The gentleman called King James
In quilted doublet and great trunk breeches,
Who held in abhorrence tobacco and witches,[8]
signalised himself and his reign by profound learning and ponderous invective hurled against the innocent plant, amongst whose alluring leaves there lurked the ‘lively image and pattern of hell.’ His Counterblaste to tobacco[9] is of itself an historic monument to his genius, which posterity does well to preserve that there may be something in hand to attest the just appreciation of his ‘loving subjects’ in early recognising in him a Solomon! Though, to be sure, some will have it that the irreverent Henri Quatre was the first to see the fitness of the designation, Solomon, for the son of Mary, Queen of Scots. And yet his astute minister, the Duc de Sully, professed to have discovered in the flickering illuminations of this northern light ‘the wisest fool in Christendom.’ Historians who think it incumbent upon them to explain every human phenomenon or prodigy, have perplexed themselves with vain endeavours to unravel this curious compound of Machiavellian craft, fussy self-conceit and imbecility. Looking to his preternatural insight into the uncanny domain of the Black Arts, his mental conflicts with the de’il, witches and warlocks, and long nebbit things, the problem his character presents might perhaps form a fitting study for the modern school of psychology.
With the beginning of the seventeenth century commenced a literary warfare over the virtues and vices of St Nicotine, which lasted intermittently down to the present day. Mr. Solly, of St. Thomas’s Hospital, in the middle of last century strove valiantly in the columns of the Lancet to get up a crusade against smoking. All the leading members of the medical profession took part in the affray; irrefragable statistics were piled up one upon the other as ramparts from behind which Mr. Solly proclaimed that there was death in the pipe; and the rapid degeneracy of the human race, to him everywhere apparent, was to be regarded as the inevitable consequence of indulgence in the pernicious weed. Had Mr. Solly referred to the text-book left by the royal founder of his faith, he would have learned the right use and value of trenchant utterance, and as a physiologist, would have gained knowledge never imparted in St. Thomas’s Hospital.
DUC DE SULLY
The royal Counterblaste proclaims that ‘smoke becomes a kitchen far better than a dining-chamber; and yet it makes a kitchen oftentimes in the inward parts of men, soyling and infecting with an unctuous and oyly kind of soote, as hath been found in some great tobacco takers, that after death were opened.’ ‘Have you not reason then to be ashamed and to forbear this filthie noveltie, so basely grounded, so foolishly received, and so grossly mistaken in the right use thereof? In your abuse thereof sinning against God, harming yourselves both in person and in goods, and raking also thereby the marks and notes of vanitie upon you; by the custom thereof making yourselves to be wondered at by all forraine civil nations, and all strangers that come among you, to be scorned and contemned.’ King James clinches his argument with a logical acumen there is no resisting. ‘Why,’ he asks, ‘since we imitate the beastly and slavish Indians in taking tobacco, do we not imitate them in walking naked? as they do’—an extraordinary idea to occur to one accustomed to wear dagger-proof quilted dress—‘preferring glass beads and feathers to gold and precious stones? as they do; yea, why do we not deny God and adore the devil? as they do.’ Then comes his famous climax: ‘A custom loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the orgain (brain), dangerous to the lungs, and in the black stinking fume thereof nearest resembling the horrible Stygian smoke of the pit that is bottomless.’ If, after this display of royal indignation, stiff-necked ones still cast fond looks at the ‘emblem of hell,’ let them turn their attention to the King’s words of wisdom stored up in a Collection of Witty Apothegms. Things that before were obscure to mental vision are here illuminated with a new radiance; it is made clear to us that ‘tobacco was the lively image and pattern of hell, for that it had, by illusion, in it all the parts and vices of the world whereby hell may be gained—to wit, first: It is a smoke; so are the vanities of this world. Secondly: It delighteth them that take it; so do the pleasures of the world delight the men of the world. Thirdly: It maketh men drunken and light in the head; so do the vanities of the world, men are drunken wherewith. Fourthly: He that taketh tobacco saith he cannot leave it, it doth bewitch him!… And, further, besides all this, it is like hell in the very substance of it, for it is a stinking, loathsome thing, and so is hell.’ But James had his moments of gaiety; he could jest over the arch enemy, and it would be most unfair to his memory to pass by any playful attempt at jocularity that for an instant flickered over his dreary brain. In the treasury of wisdom already mentioned, we are told that his Majesty once remarked that ‘if he were to invite the devil to dinner he should have three dishes: 1. A pig; 2. A pole of ling and mustard; and (3) a pipe of tobacco for digesture.’
There is a passage in the Counterblaste which seems to point directly to Raleigh; it runs as follows: ‘Now the corrupt baseness of the use of this tobacco doeth very well agree with the foolish and groundless first entry thereof into this kingdom. It is not so long since the first entry of this abuse amongst us here, as this present age can very well remember both the first author and the form of the first introduction of it amongst us. It was neither brought in by king, great conqueror, nor learned doctor of physick. With the report of a great discovery for a conquest, some two or three savage men were brought in, together with this savage custom. But the pity is, the poor, wild, barbarous men died; but that vile, barbarous custom is yet alive, yea, in fresh vigour, so as it seems a miracle to me how a custom springing from so vile a ground, and brought in by a father so generally hated, should be welcomed on so slender a warrant.’ The mention of ‘two or three savage men’ clearly indicates the return of Raleigh’s first expedition in 1584, when Captain Amadas and Barlowe brought with them two American Indians, whose appearance in the streets was regarded as one of the sights of London. James’s inveterate enmity towards Raleigh would seem to have originated at their first encounter at Burghly, in Lincolnshire, when the King faltered out: ‘On my soul, mon, I hae heard but rawley o’ thee,’ a clumsy attempt at a pun. Doubtless Raleigh’s noble bearing and rich attire would touch James’s inordinate self-importance, which seems to have at all times blinded him to a proper sense of decency, according to Sir Anthony Weldon’s simple, graphic presentation of him. On the King boasting that, had the English crown not been offered to him, his Scotch army would have taken it for him, Raleigh, indignant, made the injudicious remark: ‘Would God that had been put to the test.’ ‘Why?’ asked James. Raleigh recovering himself replied, ‘Your Majesty would then have known your friends from your foes.’ Aubrey says that James never forgave this speech. One by one, Raleigh was stripped of all his offices; and before the end of the first year of James’s reign (November 4, 1603) he was lodged in the Tower on a false charge of treason, and after fifteen years’ imprisonment was judicially murdered by order of the King. Speaking of this event, Sir Anthony Weldom remarks, ‘How this kingdom was gulled in the supposed treason of Sir Walter Rawley and others who suffered as traytors, whereas to this day it could never be knowne that there ever was such treason, but a mere trick of State to remove some blotches out of the way.’ When Raleigh’s fate drew nigh, ‘he took a pipe of tobacco a little before he went to the scaffolde,’ says Aubrey, ‘which some female persons were scandalised at; but I think ’twas well and properly donne to settle his spirits.’
Speaking of this noble victim of James I., Sir Walter Besant, in his handsome volume on Westminster, says, ‘Raleigh was brought to Old Palauce Yard to die. The day chosen for his execution was Lord Mayor’s Day, so that the crowd should be drawn to the pageant rather than to his execution.’ The body lies buried in the chancel of St. Margaret’s Church, Westminster, where, near by, a tablet informs the visitor that