CHAPTER XII.

1611, 1612.

Adventures of lady Arabella Stuart.-Affair of Vorstius.Burning of Legate and Wightman for heresy.-Arbitrary modes of raising money.-Institution of baronets.-Proclamation against resort of Scotchmen to court.-National animosity.-Quarrel between Ramsey and Montgomery.Other quarrels.-Execution of lord Sanquar.-Death and character of the earl of Salisbury,—his letters to his son. -Royal marriages proposed.-Arrival of the elector Palatine.-Death of prince Henry.-Rumors on this subject. -Proof of his not being poisoned. His funeral sermon by Hall.-University poems to his honor by various poets. -Account of Donne.-Extracts from his letters.

A CIRCUMSTANCE perfectly insignificant to all but the unfortunate parties whose happiness it involved, was able to disturb for a moment the uneventful tranquillity of this period of the reign of James. The nearness of lady Arabella Stuart to the English throne, subjected her to the obligation of forming no matrimonial connexion without the concurrence of the king; and a very weak and unworthy jealousy appears to have inspired James, as well as his predecessor, with the resolution of keeping her single. Against this species of tyranny she was much disposed to rebel; and, undeterred by a censure which had been passed on her a short time previously for listening to a clandestine proposal,

she

she ventured to receive similar overtures from William Seymour, second son of lord Beauchamp and grandson of the earl of Hertford; on discovery of which, in February 1610, both parties were summoned before the privy-council and reprimanded. They proceeded notwithstanding to complete their marriage; which becoming matter of notoriety, the lady was committed to private custody and her husband to the Tower. But the unfortunate pair continued to hold intercourse by means of confidential agents, and in June 1611 they concerted measures for their joint escape. Mr. Seymour, having disguised himself in mean apparel, walked unobserved out of the Tower behind a cart which had brought him billets, and made the best of his way to Lee, a small port in Kent, where he expected to find a French vessel in waiting. His lady in the meantime, who was detained at a gentleman's house near Highgate, whence she was the next day to begin her journey for Durham, contrived to lull the vigilance of her keepers by a pretended resignation to her doom, and probably by other methods. Then,

disguising herself by drawing a great pair of French-fashioned hose over her petticoats, putting on a man's doublet, a man-like peruke with long locks over her hair, a black hat, black cloak, russet boots with red tops, and a rapier by her side, walked forth, between three and four of the clock, with Markham. After they had After they had gone afoot a mile and a half to a sorry inn, where Crompton attended with horses, she grew very sick and faint, so as the ostler

that

that held the stirrup said, that the gentleman would hardly hold out to London; yet, being set on a good gelding, astride in an unwonted fashion, the stirring of the horse brought blood enough into her face, and so she rid on towards Blackwalla." Here she found some attendants in two boats waiting for her, and they rowed down the river to Lee, where the French vessel received them. Her attendants dissuaded her from waiting for Mr. Seymour, who had not yet arrived, and they put off; but lingering afterwards in the channel, in hopes of his reaching them, they were overtaken by a pinnace sent in pursuit, and after standing several shot were compelled to strike. The unfortunate lady was immediately conveyed to the Tower, not so much lamenting her own captivity, as rejoicing in the hope that her beloved husband would effect his escape; whose welfare, she said, was far dearer to her than her own. In this affectionate hope she was not disappointed; Mr. Seymour, on finding that her bark had sailed without him, had rowed off to a collier lying in the roads, by which he was safely landed in Calais harbour.

The first news of the lady Arabella's escape produced much confusion and alarm in the privy-council; it was apprehended that the fugitives were bound for Brabant, there to make themselves the heads of the Roman catholic faction. "In this passionate hurry," writes Mr. Beaulieu, here was a procla

mation first conceived in very bitter terms, but by my lord-treasurer's moderation seasoned at the print. ....There are likewise three letters dispatched in haste,....to the king and queen regent of France and to the archdukes, all written with harsher ink than now, if they were to do, I presume they should be, especially that to the archdukes, which did seem to pre-suppose their course tending that way; and all three describing the offence in black colors, and pressing their sending back without delaya."

The ill-fated Arabella never recovered her liberty; she became distracted with the sense of her hopeless misery, and in that state died within the Tower in 1615. Her aunt the countess of Shrewsbury was summoned before the privy-council on suspicion of having concurred both in the marriage and the escape: she was a high-spirited woman, and, on being urged with interrogatories, declared that she would answer nothing privately; if she had offended the laws, she was ready to stand her trial. For this contempt, as it was then called, she was committed to the Tower, and at the end of two years dismissed without further proceedings.

'The theological zeal by which James was so early distinguished, had by no means forsaken him amid the cares of empire and the sports of the field, which divided his more mature attention. One day, whilst on a hunting progress, a Latin book was brought to him treating on the nature and attributes of the

deity, and, suspending his amusement, he sat down in earnest to the perusal. Such was his diligence in the task, that in the space of an hour he had collected a copious list of the heresies contained in this performance. The author was Conrad Vorstius, on whom the states of Holland had just conferred the professorship of divinity at Leyden, vacant by the death of Arminius, whose leading doctrines were held by Vorstius. James, vehemently alarmed at the encouragement thus afforded by his allies to dogmas which he regarded as pernicious and abominable, wrote instantly to Winwood, commanding him to signify to the States his detestation of these heresies, and of all by whom they should be tolerated. So extraordinary an interference astonished the Dutch authorities, and they coolly replied, that if Vorstius should be found guilty of the errors imputed to him, he should not retain his office: an answer which fell so far short of the vigorous results anticipated by the sceptred polemic, that he judged it necessary, after causing the book to be publicly burned in London, and in both the English universities, to address to his allies such an admonition as should leave them in no uncertainty respecting the course which it became them to pursue. "If peradventure," says the king, "this wretched Vorstius should deny or equivocate upon those blasphemous points of heresy and atheism which already he hath broached, that perhaps may move you to spare his person, and not cause him to be burned (which never any heretic better deserved, and wherein we