besides the delay and interruption in despatch, the justice and prudence of the counsels did not many times weigh down the infirmity and passion of the counsellors; and both suitors and offenders returned into their country, with such exceptions and arguments against persons, as brought and prepared much prejudice to whatsoever should proceed from thence; and whatever excuses shall be made, or arguments given, that upon such extraordinary occasions there was a necessity of some pains and care to convince the understandings of men with the reasons and grounds of their proceeding, (which, if what was done had been only ad informandam conscientiam without reproach, or penalty, might have been reasonable,) it is certain the inconvenience and prejudice, that grew thereby, was greater than the benefit: and the reasons of the judges being many times not the reasons of the judgment, that might more satisfactorily and more shortly been put in the sentence itself, than spread in the discourses of the censurers.

These errors (for errors they were in view, and errors they are proved by the success) are not to be imputed to the court, but to the spirit and overactivity of the lawyers themselves; who should more carefully have preserved their profession and the professors, from being profaned by those services which have rendered both so obnoxious to reproach. There were two persons of that profession, and of that time, by whose several and distinct constitutions (the one knowing nothing of nor caring for the court; the other knowing or caring for nothing else) those mischiefs were introduced; Mr. Noy, the attorney general; and sir John Finch, first, lord chief justice of the common pleas, and then lord keeper of the great seal of England.

The first, upon the great fame of his ability and learning, (and very able and learned he was,) was, by great industry and importunity from court, persuaded to accept that place, for which all other men laboured, (being the best, for profit, that profession is capable of,) and so he suffered himself to be made the king's attorney general. The court made no impression upon his manners; upon his mind it did: and though he wore about him an affected morosity, which made him unapt to flatter other men, yet even that morosity and pride rendered him the most liable to be grossly flattered himself, that can be imagined. And by this means the great persons, who steered the public affairs, by admiring his parts, and extolling his judgment as well to his face as behind his back, wrought upon him by degrees, for the eminency of the service, to be an instrument in all their designs; thinking that he could not give a clearer testimony, that his knowledge in the law was greater than all other men's, than by making that law which all other men believed not to be so. So he moulded, framed, and pursued the odious and crying project of soap; and with his own hand drew and prepared the writ for ship-money, both which will be the lasting monuments of his fame. In a word, he was an unanswerable instance, how necessary a good education and knowledge of men is to make a wise man, at least a man fit for business.

Sir John Finch had much that the other wanted, but nothing that the other had. Having led a licentious life in a restrained fortune, and having set up upon the stock of a good wit, and natural parts, without the superstructure of much knowledge in the profession by which he was to grow; [he]

was willing to use those weapons in which he had most skill, and (so being not unseen in the affections of the court, but not having reputation enough to guide or reform them) he took up shipmoney where Mr. Noy left it; and, being a judge, carried it up to that pinnacle, from whence he almost broke his own neck; having, in his journey thither, too much a solicitor to induce his brethren to concur in a judgment they had all cause to repent. To which, his declaration, after he was keeper of the great seal of England, must be added, upon a demurrer put in to a bill before him, which had no other equity in it, than an order of the lords of the council;" that whilst he was keeper, no man "should be so saucy to dispute those orders, but "that the wisdom of that board should be always " ground enough for him to make a decree in " chancery;" which was so great an aggravation of the excess of that table, that it received more prejudice from that act of unreasonable countenance and respect, than from all the contempt could possibly have been offered to it. But of this no more.

Now after all this (and I hope I cannot be accused of much flattery in this inquisition) I must be so just as to say, that, during the whole time that these pressures were exercised, and those new and extraordinary ways were run, that is, from the dissolution of the parliament in the fourth year, to the beginning of this parliament, which was above twelve years, this kingdom, and all his majesty's dominions, (of the interruption in Scotland somewhat shall be said in its due time and place,) enjoyed the greatest calm, and the fullest measure of felicity, that any people in any age, for so long time together, have been blessed with; to the wonder and envy of all the parts of Christendom.

