a barren stock.' 99 She did not fail, however, to call dissimulation to her aid, and the next morning, when Melvil received his audience, she appeared gayer and better dressed than usual; and, though she deceived no one but herself, expressed the sincerest affection for the Queen of Scots, and joy at her happy delivery.

tised at Stirling, 17th December, 1566, by the The innocent cause of this jealousy was bapBishop of St. Andrews, according to to the rites of the Romish Church. Such of the Scottish nobles as professed the reformed religion absented themselves from the ceremony. His godfathers

p. 196. *Spotswood's History of the Church of Scotland,

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