er the sermon. He
would not admit the statement which had occurred in the discourse,
that Scotland would mourn for his departure; for he was going, as he
said, only from one part of the island to the other: from Edinburgh it
was hardly further to London than to Inverness. He intended to return
often; to remove pernicious abuses in both countries; to provide for
peace and prosperity; to unite the two countries to one another. One
of them had wealth, the other had a superabundance of men: the one
country could help the other. He added in conclusion that he had
expected to need their weapons: that he now required only their
hearts.

What filled his soul with pride and the consciousness of a high
calling, was the thought that he would now carry into effect what the
Romans, and in later times the Anglo-Saxon and Plantagenet kings, and
last of all the Tudors, had sought to achieve by force of arms or by
policy, but ever in vain--the union of the whole island under one
rule, like that which native legendary lore ascribed to the mythical
Arthur. When he came to Berwick, around which town the two nations had
engaged in so many bloody frays, he gave utterance, so it is said, to
his intention of being King not of the one or of the other country but
of both united, and of assuming the name of King of Great
Britain.[315]

At York he met his predecessor's Secretary of State, Robert Cecil. As
no one knew the relations into which he had already entered with
Cecil, every one was astonished at the kind reception which he
accorded to him. That did not prevent him however from being just to
the other side as well. He greeted the youthful Essex as the son of
the most renowned cavalier whom the realm of England had possessed; he
appointed him to be the companion of the Prince of Wales, and made him
carry the bared sword before him at his entrance into some of the
towns. Southampton and Neville were received into favour; the Earl of
Westmoreland was placed in the Privy Council. He gave it to be
understood that he would again raise to their former station the great
men of the kingdom, who up to this time, as he said, had not been
treated according to their merits.

In order to begin the work of union at once in the highest place, he
added some Scottish members to the Privy Council, and placed Scots
side by side with the Secretary of State and Treasurer of England. The
Keeper of the Privy Seal was raised to the Lord Chancellorship, but
obl