ons
controlled by the law of nations his claim to give by virtue of his
royal power a dispensation even from laws that had been passed by
Parliament.

After, as well as before, this event his idea was to control and to
combine into harmony the conflicting elements within his kingdom by
his personal will; outside his kingdom, to guide or to regulate events
by clever policy. This is the important feature in the position and in
the pacific attitude of this sovereign. But the blame which attaches
to him is also connected with it. He made each and everything, however
important it might be in itself, merely secondary to his political
calculation. His high-flying thoughts have something laboured and flat
about them; they are almost too closely connected with a conscious,
and at the same time personal, end; they want that free sweep which is
necessary for enlisting the interest of contemporaries and of
posterity. And could the policy of James ever have prevailed? Was it
not in its own nature already a failure? A great crisis was hanging
over England when King James died (March 1625). He had once more
received the Lord's Supper after the Anglican use, with edifying
expressions of contrition: a numerous assembly had been present, for
he wished every one to know that he died holding the same views which
he had professed, and had contended for in his writings during his
lifetime.

NOTES:

[432] 'True mirth and gladness was in every face, and healths ran
bravely round in every place.' John Taylor, Prince Charles his Welcome
from Spaine: in Somers ii. 552.

[433] Memoires de Richelieu. Ranke, Franzoesische Geschichte v. 133
(Werke xii. 162).

[434] Kensington to Buckingham: 'Neither will they strain us to any
unreasonablenesse in conditions for our Catholics.' Cabala 275.

[435] Hacket, Life of Williams 169. 'Scarce any in all the Consulto
did vote to my Lords satisfaction.'

[436] The Earl of Carlisle to His Majesty, Feb. 14, 1624. He signs
himself 'Your Majesty's most humble, most obedient obliged creature
subject and servant.'

[437] Valaresso already observes this, March 8, 1624: 'Nell'ultimo
parlamento si chiamava felonia di parlare di quello, che hora si
transmette alla libera consultatione del presente.'

[438] A. Valaresso, Dec. 15, 1623: 'Col re usa qualche minor rispetto;
agli altri da maggior sodisfattione del solito. Parla con Piu liberta
della Spagna.'

[439] Of all Buckingham's letters to the King, withou