And in this comparison I am neither unmindful of, nor ungrateful for, the happy times of queen Elizabeth, or for those more happy under king James. But for the former, the doubts, hazards, and perplexities, upon a total change and alteration of religion, and some confident attempts upon a farther alteration by those who thought not the reformation enough; the charge, trouble, and anxiety of a long continued war (how prosperous and successful soever) even during that queen's whole reign; and (besides some domestic ruptures into rebellion, frequently into treason; and besides the blemish, of an unparalleled act of blood upon the life of a crowned neighbour queen and ally) the fear and apprehension of what was to come (which is one of the most unpleasant kinds of melancholy) from an unknown, at least an unacknowledged, successor to the crown, clouded much of that prosperity then, which now shines with so much splendour before our eyes in chronicle.

And for the other under king James, (which indeed were excellent times bona si sua norint,) the mingling with a stranger nation, formerly not very gracious with this, which was like to have more interest of favour: the subjection to a stranger prince, whose nature and disposition they knew not: the noise of treason, the most prodigious that had ever been attempted, upon his first entrance into the kingdom: the wants of the crown not inferior to what it hath since felt, (I mean whilst it sat right on the head of the king,) and the pressures upon the subject of the same nature, and no less complained of: the absence of the prince in Spain, and the solicitude that his highness might not be disposed in marriage to the daughter of that king

dom, rendered the calm and tranquillity of that time less equal and pleasant. To which may be added the prosperity and happiness of the neighbour kingdoms not much inferior to that of this, which, according to the pulse of states, is a great diminution of their health; at least their prosperity is much improved, and more visible, by the misery and misfortunes of their neighbours.

The happiness of the times I mentioned was enviously set off by this, that every other kingdom, every other province were engaged, some entangled, and some almost destroyed, by the rage and fury of arms; those which were ambitiously in contention with their neighbours, having the view and apprehensions of the miseries and desolation, which they saw other states suffer by a civil war; whilst the kingdoms we now lament were alone looked upon as the garden of the world; Scotland (which was but the wilderness of that garden) in a full, entire, undisturbed peace, which they had never seen; the rage and barbarism (that the blood, for of the charity we speak not) of their private feuds, being composed to the reverence, or to the awe, of public justice; in a competency, if not in an excess of plenty, which they had never hope to see, and in a temper (which was the utmost we desired and hoped to see) free from rebellion: Ireland, which had been a sponge to draw, and a gulph to swallow all that could be spared, and all that could be got from England, merely to keep the reputation of a kingdom, reduced to that good degree of husbandry and government, that it not only subsisted of itself, and gave this kingdom all that it might have expected from it; but really increased the revenue of the crown forty or fifty thousand pounds a year, besides much more to the people in the traffick and trade from thence; arts and sciences fruitfully planted there; and the whole nation beginning to be so civilized, that it was a jewel of great lustre in the royal diadem.

When these outworks were thus fortified and adorned, it was no wonder if England was generally thought secure, with the advantages of its own climate; the court in great plenty, or rather (which is the discredit of plenty) excess, and luxury; the country rich, and, which is more, fully enjoying the pleasure of its own wealth, and so the easier corrupted with the pride and wantonness of it; the church flourishing with learned and extraordinary men, and (which other good times wanted) supplied with oil to feed those lamps; and the protestant religion more advanced against the church of Rome by writing, (without prejudice to other useful and godly labours,) especially by those two books of the late lord archbishop of Canterbury his grace, and of Mr. Chillingworth, than it had been from the reformation; trade increased to that degree, that we were the exchange of Christendom, (the revenue thereof to the crown being almost double to what it had been in the best times,) and the bullion of all other kingdoms brought to receive a stamp from the mint of England; all foreign merchants looking upon nothing as their own, but what they had laid up in the warehouses of this kingdom; the royal navy, in number and equipage much above former times, very formidable at sea; and the reputation of the greatness and power of the king much more with foreign princes than any of his progenitors; for those rough courses, which made him haply less loved at home, made him more feared abroad; by how much the power of

