Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 13.djvu/585

JAMES 559 his prerogative against the Puritans at the Hampton Court conference, and the subsequent disagreements in regard to ecclesiastical reform and a union with Scotland. Against the goodwill of the Commons, which showed itself iu the readiness with which a subsidy was granted for his debts, he, however, trespassed almost immedi ately by abusing the royal custom of placing impositions on merchandise. All attempts at a compromise on the subject having failed, James in February 1611 dissolved the parliament, and a second parliament which he sum moned in 1614 proving equally recalcitrant was also dis solved, the fact that it was not allowed the opportunity of transacting business earning for it from the courtiers the name of the "addled parliament." To help in filling the vacuum in his treasury, James had recourse with small success to the odious practice of demanding benevolences, and, in addition to various other misuses of his prerogative, to the excessive increase of monopolies, and to the virtual sale of peerages and other high offices. The administration of the affairs of the kingdom was at the same time gradu ally withdrawn from the council, and the whole executive authority entrusted to favourites. As the breach between him and his subjects gradually widened he became more anxious both in order to supply himself with money, and to obtain the support of an influential external authority for an alliance with Spain, and in 1617 negotiations were entered into for a marriage between the young prince Charles and the Spanish infanta. But on the part of Spain those proposals were never seriously entertained. Their only result was to impart such irresolution to the policy of James in reference to the Bohemian insurrection as to afford Spain the opportunity of seizing the Palatinate ; and by continuing to dangle the possibility of the marriage before the eyes of James the emperor succeeded in delaying his interference till the Palatinate was lost. Still intent on his purpose of the Spanish marriage, to which he had ruthlessly sacrificed the life of Sir Walter Raleigh, James despatched his favourite Buckingham along with Charles to Madrid, and the return of the baffled and disappointed wooer in 1624 dissipated the last lingering sentiment of respect which the English nation may have cherished to wards the king. Buckingham and Charles now virtually overrode the royal prerogative, and at their instance not only was war declared against Spain, but on the condition of granting toleration to the Catholics of England, a treaty of marriage between Charles and Henrietta Maria of France was signed at the close of 1624. James died on March 25, 1625. James inaugurated his literary career iu 158-4 by tlie publication of the Essaycs of a Prentice in the Divine Art of Poetry, and in 1591 he published Pocticall Exercises at Vacant Ilourcs. His other compositions in verse include a paraphrase of the Revelation of St John and a version of the Psalms. As he deemed it necessary to give to the world his opinion on almost every subject of importance which then occupied public attention, his prose disquisitions are legion, but the best known arc DC monologic, 1597; Basilicon Doron, 1599; and Countcrllast to Tolacco, 1616. A collected edition of his prose writings was published in 1616, edited by the bishop of Winchester. Some of his poetical translations are not without merit, but both his prose and poetry, though displaying occasional wit and cleverness and some faculty of composition, are studded with, absurdities, and but for the fact that their author was a monarch would scarcely deserve a reference. The original authorities for the reign of James I. are the state- papers published in the series of the Master of the Eolls ; the Register of the Privy Council of Scotlcmcl (vol. ii. 1569-78, by Burton, 1878 ; vol iii., 1578-85, by Masson, 1880); the Letters and State-Papers during the reign of James the Sixth, published by the Abbotsford Club ; the Letters of the children and other relations of James, published by the Maitland Club, in facsimile form, from the originals in the Advocates Library, Edinburgh ; the letters published under the title of the Courtand Times of James I., 1846; his correspondence with Cecil, published by the Camden Society ; the correspondence in t& Calala; Camden s Annals ; Goodman s Court of James I., edited by J. S. Brewer, 1839 ; Caldenvood s History of the Church of Scotland ; Melville s Diary; Historic and Life of James the Scxt, 1566-96, with a short continuation to 1617, published by the Bannatyne Club, Edinburgh, 1825 ; the secret histories by Osborne, "Weldon, Heylin, and Peston, edited by Sir Walter Scott; Arthur Wilson s Life and Times of James I., Lon don, 1653. See also, in addition to the histories of Burton, Tytler, Gardiner, Eanke, and others, Harris s Historical and Critical Account of the Writings of James I., 1573; Irving s History of Scottish Poetry ; and Disraeli s Literary and Political Character of James I. JAMES II. (1633-1701), king of England, and as king of Scotland James VII., second surviving son of Charles I. and Henrietta Maria, was born at the palace of St James s, October 15, 1633, and was created duke of York in January 1643. During the civil war he was taken prisoner by Fairfax at Oxford in 1646, but in 1648 he made his escape to Holland. After the second failure of the Stuart cause he served for some time in the French army under Turenne, but at the command of his brother he in 1656 accepted a military commission from Spain. At the Restor ation in 1660 he was appointed lord high admiral and lord warden of the Cinque Ports. For the management of the civil administration of the navy he had the qualification of industry and careful regard to details ; and if his victory over the Dutch in 1665 was principally a happy stroke of good luck, and his drawn battle with De Ruyter in 1672 was more to his antagonist s credit than to his, still the fact that his career as an admiral was free from disaster shows that his seamanship must have been at least respectable. Outside, however, the sphere of practical routine, James was blind and insensate, and his whole political conduct while it indicated that he could stoop to compromise and deception when he deemed these necessary was marked by a heed- lessness and perverse obstinacy possible only to a rigid and contracted understanding preoccupied with a single purpose. He possessed the vices of his race without its virtues and redeeming points, and in him the propensity to despotism developed itself in a form unmitigated by any mildness or amiable weakness of temper, unenlightened by any gift of foresight or practical wisdom, and unadorned by any personal accomplishment. Although at the Restora tion his sympathies were so little Catholic that he supported the policy of Clarendon, whose daughter Anne he secretly married in September 1660, publicly acknowledging the union in the December following, he soon there after became a convert to Romanism, and in 1672, in opposition to the expostulations of his brother, openly avowed his change of faith. Anne Hyde having died in 1671, he also persuaded his brother to defy the wishes of both Houses of Parliament by permitting him in 1673 to marry the Catholic princess Mary of Modena. On account of the Test Act, passed in this year, he had been compelled to resign his office of admiral, and, although the marriage in 1677 of his daughter Mary to William, prince of Orange, somewhat allayed the distrust with which he was regarded, it was deemed advisable on the discovery of the Popish plot in 1679 that he should retire for a time to Brussels. Afterwards he was appointed lord high commissioner to Scotland, where his arbitrary bigotry found congenial employment in the persecution of the Covenanters ; but in 1684 Charles ventured to dispense in his case with the Test Act, and restored him to his office of admiral. The influence of the loyal enthusiasm which surrounded the last days of Charles in 1685 was felt in the calm acquiescence with which the nation witnessed James s suc cession to the throne on February 6, and his coronation on April 23, 1686. The trust awakened by his promise to pre serve the Government both in church and state as by law established was indeed almost immediately rudely shaken by his public celebration of mass, by his prohibition of preaching against Catholicism, and by his appointment of Catholic officers to the army ; but that the goodwill at