Among the sayings, good for the period, which have been attributed to her, we read that when the Archduke raised the siege of Grave, the Queen who heard of it before her secretary, said to him, "Wot you that the Archduke is risen from the Grave." When at Lord Burleigh's she promised to make seven knights, and the gentlemen to be so honoured were placed in a line as the Queen was going out. The least worthy of them, however, were through interest with Lord Burleigh placed first, so that they might have precedence of creation. But the Queen passed down the row and took no notice of them; but when she had reached the screen, turned, and observing, "I had almost forgotten my promise," proceeded to knight from the lower end. On one of her Privy Council saying "Your Majesty was too politic for my Lord Burleigh," she replied, "I have but followed the scripture—'the first shall be last and the last first.'"
The cares of sovereignty, and the opposition of her Roman Catholic subjects led Elizabeth's humour to assume a somewhat severe complexion. Her thoughts gradually became more earnest, and her jests cynical. Moreover, as seen in Shakespeare, the age in which she lived was reflective, and the budding activity of mind was directed towards great interests. There was not that impression of the vanity of all things, which grows up with the extension and maturity of society, and attracts the mind to more fanciful and less grave considerations. A good contrast between Elizabeth's position, and that of James I. may be seen in the following occurrences. When Henry IV. had given the order of St. Michael to Nicolas Clifford and Anthony Shirley, she commanded them to return it. "I will not," she said, "have my sheep follow the pipe of a strange shepherd;"[56] but when James I. was told that several noblemen of his court and council, received pensions from Spain, the King replied that he knew it well, and only wished the King of Spain would give them ten times as much, as it would render him less able to make war upon him.
James was a man of a very eccentric and grotesque fancy, combined with a considerable amount of intelligence and learning. He was particularly fond of religious controversy, and wrote what he considered to be an important work on "Demonologie." From one passage we might suppose that he thought it sinful to laugh, as he says that man can only laugh, because he can only sin. But he kept two clowns for his amusement, and also appreciated Ben Jonson, to whom he gave the direction of the Court Masques. He occasionally made some caustic remarks, which have come down to us, such as, "Who denys a thing he even now spake, is like him that looks in my face and picks my pocket." "A travelling preacher and a travelling woman never come to any good at all."
Sir Henry Wooton told him how the Prince of Condé sued for the title of Altesse from the Synod of Venice. The King replied, "The Prince had good reason to sue for it, and that the Seigniory had done ill to deny it him, considering that the world knew how well he deserved it; it being his custom to raise himself upon every man's back, and to make himself the higher by every man's tail he could get upon. And for that cause he hoped to see him elevated by the just Justice of God to as high a dignity as the gallows at last."
James the First's writings were mostly of a religious character, and some of them were sufficiently ludicrous. But in his "Counterblaste to Tobacco," his indignation is often mixed with humour. He observes that smoking came from the Indians, and continues—
"And now, good countreymen let vs (I pray you) consider what honour or policy can move vs to imitate the barbarous and beastly maneres of the wilde, Godlesse and slavish Indians, especially in so vile and stinking a custome? Shall wee that disdaine to imitate the manners of our neighbour France.... Shall wee, I say without blushing abase ourselves so farre as to imitate these beastly Indians, slaves to the Spaniards, refuse to the world, and as yet aliens from the Holy Covenant of God? Why doe wee not as well imitate them in walking naked as they doe? in preferring glasses, feathers, and such toyes to gold and precious stones, as they doe? Yea, why do wee not deny God, and adore the divel as they doe?"
He proceeds to combat the theory, "That the braines of all men beeing naturally cold and wet, all drie and hote things should be good for them." "It is," he says, "as if a man, because the liver is hote, and as it were an oven to the stomache, would therefore apply and weare close upon his liver and stomache a cake of lead; he might within a short time (I hope) bee susteined very cheape at an Ordinarie, besides the clearing of his conscience from that dreadful sinne of gluttonie."
Towards the end he gives some medical testimony—
"Surely smoke becomes a kitchin farre better than a dining chamber, and yet it makes a kitchin also oftentimes in the inward parts of men, soyling and infecting them with an vnctuous and oily kind of soote, as hath been found in some great tobacco takers, that after their death, were opened."
Addison, speaking of James' love of jesting, observes:—"The age in which the pun chiefly flourished was in the reign of King James the First. That learned monarch was himself a tolerable punster, and made very few bishops or privy-councillors that had not sometime or other signalized themselves by a clinch or a conundrum. It was therefore in this age that the pun appeared with pomp and dignity. It had been before admitted into merry speeches and ludicrous compositions, but was now delivered with great gravity from the pulpit, or pronounced in the most solemn manner at the council-table." Verbal humour continued to be admired for its ingenuity in the reign of Charles I. The childish taste of the time in this respect is prominently exhibited in the "Fames Roule," written by a Mrs. Mary Fage, in honour of the royal family and principal peers of the realm. It consists of short poems, and each one forms an acrostic, and commences with an anagram of the name.