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But all these blessings could but enable, not compel us to be happy: we wanted that sense, acknowledgment, and value of our own happiness, which all but we had; and took pains to make, when we could not find, ourselves miserable. There was in truth a strange absence of understanding in most, and a strange perverseness of understanding in the rest: the court full of excess, idleness, and luxury; and the country full of pride, mutiny, and discontent; every man more troubled and perplexed at that they called the violation of one law, than delighted or pleased with the observation of all the rest of the charter : never imputing the increase of their receipts, revenue, and plenty, to the wisdom, virtue, and merit of the crown, but objecting every small imposition to the exorbitancy and tyranny of the government; the growth of knowledge and learning being disrelished, for the infirmities of some learned men, and the increase of grace and favour upon the church more repined and murmured at, than the increase of piety and devotion in the church, which was as visible, acknowledged, or taken notice of; whilst the indiscretion and folly of one sermon at Whitehall was more bruited abroad, and commented upon, than the wisdom, sobriety, and devotion of a hundred.

It cannot be denied but there was sometimes preached there matter very unfit for the place, and very scandalous for the persons, who presumed often to determine things out of the verge of their own profession, and, in ordine ad spiritualia, gave unto Cæsar what Cæsar refused to receive, as not belonging to him. But it is as true (as was once said by a man fitter to be believed in that point than I, and one not suspected for flattering of the clergy) "that if the sermons of those times preached "in court were collected together, and published, "the world would receive the best bulk of ortho"dox divinity, profound learning, convincing rea

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son, natural powerful eloquence, and admirable "devotion, that hath been communicated in any "age since the apostles' time." And I cannot but say, for the honour of the king, and of those who were trusted by him in his ecclesiastical collations (who have received but sad rewards for their uprightness) in those reproached, condemned times, there was not one churchman, in any degree of favour or acceptance, (and this the inquisition, that hath been since made upon them-a stricter never was in any age must confess,) of a scandalous insufficiency in learning, or of a more scandalous condition in life; but, on the contrary, most of

them of confessed eminent parts in knowledge, and of virtuous or unblemished lives. And therefore wise men knew, that that, which looked like pride in some, and like petulance in others, would, by experience in affairs, and conversation amongst men, both of which most of them wanted, be in time wrought off, or, in a new succession, reformed, and so thought the vast advantage from their learning and integrity, an ample recompense for any inconvenience from their passion; and yet, by the prodigious impiety of those times, the latter was only looked on with malice and revenge, without any reverence or gratitude for the former.

When the king found himself possessed of all that tranquillity mentioned before, that he had no reason to apprehend any enemies from abroad, and less any insurrections at home, against which no kingdom in Christendom, in the constitution of its government, in the solidity and execution of the laws, and in the nature and disposition of the people, was more secure than England; that he might take a nearer view of those great blessings which God had poured upon him, he resolved to make a progress into the northern parts of his kingdom, and to be solemnly crowned in his kingdom of Scotland, which he had never seen from the time he first left it, when he was of the age of two years, and no more. In order to this journey, which was made with great splendour, and proportionable expense, he added to the train of his court many of the greatest nobility, who cared not to add to the pomp of the court at their own charge, which they were obliged to do, and did with all visible alacrity submit to the king's pleasure, as soon as they knew his desire; and so his attendance in all respects was proportionable to the glory of the greatest king.

This whole progress was made, from the first setting out to the end of it, with the greatest magnificence imaginable; and the highest excess of feasting was then introduced, or, at least, carried to a height it had never been before; and from whence it hardly declined afterwards, to the great damage and mischief of the nation in their estates and manners. All persons of quality and condition, who lived within distance of the northern road, received the great persons of the nobility with that hospitality which became them; in which all cost was employed to make their entertainments splendid, and their houses capable for those entertainments. And the king himself met with many treatments of that nature, at the charge of particular men, who desired the honour of his presence, which had been rarely practised till then by the persons of the best condition, though it hath since grown into a very inconvenient custom. But when he passed through Nottinghamshire, both king and court were received and entertained by the earl of Newcastle, and at his own proper expense, in such a wonderful manner, and in such an excess of feasting, as had never before been known in England; and would be still thought very prodigious, if the same noble person had not, within a year or two afterwards, made the king and queen a more stupendous entertainment; which, (God be thanked,) though possibly it might too much whet the appetite of others to excess, no man ever

after imitated.

