For a time the presence of James in Scotland produced all the good effects which the aspect of royalty generally ensures. The English became extremely popular in the northern capital, then rarely visited by the great and fashionable. “We hear little out of Scotland,” writes Mr. Chamberlain to Sir Dudley Carleton, “but that the Parliament is now beginning, and that our English are extraordinarily respected, and friendly to the nobles, to whom the King makes much caresses, and receives them as his guests. The Earl of Buckingham is made one of the council there, and takes his place above the rest as Master of the Horse. They speak that he shall be made Marquis of Scotland, and the Lord Compton an Earl, to counterpoise the Scotch that have been ennobled here.”[[165]] James was indeed profuse beyond measure in his titles during this progress.

“All our peers’ sons that went with the King,” adds the same writer, “were knighted there that were undubbed before, and all the gentlemen of Yorkshire, so that there is scarce left an esquire to uphold the race, and the order is descended somewhat lower, even to Adam Hill, that was the Earl of Montgomery’s barber, and to one Jeane, husband to the Queen’s laundress, our host of Doncaster; and to another that lately kept an inn at Rumford; and a youth, one Conir, is come into consideration as to become a prince of favourites, brought in by the Earl of Buckingham, and the wags talk as if he were in possibility to become Viscount Conir. All the mean officers of the household are also said to be knighted, so that ladies are like to be in little request.”[[166]]

But it was not in the nature of things that affairs should go on without some inconveniences and apprehensions, and great offence was given in Scotland, when, at the funeral of one of the guard, who was buried after the English ritual, Laud, then Dean of St. Paul’s, desired those assembled to join him in recommending the soul of his deceased brother to Almighty God. He was afterwards obliged to retract, and to say that he had done this in a sort of civility rather than according to rule. Another exception was taken at his putting on a white surplice just at that part of the funeral service when the body was going to be put into the ground. The Dean of the royal chapel in Edinburgh also refused to receive the communion whilst Dr. Laud was kneeling.[[167]]

During his residence in Edinburgh, the life of Buckingham was said to be endangered by a plot to assassinate him, a prelude, as it seemed, to the tragic doom which he afterwards encountered. In a letter from Sir Thomas Lake to Sir Ralph Winwood, dated from Brougham Castle, and written on the seventh of August, 1617, he thus refers to the peril which threatened the favourite:—

“All the news which is here, is that many lords have been busied about a fellow who, in his drink, spake some words as though he had an intention to kill my Lord of Buckingham. He is one of the guard of Scotland, his name is Carre, and said his intention was for that his lordship was the cause of Somerset’s dismission. He has, since his being sober, confessed his words to my Lord of Lennox. I came out from the last house before some of the old lords of Scotland had done with him, and therefore can yet say no more to you. The words were spoken in Scotland. Some of my Lord of Buckingham’s friends do doubt Carre was but set on.”

On the twenty-seventh of the same month, the culprit had, it appears, proceeded far on his journey southward, as a prisoner, to take his trial in London for his meditated crime. “On Saturday last,” writes Mr. Chamberlain to Sir Dudley Carleton, “here past, by Ware, one Carre, a Scottish gentleman, being suspected and charged (together with four others of that family and name) to have conspired the death of the Earl of Buckingham, at his coming out of Scotland, and so was apprehended near Carlisle.”[Carlisle.”][[168]]

No further notice of this affair occurs in the correspondence from which it is derived; and it is possible that the plot was inferred from the hasty expressions of offended clansmen, and was found, on investigation, to be without sufficient proof to bring it into a court of law.

Among the English peers who visited Scotland, the least popular was Lord Howard of Walden, eldest son of the Earl of Suffolk. This nobleman enjoyed the especial favour of King James; his name occurs in most of the courtly festivities of the day, as one appointed to appear foremost in all stately revels, and he received a more substantial proof of royal preference in being called to the House of Lords in the lifetime of his father. In the north, however, he was detested, chiefly on account of his ill usage of his wife, Elizabeth, daughter of George, Lord Harris, Earl of Dunbar, and likewise from his accustomed boasting of his influence with Buckingham, for it was a favourite saying of Lord Howard’s, “that he, and none other, had an especial interest in the favourite.”

Lord Howard seems to have been a mark at which the courtiers aimed their shafts of wit and ridicule; it was during the journey into Scotland that he came into collision with a nobleman of a very different character, James, second Marquis of Hamilton. This nobleman enjoyed, in a very uncommon degree, the confidence and esteem of his royal master, who was accustomed to call him familiarly by his Christian name. He held the office of Lord Steward of the Household, and Privy Councillor; and, in that capacity, was doubtless often surprised, if not irritated, by the precedence and latitude given to Buckingham. By his countrymen, the Marquis was considered “to be the gallantest gentleman in all Scotland.”

The following account is characteristic of the mingled idleness and dissension of a courtier’s life:—[[169]]