After his departure, an attempt was made to enforce the observation of a ritual in worship similar to the Eng lish. The people were admonished by proclamation, to observe the festivals, and the clergy to practise the for malities prescribed to the church. But the Scots per sisted, at Christmas, in their usual occupation. In the churches, they left the sacramental tables when required to kneel, and went in crowds to other places, where the orthodox form of sitting was preserved. A people, as a spirited historianf observes, who prayed to God stand ing, were not likely to kneel to sacramental symbols.
The execution of Sir Walter Raleigh is one of the most unjustifiable acts of James's reign. It is probable, as Hume has asserted, that Raleigh was culpable in making the factitious gold mine in New Spain a cloak for his real intentions of plundering the Spanish settle ments ; but, if that fact admitted of so easy a proof as Mr Hume supposes, Raleigh ought to have been punished on that account, and on no other. An English jury, it is said, would not have brought him in guilty. If so, the sacrifice of the bravest living commander was a de testable action, ei en though done for the sake of pro 'longing peace with Spain.
But James's pacific views with regard to Spain had not entirely the merit of public advantage, they were mixed ed with private and selfish considerations. He mc .' ditated a marriage between Prince Charles and the second daughter of Spain, with whom he expected a very large dowry. When Frederic, the Elector Pala tine, who had married the daughter of James, accepted of the crown of Bohemia, the weak father-in-haw would neither break with Spain, nor had he prudence to resist, in a proper manner, the voice of his people, who called upon him to plunge into war in defence of the oppressed Bohemians, and of the Protestant cause. A new parlia ment being summoned, the commons voted consitierable supplies, on being informed that the king had remitted some money to his son-in-law the elector ; and proceed ing in the most temperate manner to the examination of grievances, they represented several, were re 'clressed with alacrity. But the delicate business of re search into abuses,* necessarily produced a difference of pretensions on the yet unsettled boundaries of the con stitution. He dismissed the riarliament after a short session, and parted with them on worse terms than he hack, met them ; forfeiting the little popularity he had ,ga'ined, from some limitations of his prerogative, by im eprisoning Sir Edward Sandys for his opposition in the late session.
Before the next meeting of parliament, the Upper Palatinate had been subdued by the emperor's generals, Frederic was a fugitive in distress, and all Germany was filled with the cruelties inflicted on the Protestants. Roused by these circumstances, the commons exhorted James to abandon the intended match with Spain, and take arms for his son-in-law and the Protestant cause. However impolitic it might have justly seemed to em bark in a religious war, yet a respectful and reasonable answer was certainly clue to the serious appeal of the people in such circumstances. But instead of reasoning with his commons, James rebuked them for presuming to address him on the subject. When the commons re joined to this rebuke, he gravely told them, that their capacities and understandings were not able to compre hend his measures, and reminded them of the proverb, that "the cobler should stick to his last." The rights of parliament, he concluded by saying, were not heredi tary or inherent, but held by the grant and toleration of himself and his predecessors. The commons replied to this abusive and weak declaration, by a memorable do cument of English freedom, in which they recorded the right of parliament to advise the king in all arduous matters of government, to redress public grievances ; and maintained the right of each individual in parlia ment to the freedom of speech in debate. James, with
his own hand, tore out this protestation from the journals of the commons ; and, having dissolved the parliament, imprisoned Seldon, Pym, Coke, and other eminent pa triots. This parliament was remarkable for a spirited opposition in the peers; where, although the king had a predominant party, the Earls of Oxford, Essex, South ampton, and Warwick, and the Lords Sax, Selle, and Spenser, eminently distinguished themselves by main taining resistance to an arbitrary court.
Unsupported by his parliament, James maintained a despised and feeble negotiation for his ?.on-in-law ; nor was he discouraged from it, even when the diet of Ra tisbon, in spite of the remonstrances of all the Protestant powers in Germany, transferred the electoral dignity from the palatine Frederic to the duke of Bavaria. Two armies, that !ought for Frederic in Germany, were de feated by the Austrian count Tilly, when James per suaded the palatine to disarm ; the third army, at the head of which the famous count Mansfeldt, with the scantiest supplies of money from the palatine and 'the king of Britain, had supported an unequal contest with Austria. It was not from.treating with the emperor, that James expected redress to his son-in-law, but from the mediation of Spain, in the event of his son's marriage with the Iafanta.f At the end or five years negotiation on that subject, the court of Spain was as lavish of pro mises as ever ; but had not removed the great pretend ed obstacle of a difference in religion, by obtaining what might have soon been obtained, a diSpensation from the Pope. To bring the business to a close, Digby (soon after earl of Bristol) was dispatched to Philip IV., and one Gage was sent secret] as an agent to Rome. To render the influence of the titter more effectual with the, pope, writs were issued under the great seal, to release all Catholic recusants in England from prison ; and it was daily expected that the execution of all penal laws against the professors of that religion would be stopt by royal authority. As a humane act of toleration, this edict offended the bigots' of that period as an illegal stretch of prerogative humane in the object, it alarmed the best Eris of liberty. These writs were contrary to the law, tot remonstrance. of the commons, even to concessions made by the king himself, an , in a general view, to the acknowledged principle f,the constitution. They raised a strong commotio, public mind, which James vainly endeavouredda as- ? suage, by a publication in writing, beginning wiip. tiorp 4 following comparison : " As the sun in the firptatnent , ? appears to us no bigger than a platter, and the • stal'SIV but as so many nails in the pummel of a saddle, b c of the enlargement and disproportion r and the object ; so there is such in immeasura e d • Lance between the deep resolution of a prince, and the shallow apprehensions of common and ordinary people, that as they will ever be judging and censuring, so they must needs be obnoxious to error and mistaking." With out convincing his subjects by the arguments which followed this sublime comparison, the king found, to his joy and triumph, that the court of Spain, after so long amusing him, seemed at last to be sincere in the pro jected marriage. His concessions to the Catholics at home, and his promise of toleration to the follower's of the Spanish princess, when she should conic to Eng land, excited the hopes of Spain that her favourite re ligion would yet revive in the bosom of England. Lord Bristol himself, who had formerly opposed the Spanish match, considered it as an infallible prognostic of the palatine's restoration ; nor, indeed, was it easy to con jecture why Philip should be ready to bestow his sister with a dowry of 600,0001. sterling on a prince, whose de mands he meant to refuse at the hazard of a war, unless we suppose that he counted on the cowardice and facili ty of James's temper.