The great offices of the court, and principal places of attendance upon the king's person, were then upon the matter equally divided between the

English and the Scots; the marquis of Hamilton master of the horse, and the earl of Carlisle first gentleman of the bedchamber, and almost all the second relation in that place, being of that kingdom; so that there was as it were an emulation between the two nations, which should appear in the greatest lustre, in clothes, horses, and attendance and as there were (as is said before) many of the principal nobility of England, who attended upon the king, and who were not of the court; so the court was never without many Scots volunteers, and their number was well increased upon this occasion in nobility and gentry, who were resolved to convince all those who had believed their country to be very poor.

The king no sooner entered Scotland, but all his English servants and officers yielded up their attendance to those of the Scots nation, who were admitted into the same offices in Scotland, or had some titles to those relations by the constitution of that kingdom; as most of the great offices are held by inheritance; as the duke of Richmond and Lenox was then high steward, and high admiral of Scotland by descent, as others had the like possession of other places; so that all the tables of the house, which had been kept by the English officers, were laid down, and taken up again by the Scots, who kept them up with the same order, and equal splendour, and treated the English with all the freedom and courtesy imaginable; as all the nobility of that nation did, at their own expense, where their offices did not entitle them to tables at the charge of the crown, keep very noble houses to entertain their new guests; who had so often and so well entertained them: and it cannot be denied, the whole behaviour of that nation towards the English was as generous and obliging as could be expected; and the king appeared with no less lustre at Edinburgh, than at Whitehall; and in this pomp his coronation passed with all the solemnity and evidence of public joy that can be imagined, or could be expected; and the parliament, then held, with no less demonstration of duty, passed and presented those acts which were prepared for them to the royal sceptre; in which were some laws which restrained the extravagant power of the nobility, which, in many cases, they had long exercised, and the diminution whereof they took very heavily, though at that time they took little notice of it; the king being absolutely advised in all the affairs of that kingdom then, and long before, and after, by the sole counsel of the marquis of Hamilton, who was, or at least then believed to be, of the greatest interest of any subject in that kingdom, of whom more will be said hereafter.

The king was very well pleased with his reception, and with all the transactions there; nor indeed was there any thing to be blamed, but the luxury and vast expense, which abounded in all respects of feasting and clothes with too much license: which being imputed to the commendable zeal of the people of all conditions, to see their king amongst them, whom they were not like to see there again, and so their expense was to be but once made, and to the natural pride and vanity of that people, who will bear any inconveniences in it or from it, than confess the poverty of their country, no man had cause to suspect any mischief from it: and yet the debts contracted at that time by the nobility and gentry, and the wants and

temptations they found themselves exposed to, from that unlimited expense, did very much contribute to the kindling that fire, which shortly after broke out in so terrible a combustion: nor were the sparks of murmur and sedition then so well covered, but that many discerning men discovered very pernicious designs to lurk in their breasts, who seemed to have the most cheerful countenance, and who acted great parts in the pomp and triumph. And it evidently appeared, that they of that nation, who shined most in the court of England, had the least influence in their own country, except only the marquis of Hamilton, whose affection to his master was even then suspected by the wisest men in both kingdoms; and that the immense bounties the king and his father had scattered amongst those of that nation, out of the wealth of England, besides that he had sacrificed the whole revenue and benefit of that kingdom to themselves, were not looked upon as any benefit to that people, but as obligations cast away upon particular men; many of whom had with it wasted their own patrimony in their country.

