would make, who desire to improve the reputation of their wisdom, by
retrenching the dignity of the crown in popular declamations_, and thus he
must buy the soldier's pay, or fear the danger of a mutiny."[A]

[Footnote A: Hacket's "Life of Lord-Keeper Williams," p. 80. The whole is
distinguished by italics, as the king's own words.]

* * * * *

JAMES ACKNOWLEDGES HIS DEPENDENCE ON THE COMMONS. THEIR CONDUCT.

Thus James I., perpetually accused of exercising arbitrary power,
confesses a humiliating dependence on the Commons; and, on the whole, at a
time when prerogative and privilege were alike indefinite and obscure, the
king received from them hard and rigorous usage. A king of peace claimed
the indulgence, if not the gratitude, of the people; and the sovereign who
was zealous to correct the abuses of his government, was not distinguished
by the Commons from him who insolently would perpetuate them.

When the Commons were not in good humour with Elizabeth, or James, they
contrived three methods of inactivity, running the time to waste--_nihil
agendo_, or _aliud agendo_, or _male agendo_; doing nothing, doing
something else, or doing evilly.[A] In one of these irksome moments,
waiting for subsidies, Elizabeth anxiously inquired of the Speaker, "What
had passed in the Lower House?" He replied, "If it please your Majesty--
seven weeks." On one of those occasions, when the queen broke into a
passion when they urged her to a settlement of the succession, one
of the deputies of the Commons informed her Majesty, that "the Commons
would never _speak_ about a subsidy, or any other matter whatever; and
that hitherto nothing but the most trivial discussions had passed in
parliament: which was, therefore, a great assembly rendered entirely
useless,--and all were desirous of returning home."[B]

[Footnote A: I find this description in a MS. letter of the times.]

[Footnote B: From a MS. letter of the French ambassador, La Mothe Fenelon,
to Charles IX., then at the court of London, in my possession.]

But the more easy and open nature of James I. endured greater hardships:
with the habit of studious men, the king had an utter carelessness of
money and a generosity of temper, which Hacket, in his Life of the
Lord-Keeper Williams, has described. "The king was wont to give like a
king, and for the most part to keep one act of liberality warm with
the covering of another." He seemed to have had no