attack on
the abuse of tobacco peculiar to his majesty, although he has been so
ridiculed for it; a contemporary publication has well described the mania
and its consequences: "The smoak of fashion hath quite blown away the
smoak of hospitalitie, and turned the chimneys of their forefathers into
the noses of their children."[A] The king also reprobated the finical
embarrassments of the new fashions, and seldom wore new clothes. When they
brought him a Spanish hat, he flung it away with scorn, swearing he never
loved them nor their fashions; and when they put roses on his shoes, he
swore too, "that they should not make him a ruffe-footed dove; a yard of
penny ribbon would serve that turn."

[Footnote A: The "Peace-Maker," 1618.]

The sudden wealth which seems to have rushed into the nation in this
reign of peace, appeared in massy plate and jewels, and in "prodigal
marriage-portions, which were grown in fashion among the nobility and
gentry, as if the skies had rained plenty." Such are the words of Hacket,
in his "Memorial of the Lord-Keeper Williams." Enormous wealth was often
accumulated. An usurer died worth 400,000_l_.; Sir Thomas Compton, a
citizen, left, it is said, 800,000_l_., and his heir was so overcome with
this sudden irruption of wealth, that he lost his senses; and Cranfield, a
citizen, became the Earl of Middlesex.

The continued peace, which produced this rage for dress, equipage, and
magnificence, appeared in all forms of riot and excess; corruption bred
corruption. The industry of the nation was not the commerce of the many,
but the arts of money-traders, confined to the suckers of the state; and
the unemployed and dissipated, who were every day increasing the
population in the capital, were a daring petulant race, described by a
contemporary as "persons of great expense, who, having run themselves into
debt, were constrained to run into faction; and defend themselves from the
danger of the law."[A] These appear to have enlisted under some show of
privilege among the nobility; and the metropolis was often shaken by
parties, calling themselves Roaring-boys, Bravadoes, Roysters, and
Bonaventures.[B] Such were some of the turbulent children of peace, whose
fiery spirits, could they have found their proper vent, had been soldiers
of fortune, as they were younger brothers, distressed often by their own
relatives; and wards ruined by their own guardians;[C] all these were
clamorous for bold piracies on the