The king himself observed many of the nobility to endeavour to make themselves popular by speaking in parliament against those things which were most grateful to his majesty, and which still passed, notwithstanding their contradiction; and he thought a little discountenance upon those persons would either suppress that spirit within themselves, or make the poison of it less operative upon others. But as those acts of discountenance were too often believed to proceed from the displeasure of the marquis of Hamilton, and so rather advanced than depressed the object, so that people have naturally an admirable dexterity in sheltering themselves from any of those acts of discountenance, which they had no mind to own; (as they are equal promoters and promulgators of it, though not intended when they can make benefit by it;) when it hath been notoriously visible, and it was then notorious, that many of the persons then, as the earl of Rothes, and others, of whom the king had the worst opinion, and from whom he most purposely withheld any grace by never speaking to them, or taking notice of them in the court, when the king was abroad in the fields, or passing through villages, when the greatest crowds of people flocked to see him, those men would still be next him, and entertain him with some discourse, and pleasant relations, which the king's gentle disposition could not avoid, and which made those persons to be generally believed to be most acceptable to his majesty; upon which the lord Falkland was wont to say, that keeping of state was like committing "adultery, there must go two to it ;" for let the proudest or most formal man resolve to keep what distance he will towards others, a bold and confident man instantly demolishes that whole machine, and gets within him, and even obliges him to his own laws of conversation.

The king was always the most punctual observer of all decency in his devotion, and the strictest promoter of the ceremonies of the church, as believing in his soul the church of England to be instituted the nearest to the practice of the apostles, and the best for the propagation and advancement of Christian religion, of any church in the world: and on the other side, though no man was more averse from the Romish church than he was, nor better understood the motives of their separation

from us, and animosity against us, he had the highest dislike and prejudice to that part of his own subjects, who were against the government established, and did always look upon them as a very dangerous and seditious people; who would, under pretence of conscience, which kept them from submitting to the spiritual jurisdiction, take the first opportunity they could find, or make, to disturb and withdraw themselves from their temporal subjection; and therefore he had, with the utmost vigilance, caused that temper and disposition to be watched and provided against in England; and if it were then in truth there, it lurked with wonderful secresy. In Scotland indeed it covered the whole nation, so that though there were bishops. in name, the whole jurisdiction, and they themselves were, upon the matter, subject to an assembly, which was purely presbyterian; no form of religion in practice, no liturgy, nor the least appearance of any beauty of holiness: the clergy, for the most part, corrupted in their principles; at least, (for it cannot be denied but that their universities, especially Aberdeen, flourished under many excellent scholars and very learned men,) none countenanced by the great men, or favoured by the people, but such; yet, though all the cathedral churches were totally neglected with reference to those administrations over the whole kingdom, yet the king's own chapel at Holyrood-house had still been maintained with the decency and splendour of the cathedral service, and all other formalities incident to the royal chapel; and the whole nation seemed, in the time of king James, well inclined to receive the liturgy of the church of England, which the king exceedingly desired, and was so confident of, that they who were privy to the counsels of that king in that time did believe, that the bringing that work to pass was the principal end of his progress thither some years before his death; though he was not so well satisfied at his being there, two or three of the principal persons trusted by him in the government of that kingdom, dying in or about that very time: but [though] he returned without making any visible attempt in that affair, yet he retained still the purpose and resolution to his death to bring it to pass. However, his two or three last years were less pleasant to him, by the prince's voyage into Spain, the jealousies which, about that time, began in England, and the imperious proceedings in parliament there, so that he thought it necessary to suspend any prosecution of that design, until a more favourable conjuncture, and he lived not to see that conjuncture.

The king his son, who, with his kingdoms and other virtues, inherited that zeal for religion, proposed nothing more to himself, than to unite his three kingdoms in one form of God's worship, and in a uniformity in public devotions; and there being now so great a serenity in all his dominions as is mentioned before, there is great reason to believe, that in this journey into Scotland to be crowned, he carried the resolution with him to finish that important business in the church at the same time. And to that end, the then bishop of London, Dr. Laud, attended on his majesty throughout that whole journey, which, as he was dean of the chapel, he was not obliged to do, and no doubt would have been excused from, if that design had not been in view; to accomplish which he was not less solicitous than the king himself, nor the king the less solicitous for his advice. He preached in

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