JAMES STUART, DUKE OF RICHMOND, SON OF ESME STUART.
(From a painting by Vandyke. )
He does not appear in so amiable a light on all occasions, and often tried the patience of his friends by asking for such of their dogs or hawks as happened to particularly please him. A royal request was in the nature of a command, and our former kings were not very nice in the matter. It was assumed as a matter of course that people would be only too happy to gratify their wishes; so they asked for what they wanted, and rarely failed to get it.
Besides this indirect levy, King James was at considerable pains to import valuable hawks and hunting-dogs. There is extant a letter of his to the Earl of Mar, asking him to send for three or four couples of Earth-Dogs, as terriers were then called.
“Have a special care,” he urged, “that the oldest of them be not passing three years of age;” and again, “Send them not all in one ship, but some in one ship, some in another, lest the ship should miscarry.”
It was customary in these days, when the king visited a school or university, for some of the students to hold a disputation in his presence, that he might see their facility in logic, and that they might do credit to their college. Well, King James once visited Cambridge, and the Philosophy Act, as it was called, was kept before him. The subject to be disputed was, “whether dogs were capable of syllogisms.” Gravely was it argued, gravely did King James listen (perhaps with a memory of Jowler) and great was the applause when young Matthew Wren maintained that just as the king was mightier and wiser than other men, so also, by virtue of their prerogative, were the king’s dogs more gifted, and more capable than other dogs, even in the matter of syllogisms. The royal listener was wonderfully pleased with this bit of logic; and we may add that the logician rose high in his favor, becoming eventually Bishop Wren.
The children of James and Anne inherited their love of animals, if indeed they did not derive it from a source more remote. We know that their unfortunate grandmother, Mary Stuart, had pets: and no more piteous tale has ever been told than that of the little creature who staid with her on the scaffold. It was a long-haired Skye terrier, Bébé by name. When she knelt at the block, he lay concealed in the folds of her dress; but after the fatal stroke, while the executioners were despoiling the body, he crept out, and placed himself between the severed trunk and head. There he was found by Jane Kennedy, and there he clung, wet with his mistress’s blood, until removed by force. Who can measure the agony of that faithful little heart, when, all in a moment, its world of affection had shrunk to a lump of irresponsive clay! One would fain know of Bébé—whether, as some say, he died of grief, or, as others maintain, lived several years, well cared for by a noble lady. And where, when death came, was he buried? Fidelity like his deserves a memorial, and doubtless had it at the time, although history is silent on the point. And after all, it does not matter, for we do not forget him.
One of the most charming figures in this connection, is the Princess Elizabeth, daughter of James I. As is usually the case with royal children, she was educated apart from her parents. They sent her with six little companions to Combe Abbey, to be under the charge of Lord and Lady Harrington. Through the park of this pleasant country-seat, flowed a river, and in the river was a tiny island which they gave to the princess for her very own. A house was built upon it for the manager of the small farm, and the farm itself was stocked with cattle, equally diminutive. An aviary was also given her, netted over with gilt wire, and filled with birds of gay plumage or musical throats. Furthermore, there was a garden, in which grew flowers for pleasure, and herbs “for ye animalls’ helth.” It was as nearly a child’s paradise as anything can be; and I fancy that many a time the discrowned Queen of Bohemia looked back with longing to the “Fairy Farm” of her youth.
Lord Harrington’s account-books are often and amusingly enlivened by such items as: so much “to shearing her Hieness’ great rough dog;” to making cages for her birds, or, to supplying cotton for her monkey’s bed, etc. A further evidence of her tastes is the childish portrait preserved at Combe Abbey, which represents her surrounded by her pets. And many another proof is given, her whole life through, in the presents of animals her friends sent her, in her own pleasant mention of her pets, and in her correspondence. Here, for instance, is an amusing note, dated 1618: