THE REVOLUTIONISTS OF THAT AGE.
James I. has painted, with vivid touches, the Anti-Monarchists, or revolutionists, of his time.
He describes "their imagined democracie, where they fed themselves with the hope to become tribunî plebi; and so, in a popular government, by leading the people by the nose, to bear the sway of all the rule.—Every faction," he adds, "always joined them. I was ofttimes calumniated in their popular sermons, not for any evill or vice in me,[A] but because I was a king, which they thought the highest evill; and, because they were ashamed to professe this quarrel, they were busie to look narrowly in all my actions, pretending to distinguish the lawfulness of the office from the vice of the person; yet some of them would snapper out well grossly with the trewth of their intentions, informing the people that all kings and princes were naturally enemies to the liberties of the Church; whereby the ignorant were emboldened (as bayards),[B] to cry the learned and modest out of it: but their parity is the mother of confusion, and enemie to vnitie, which is the mother of order." And it is not without eloquence his Majesty describes these factious Anti-Monarchists, as "Men, whom no deserts can oblige, neither oaths nor promises bind; breathing nothing but sedition and calumnies, aspiring without measure, railing without reason, and making their own imaginations the square of their conscience. I protest, before the great God, and, since I am here as vpon my testament, it is no place for me to lie in, that ye shall never find with any Hie-land, or Border theeves, greater ingratitude, and more lies and vile perjuries: ye may keep them for trying your patience, as Socrates did an evill wife."
[Footnote A: The conduct of James I. in Scotland has even extorted praise from one of his bitterest calumniators; for Mrs. Macaulay has said—"His conduct, when King of Scotland, was in many points unexceptionable.">[
[Footnote B: An old French word, expressing, "A man that gapes or gazes earnestly at a thing; a fly-catcher; a greedy and unmannerly beholder."— COTGRAVE.]
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OF THE NOBILITY OF SCOTLAND.
The king makes three great divisions of the Scottish people: the church, the nobility, and the burghers.
Of the nobility, the king counsels the prince to check
"A fectless arrogant conceit of their greatness and power, drinking in with their very nourish-milk. Teach your nobilitie to keep your lawes, as precisely as the meanest; fear not their orping, or being discontented, as long as ye rule well: for their pretended reformation of princes taketh never effect, but where evil government proceedeth. Acquaint yourself so with all the honest men of your barone and gentlemen, giving access so open and affable, to make their own suites to you themselves, and not to employ the great lordes, their intercessours; so shall ye bring to a measure their monstrous backes. And for their barbarous feîdes (feuds), put the laws to due execution made by mee there-anent; beginning ever rathest at him that yee love best, and is oblished vnto you, to make him an example to the rest. Make all your reformations to begin at your elbow, and so by degrees to the extremities of the land."