Page:General History of Europe 1921.djvu/476

352 General History of Europe it had pleased God to appoint the monarch the father of his people, who must obey him as they would God and ask no ques- tions. The king was responsible to God alone, to whom he owed his powers, not to Parliament or the nation. 599. Great Writers of James's Reign Shakespeare, Bacon, Harvey. The writers of James's reign constituted its chief glory. They outshone those of any other European country. Shakespeare is generally ad- mitted to be the greatest dramatist that the world has produced. While he wrote many of his plays be- fore the death of Elizabeth, some of his finest Othello, King Lear, and the Tem- pest, for example belong to the time of James I. At the same time Francis Bacon (595) was making his eloquent plea for modern science. It was in James's reign also that the English translation of the Bible was made which is still known and is still published as the authorized version in all countries where English is spoken. An English physician of this period, William Harvey, examined the workings of the human body more carefully than any previous investigator and made the great discovery of the manner in which the blood circulates from the heart through the arteries and capillaries and back through the veins a matter which had previously been entirely misunderstood. 600. Charles I (1625-1649) and his Struggle with Parliament. Charles I, James's son and successor, did nothing to remove the dis- agreeable impressions of his father's reign and began immediately JAMES I