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As victory abroad and tranquillity at home had attended this princess, she left the nation in such flourishing circumstances, that her successor possessed every advantage, except that of comparison with her illustrious name, when he mounted the throne of England. The king’s journey from Edinburgh to London immediately afforded to the inquisitive some circumstances of comparison, which even the natural partiality in favor of their new sovereign could not interpret to his advantage. As he passed along, all ranks of men flocked about him from every quarter, allured by interest or curiosity. Great were the rejoicings, and loud and hearty the acclamations, which resounded from all sides; and every one could remember how the affability and popular manners of their queen displayed themselves amidst such concourse and exultation of her subjects. But James, though sociable and familiar with his friends and courtiers, hated the bustle of a mixed multitude; and though far from disliking flattery, yet was he still fonder of tranquillity and ease. He issued, therefore, a proclamation, forbidding this resort of people, on pretence of the scarcity of provisions, and other inconveniencies, which, he said, would necessarily attend it.[*]

* Kennet, p. 662.

He was not, however, insensible to the great flow of affection which appeared in his new subjects; and being himself of an affectionate temper, he seems to have been in haste to make them some return of kindness and good offices. To this motive, probably, we are to ascribe that profusion of titles which was observed in the beginning of his reign; when, in six weeks’ time after his entrance into the kingdom, he is computed to have bestowed knighthood on no less than two hundred and thirty-seven persons. If Elizabeth’s frugality of honors, as well as of money, had formerly been repined at, it began now to be valued and esteemed, and every one was sensible that the king, by his lavish and premature conferring of favors, had failed of obliging the persons on whom he bestowed them. Titles of all kinds became so common, that they were scarcely marks of distinction; and being distributed, without choice or deliberation, to persons unknown to the prince, were regarded more as the proofs of facility and good nature, than of any determined friendship or esteem.

A pasquinade was affixed to St. Paul’s, in which an art was promised to be taught, very necessary to assist frail memories in retaining the names of the new nobility.[*]

We may presume that the English would have thrown less blame on the king’s facility in bestowing favors, had these been confined entirely to their own nation, and had not been shared out, in too unequal proportions, to his old subjects. James, who, through his whole reign, was more guided by temper and inclination than by the rules of political prudence, had brought with him great numbers of his Scottish courtiers, whose impatience and importunity were apt, in many particulars, to impose on the easy nature of their master, and extort favors of which, it is natural to imagine, his English subjects would loudly complain. The duke of Lenox, the earl of Marre, Lord Hume, Lord Kinloss, Sir George Hume, Secretary Elphinstone,[**] were immediately added to the English privy council. Sir George Hume, whom he created earl of Dunbar, was his declared favorite as long as that nobleman lived, and was one of the wisest and most virtuous, though the least powerful, of all those whom the king ever honored with that distinction. Hay, some time after, was created Viscount Doncaster, then earl of Carlisle, and got an immense fortune from the crown, all which he spent in a splendid and courtly manner. Ramsay obtained the title of earl of Holderness; and many others being raised on a sudden to the highest elevation, increased, by their insolence, that envy which naturally attended them as strangers and ancient enemies.

* Wilson, in Kennet, p. 665.

** Wilson, in Kennet, p. 662.

It must, however, be owned, in justice to James, that he left almost all the chief offices in the hands of Elizabeth’s ministers, and trusted the conduct of political concerns, both foreign and domestic, to his English subjects. Among these, Secretary Cecil, created successively Lord Effindon, Viscount Cranborne, and earl of Salisbury, was always regarded as his prime minister and chief counsellor. Though the capacity and penetration of this minister were sufficiently known, his favor with the king created surprise on the accession of that monarch. The secret correspondence into which he had entered with James, and which had sensibly contributed to the easy reception of that prince in England, laid the foundation of Cecil’s credit; and while all his former associates, Sir Walter Raleigh, Lord Grey, Lord Cobham, were discountenanced on account of their animosity against Essex, as well as for other reasons, this minister was continued in employment, and treated with the greatest confidence and regard.

The capacity of James and his ministers in negotiation was immediately put to trial on the appearance of ambassadors from almost all the princes and states of Europe, in order to congratulate him on his accession, and form with him new treaties and alliances. Besides ministers from Venice, Denmark, the Palatinate; Henry Frederic of Nassau, assisted by Barnevelt, the pensionary of Holland, was ambassador from the states of the United Provinces. Aremberg was sent by Archduke Albert, and Taxis was expected in a little time from Spain. But he who most excited the attention of the public, both on account of his own merit and that of his master, was the marquis of Rosni, afterwards duke of Sully, prime minister and favorite of Henry IV. of France.

When the dominions of the house of Austria devolved on Philip II., all Europe was struck with terror, lest the power of a family, which had been raised by fortune, should now be carried to an immeasurable height by the wisdom and conduct of this monarch. But never were apprehensions found in the event to be more groundless. Slow without prudence, ambitious without enterprise, false without deceiving any body, and refined without any true judgment; such was the character of Philip, and such the character which, during his lifetime, and after his death, he impressed on the Spanish councils. Revolted or depopulated provinces, discontented or indolent inhabitants, were the spectacles which those dominions, lying in every climate of the globe, presented to Philip III., a weak prince, and to the duke of Lerma, a minister weak and odious. But though military discipline, which still remained, was what alone gave some appearance of life and vigor to that languishing body, yet so great was the terror produced by former power and ambition, that the reduction of the house of Austria was the object of men’s vows throughout all the states of Christendom. It was not perceived, that the French empire, now united in domestic peace, and governed by the most heroic and most amiable prince that adorns modern story, was become, of itself, a sufficient counterpoise to the Spanish greatness. Perhaps that prince himself did not perceive it, when he proposed, by his minister, a league with James, in conjunction with Venice, the United Provinces, and the northern crowns, in order to attack the Austrian dominions on every side, and depress the exorbitant power of that ambitious family.[*] But the genius of the English monarch was not equal to such vast enterprises. The love of peace was his ruling passion; and it was his peculiar felicity, that the conjunctures of the times rendered the same object which was agreeable to him in the highest degree advantageous to his people.

The French ambassador, therefore, was obliged to depart from these extensive views, and to concert with James the means of providing for the safety of the United Provinces: nor was this object altogether without its difficulties. The king, before his accession, had entertained scruples with regard to the revolt of the Low Countries; and being commonly open and sincere,[**] he had, on many occasions, gone so far as to give to the Dutch the appellation of rebels; [***] but having conversed more fully with English ministers and courtiers, he found their attachment to that republic so strong, and their opinion of common interest so established, that he was obliged to sacrifice to politics his sense of justice; a quality which, even when erroneous, is respectable as well as rare in a monarch.