of the sort our sovereigns still derive the regal distinction of "Defenders of the Faith." The pacific government of James I. required that the King himself should be a master of these controversies to be enabled to balance the conflicting parties; and none but a learned king could have exerted the industry or attained to the skill.

THE HAMPTON.COURT CONFERENCE.

In the famous conference at Hampton Court which the King held with the heads of the Non-conformists, we see his Majesty conversing sometimes with great learning and sense, but oftener more with the earnestness of a man, than some have imagined comported with the dignity of a crowned head. The truth is, James, like a true student, indulged, even to his dress, an utter carelessness of parade, and there was in his character a constitutional warmth of heart and a jocundity of temper which did not always adapt it to state-occasions; he threw out his feelings, and sometimes his jests. James, who had passed his youth in a royal bondage, felt that these Non-conformists, while they were debating small points, were reserving for hereafter their great ones; were cloaking their republicanism by their theology, and, like all other politicians, that their ostensible were not their real motives.* Harris and Neale,

* In political history we usually find that the heads of a party are much wiser than the party themselves, so that, whatever they intend to acquire, their first demands are small; but the honest souls who are only stirred by their own innocent zeal, are sure to complain that their business is done negligently. Should the party at first succeed, then the bolder spirit, which they have disguised or suppressed through policy, is left to itself; it starts unbridled and at full gallop. All this occurred in the case of the Puritans. We find that some of the rigid Non-conformists did confess in a pamphlet, "The Christian's modest offer of the Silenced Ministers, 1606," that those who were appointed VOL. III.-30

the organs of the Non-conformists, inveigh against James; even Hume, with the philosophy of the eighteenth century, has pronounced that the king was censurable "for entering zealously into these frivolous disputes of theology." Lord Bolingbroke declares that the king held this conference "in haste to show his parts." Thus a man of genius substitutes suggestion and assertion for accuracy of knowledge. In the present instance, it was an attempt of the Puritans to try the king on his arrival in England; they presented a petition for a conference, called "The Millennary Petition," from a thousand persons supposed to have signed it; the king would not refuse it; but so far from being "in haste to show his parts," that when he discovered their pretended grievances were so futile, "he complained that he had been troubled with such importunities, when some more private course might have been taken for their satisfaction."

The narrative of this once celebrated conference, notwithstanding the absurdity of, the topics, becomes in the hands of the entertaining Fuller a picturesque and dramatic composition, where the dialogue and the manners of the speakers are after the life.

to speak for them at Hampton Court were not of their nomination or judgment; they insisted that these delegates should declare at once against the whole church-establishment, &c., and model the government to each particular man's notions! But these delegates prudently refused to acquaint the king with the conflicting opinions of their constituents.-Lansdowne MSS. 1056, 51.

This confession of the Non-conformists is also acknowledged by their historian Neale, vol. ii. p. 419, 4to edit,

* The petition is given at length in Collier's Eccles. Hist. vol. ii. p. 672. At this time also the Lay Catholics of England printed at Douay "A Petition Apologetical," to James I. Their language is remarkable: they complained they were excluded "that supreme court of parliament first founded by and for Catholike men, was furnished with Catholike prelates, peeres, and personages; and so continued till the times of Edward VI. a childe, and Queen Elizabeth a woman."-Dodd's Church History.

In the course of this conference we obtain a familiar intercourse with the king; we may admire the capacity of the monarch whose genius was versatile with the subjects; sliding from theme to theme with the ease which only mature studies could obtain; entering into the graver parts of these discussions; discovering a ready knowledge of biblical learning, which would sometimes throw itself out with his natural humour, in apt and familiar illustrations, throughout indulging his own personal feelings with an unparalleled naïveté.

