You may think how vexed the English were when they found that they had a king so unfit for them, after their wise Queen Elizabeth.
The queen of James was Anne, the daughter of the King of Denmark. She was very extravagant, and loved feasts and balls, and acted plays herself, and filled the court with rioting, instead of the ladylike music and dancing, and poetry and needlework, that Queen Elizabeth and her ladies loved.
Instead of riding about among the people, and depending on their love and good will, James was always hiding himself; the only thing he seemed to love was hunting, and for the sake of that he neglected his people and his business.
The favourites he had were far from being useful, or wise, or brave. He chose them for their good looks and rosy cheeks, without inquiring anything about their behaviour.
He dealt severely with the Roman Catholics, whom he put in prison, and from whom he took a great deal of money. Then he disliked those Protestants who did not wish to have bishops as well as parish clergymen, and who are mostly called Presbyterians; but some were then named Puritans, and he would not let them alter the Prayer-book.
The Roman Catholics being tired of the ill usage they got from King James, some of them thought that, if they could kill him, they might take one of his young children to bring up themselves, and have a Roman Catholic king or queen, and get all England and Scotland for themselves. They thought besides, that they had better kill all the lords and all the gentlemen of the House of Commons too, and so get rid of the whole Protestant parliament.
From thinking wickedly they went on to do wickedly. They found there were some cellars under the houses of parliament, and they filled these cellars with gunpowder; and as they expected the parliament would meet in the house all together, with the king, on the fifth day of November, they hired a man called Guy Fawkes to set fire to the gunpowder, and so to blow it up, and kill everybody there at once.
Now, it happened that one of the lords, whose name was Mounteagle, had a friend among the Roman Catholics, and that friend wrote him a letter, without signing his name, to beg him not to go to the parliament that day, for that a sudden blow would be struck which would destroy them all. Lord Mounteagle took this letter to the king’s council. Some of the councillors laughed at it, and said it was only sent to frighten Lord Mounteagle. But the king took it, and after thinking a little, he said, the sudden blow must mean something to be done with gunpowder, and he set people to watch who went in and out of the vaults under the parliament-house; till at last, on the very night before the Roman Catholics hoped to kill the king and all those belonging to parliament, they caught Guy Fawkes with his dark lantern, waiting till the time should come for him to set fire to the gunpowder.
The king was very proud of having found out what the letter meant, and used to boast of it as long as he lived; but the truth is that the king’s clever minister, Sir Robert Cecil, had found out all about the plot, and managed to let James have all the credit.
So far I have only told you of the foolish behaviour of King James. I must now write about his mischievous actions.