The Court of King James the First; by Dr. Godfrey Goodman, Bishop of Gloucester; to which are added, Letters illustrative of the personal History of the most distinguished Characters in the Court of that Monarch and his Predecessors. Now first published from the original MSS. by John S. Brewer, A.M. 2 vols. 8vo. Lond. 1839.

THE exact degree of credit, or perhaps, we should rather say, of discredit, which ought to attach to Sir Anthony Weldon's "Court and Character of King James," is a question

of some moment in our historical literature, and one to which satisfactory attention has never yet been paid.* The majority of those who oppugned the authority of that work at the time of its publication, thought they did enough, if they fastened upon its author the slur of a mean descent and the discredit of a servile office; but it has been shewn, that the former, even if it could have affected the question, was untrue, and the latter was servile rather in name than in fact. Weldon was descended from an ancient family, originally of Weltden, in Northumberland, but afterwards of Swanscombe, in Kent, four generations of whom held offices in the Royal Household from Henry VII. to James 1., and for six years in the early part of the reign of the latter Monarch, his father was clerk of the green cloth, and himself clerk of the kitchen. Wood says, that Sir Anthony succeeded his father in the clerkship of the green cloth; but the whole of Wood's account of Weldon is very erroneous, and it is probable that he is incorrect in that particular. Sir Anthony's father died in 1609, and Weldon described himself in or after 1613, as "now clarke of the kitchen." (Thorpe's Reg.

Roffens. p. 1005.) His not succeeding his father may have been one cause of his very apparent dissatisfaction with the Court, and "all the men and women in it."

It is obvious that his pedigree was quite good enough for an historian, and his long family connexion with the Royal Household must have given him opportunities of obtainingconsiderable insight into court secrets, and the characters of the Monarch and

those about him. Whether he was a man of a cynical disposition, or was instigated by disappointment, we have no evidence, but the first we hear of him is in his character of satirist. He accompanied James into Scotland, in 1617, and there composed a free and by no means panegyrical description of his Sovereign's native country, and the habits and manners of his coun

trymen. By a strange accident the

libel fell into the hands of the Monarch, and the result was, that its author was dismissed, but with a pension. Having thus become practically acquainted with the power of his pen, he employed his unwelcome leisure in celebrating the dispraises of the Court from which he had been exiled; but a love of his pension, or some other prudential reason, kept back the book from the press. In the meantime James was succeeded by Charles, and the latter by the Commonwealth. The friends of the new state of things found it necessary to keep alive the animosity of the people against the dethroned family, and, with that view, Sir Anthony's book was drawn from its concealment and "published by authority," in 1650, from a copy surreptitiously obtained, whilst the original was in the hands of a lady to whom the author lent it. In the

preliminary observations of the unknown editor, the object of the publication is very plainly stated, and

† Printed (we believe for the first time) in Nichols's Progresses, &c. of King James I. vol. iii. p. 338, from the MS. Harl. 5191.

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"all that are faithful in the land" are warned "to take heed how they side with this bloody house [of Stuart), lest they be found opposers of God's purpose, which doubtless is to lay aside that Family and to make it an example to posterity." The author died before the publication, which is stated to have been without the consent of his representatives; but, if so, any scruples which they had were soon overcome, for, in the year following, there came forth a second edition with some additional observations, said to be written by the same author, upon the Sovereign recently deceased. If this were the fact, these observations must have been amongst the last efforts of his pen, and probably were found amongst his papers. At any event, they could not have formed part of the MS. lent by him several years before.

The book written under such feelings, published under such circumstances, and probably, as we think we could shew, interpolated, is a string of sharp, snarling, overstrained, malicious observations upon James I. and the prominent persons of his Court. Many of them were, no doubt, extremely discreditable persons, men whom it would have been impossible not to censure; but Bacon, Coke, Archbishop Williams, Lord Salisbury, and others, possessed great qualities which more than counterbalanced all their failings. Weldon viewed their littlenesses with a microscopic eye, but was blind to those eminent properties, the lustre of which dazzles allmen who now regard them. Surely it is not too much to say of such a book, that by its statements alone no man's character or conduct ought to be judged. Sovereigns and subjects have alike the right of being tried by the testimony of unbiassed witnesses; and Weldon, whether from a natural infirmity of disposition, or from the influence of what he esteemed to be "hard usage," wrote with a palpable prejudice against the subjects of his satire.

The depressed and dispirited friends of the house of Stuart were exceedingly wroth with Weldon's book. They denounced it as a notorious libel, and in the same year in which it was first published, there came forth an anonymous reply, entitled in allusion to

Weldon's former office, "Aulicus Coquinariæ; or a Vindication in answer to a pamphlet entitled, The Court and Character of King James," &c. This book, which has been attributed to Dr. Heylin, was written by William Sanderson, the author of " a compleat History of the Lives of Mary Queen of Scots, and her son James VI." London, 1656, folio; and also of " a compleat History of the Life and Reign of King Charles." London, 1658, fol. Prejudiced as every body must allow Weldon to have been, Sanderson was not less so, but on the opposite side; and, if they were upon an equality as to prejudice, the superiority in talent was certainly with Weldon. It is not surprising therefore that Sanderson's book made but little impression.