The king opened the conference with dignity; "he said, he was happier than his predecessors, who had to alter what they found established, but he only to confirm what was well settled." One of the party made a notable discovery, that the surplice was a kind of garment used by the priests of Isis. The king observed that he had no notion of this antiquity, since he had always heard from them that it was 66 a rag of popery.". "Dr. Reynolds," said the king with an air of pleasantry, "they used to wear hose and shoes in times of popery; have you therefore a mind to go barefoot?" Reynolds objected to the words used in matrimony, "with my body I thee worship." The king said the phrase was a usual English term, as a gentleman of worship, &c., and turning to the doctor, smiling, said, Many a man speaks of Robin Hood, who never shot in his bow; if you had a good wife yourself, you would think all the honour and worship you could do to her were well bestowed." Reynolds was not satisfied on the 37th article, declaring that "The bishop of Rome hath no authority in this land," and desired it should be added, "nor ought to have any." In Barlow's narrative we find that on this his majesty heartily laughed a laugh easily caught up by the lords; but the king nevertheless condescended to reply sensibly to the weak objection,

"What speak you of the pope's authority here? Habemus jure quod habemus; and therefore inasmuch as it is

said he hath not, it is plain enough that he ought not to have." It was on this occasion that some "pleasant discourse passed," in which "a Puritan" was defined to be "a Protestant frightened out of his wits." The king is more particularly vivacious when he alludes to the occurrences of his own reign, or suspects the Puritans of republican notions. On one occasion, to cut the gordian-knot, the king royally decided-"I will not argue that point with you, but answer as kings in parliament, Le Roy s'avisera."

When they hinted at a Scottish Presbytery, the king was somewhat stirred, yet what is admirable in him (says Barlow) without a show of passion. The king had lived among the republican saints, and had been, as he said, "A king without state, without honour, without order, where beardless boys would brave us to our face; and, like the Saviour of the world, though he lived among them, he was not of them." On this occasion, although the king may not have "shown his passion," he broke out, however, with a naïve effusion, remarkable for painting after the home-life a republican government. It must have struck Hume forcibly, for he has preserved part of it in the body of his history. Hume only consulted Fuller. I give the copious explosion from Barlow.

"If you aim at a Scottish Presbytery, it agreeth as well with monarchy as God and the devil. Then Jack, and Tom, and Will, and Dick, shall meet, and at their pleasure censure me and my council, and all our proceedings; then Will shall stand up and say, It must be thus; then Dick shall reply, Nay, marry, but we will have it thus. And therefore here I must once more reiterate my former speech, Le Roy s'avisera. Stay, I pray you, for one seven years before you demand that of me, and if then you find me pursy and fat, I may hearken to you; for let that government once be up, I am sure I shall be kept in breath; then

shall we all of us have work enough: but, Dr. Reynolds, till you find that I grow lazy, let that alone."

The king added,

"I will tell you a tale :-Knox flattered the queen-regent of Scotland, that she was supreme head of all the church, if she suppressed the popish prelates. But how long, trow ye, did this continue? Even so long, till, by her authority, the popish bishops were repressed, and he himself, and his adherents, were brought in, and well settled. Then, lo! they began to make small account of her authority, and took the cause into their own hands."

This was a pointed political tale, appropriately told in the person of a monarch.

The king was never deficient in the force and quickness of his arguments. Even Neale, the great historian of the Puritans, complaining that Dean Barlow has cut off some of the king's speeches, is reluctantly compelled to tax himself with a high commendation of the monarch, who, he acknowledges, on one of the days of this conference, spoke against the corruptions of the church, and the practices of the prelates, in so much that Dr. Andrews, then dean of the chapel, said, that his Majesty did that day wonderfully play the Puritan.* The king, indeed, was seriously in

The bishops of James I. were, as Fuller calls one of them, "potent courtiers," and too worldly-minded men. Bancroft was a man of vehement zeal, but of the most grasping avarice, as appears by an epigrammatic epitaph on his death in Arthur Wilson :

ence.

"Here lies his grace, in cold earth clad,

Who died with want of what he had."

We find a characteristic trait of this bishop of London in this conferWhen Ellesmere, Lord Chancellor, observed, that " livings rather want learned men, than learned men livings, many in the Universities pining for want of places. I wish therefore some may have single coats (one living) before others have doublets (pluralities), and this method I have observed in bestowing the king's benefices." Bancroft replied, "I commend your memorable care that way; but a doublet is necessary in cold weather." Thus an avaricious bishop