oro persone, come
representanti le communita, siano di maggior qualita che li signori
titolati quali representano le loro sole persone, il che diede
grandissimo fastidio al re.'

[371] Campbell, Lives of the Lord Chancellors ii. 225.

[372] Lorking, writing to Puckering (The Court and Times of James the
First i. 254), remarks as early as July 1613 on the first mention of
the marriage, that its design was 'to reconcile him (Lord Rochester)
and the house of Howard together, who are now far enough asunder.'

[373] The King's second speech. Parliamentary History v. 285.

[374] A. Foscarini 1614, 20 Giugno. 'Il re ha sempre avuto seco (on
his side) la camera superiore e parte dell'inferiore: il rimanente ha
mostrato di voler contribuir ogni quantita di sussidio ma a conditione
che si vedesse prima qual fosse l'autorita del re, sull'impor
gravezze.'

[375] Chamberlain to Carleton, May 28. Court and Times of James I, i.
312.

[376] According to a report furnished by A. Foscarini: 'Elessero 40
d'essi a quali diede Lunedi audienza S. M.--dissero che la
supplicavano per tanto lasciar per ultima da risolvere la materia di
danari.' Unfortunately we have only very scanty information about this
Parliament.

[377] Extract from a letter of Winwood to Carleton, June 16. Green,
Calendar of State Papers, James I, vol. ii. 237.

[378] The Prerogative of Parliaments. Works viii. 154.

CHAPTER VI.

SURVEY OF THE LITERATURE OF THE EPOCH.

The times in which great political struggles are actually going on are
not the most favourable for production in the fields of literature and
art. These flourish best in the preceding or following ages, during
which the impulse attending those movements begins or continues to be
felt. Just such an epoch was the period of thirty or forty years
between the defeat of the Armada and the outbreak of the Parliamentary
troubles, a period comprising the later years of Queen Elizabeth and
the earlier years of King James I. This was the epoch in which the
English nation attained to a position of influence on the world at
large, and in which at the same time those far-reaching differences
about the most important questions of the inner life of the nation
arose. The antagonism of ideas which stirred men's minds generally
could not but reproduce itself in literature. But we also see other
grand products of the age far transcending the limits of the present
struggle. Our survey of the history will g