The first volume of the work before us the part, that is, which proceeds from the pen of Bishop Goodman,-is another answer to Weldon, written apparently about the same time as Sanderson's, and probably not then published, because that author was first in the press. Bishop Goodman's book has been longknown to existin MS. in the Bodleian, but attention has been diverted from it by a remark of Anthony Wood, that much of it was published in the Aulicus Coquinariæ. This, as now appears, is a mistake. The two books are quite distinct; the Bishop's being nothing more than a running commentary upon Weldon's book, with such digressions as arose out of the subject. This fact is not set forth with sufficient clearness by the editor of the present work, who seems to have aimed at making the public regard the Bishop's reply as a substantive and independent book, losing sight of Weldon as much as possible, and setting forth the present work as Bishop Goodman's History of his Own Times," and "the Court of King James I." by Bishop Goodman, instead of assigning to it the title which the MS. bears, and which aptly expresses its real character, "the Court of King James, by Sir A. W. reviewed." These little mystifications are exceedingly paltry, and we hope and believe are ineffectual. We doubt whether a single additional copy of the work has been sold by these means; and if there has, it has been at a sacrifice which it was not worth the while of any of the

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parties interested in it to make. The book itself would have been much improved by more open references to the work to which it is an answer; indeed the proper way would have been to have republished Weldon with Bishop Goodman's reply appended.

All that appears in the work respecting Bishop Goodman himself, or illustrative of his character, is quite in accordance with what has hitherto been known of him. A benevolent easy man; a Bishop of the Reformed Church, and yet holding tenets which verged upon Popery; charitable in the extreme in his judgments upon others, and full of devotion for the memory of his "old master" King James, of whom he remarks,-" although I say it, and few know it, he would have hearkened unto me as soon as to another man." (i. 209.)

One could not expect of an old gentleman, whose memory was haunted by such a proof of the royal partiality for himself, as that we have just quoted (and that the partiality, be it remembered, of a monarch distinguished by the selection of handsome youths as his favourites), we say we could not expect, that such an old gentleman would make a very satisfactory reply to the shrewd, caustic, bitter Weldon, nor indeed do we find that he has thrown much additional light upon any of the vexate questiones of the reign of James I.; but still his book is occasionally very pleasing. There are in it a good many amusing anecdotes, told in a very innocent manner; nobody is spoken ill of-except the lawyers; one story calls up another, and amongst them we occasionally get curious and valuable glimpses of the state of things in Church and State, in court and country, from the reign of Elizabeth downwards. We select a few of them as specimens.

In the course of a comparison between the courage of Queen Elizabeth and her successor, we find the following:

"In the year '88, I did then live at the upper end of the Strand, near St. Clement's Church, when suddenly there came a report unto us (it was in December, much about five of the clock at night, very dark) that the Queen was gone to council, and if you will see the Queen you must come quickly. Then we all ran; when the court gates were set open,

and no man did hinder us from coming in. There we came where there was a far greater company than was usually at Lenten Sermons; and when we had staid there an hour and that the yard was full, there being a number of torches, the Queen came out in great state. Then we cried, God save your Majesty! God save your Majesty!" Then the Queen turned unto us and said, 'God bless you all, my good people!' Then we cried again, 'God save your Majesty! God save your Majesty!' Then the Queen said again unto us, 'You may well have a greater prince, but you shall never have a more loving prince;' and so looking one upon another awhile the Queen departed. This wrought such an impression upon us, for shows and pageants are ever best seen by torch-light, that all the way long we did nothing but talk what an admirable Queenshe was, and how we would adventure our lives to do her service. Now this was in a year when she had most enemies, and how easily might they have then gotten into the crowd and multitude to have done her a mischief!" (і. 163.)

The Bishop settles the question of Prince Henry's death in the following

manner:

"That Prince Henry died not without vehement suspicion of poison, this I can say of my own knowledge. The King's custom was to make an end of his hunting at his house in Havering, in Essex, either at the beginning or in the middle of September. Prince Henry did then accompany him. I was beneficed in the next parish, at Stapleford Abbot's. Many of our brethren, the neighbour ministers, came to hear the sermon before the King, and some of us did say, looking upon Prince Henry, and finding that his countenance was not so cheerful as it was wont to be, but had heavy darkish looks, with a kind of mixture of melancholy and choler, -some of us did then say that certainly he had some great distemper in his body; which we thought might proceed from eating of raw fruit, peaches, musk-melons, &c. A while after we heard that he was sick, his physicians about him; none of his servants forbidden to come to him; he spake to them when he knew that he was past hopes of life: he had no suspicion himself of poison; he blamed no man; he made a comfortable end. And when he was opened, as I heard, there were found in his stomach some remnants of grapes which were not digested. The chirurgeons and physicians found no sign or likelihood of poison." (i. 248.)

"How incredible is it that we churchmen should discern by his countenance a dangerous distemper in the beginning of