ration]

Religious matters received a good deal of attention from James I. in
the later years of his reign, and his Majesty's proposals raised the
question of the observance of

THE CHRISTMAS FESTIVAL IN SCOTLAND.

In 1617 the King made a journey to Scotland with the object of
establishing the English Church in all its forms and authority as the
State Church of Scotland for ever. One of the famous Five Articles in
which the King set forth his will proposed "That the festivals of
Christmas, Good Friday, Easter, Ascension Day, and Whit Sunday, should
be observed in Scotland just as in England." The Articles were
received with unequivocal marks of displeasure, many of the churches
refusing to obey the royal command, and the revival of the festival of
Christmas was denounced as the return of the ancient Saturnalia. Three
years later the King obtained an Act of Parliament enforcing the
Articles on the repugnant spirit of the people. "Dr. Laud, whose name
we now meet for the first time, afterwards to become so notorious,
even urged James to go further lengths; but his fatal advice was
destined to act with more force on the next generation."[63]

The King returned to London very much displeased with the religious
views of his Scotch subjects, and his sourness seems to have
manifested itself even at Christmastide, for on December 20th of this
year Mr. Chamberlaine thus wrote to Sir Dudley Carleton: "The King
hath been at Theobald's ever since Wednesday, and came to town this
day. I am sorry to hear that he grows every day more froward, and with
such a kind of morosity, that doth either argue a great discontent in
mind, or a distemper of humours in his body. Yet he is never so out of
tune but the very sight of my Lord of Buckingham doth settle and quiet
all."[64]

So soothed and softened was the King by "my Lord of Buckingham" that
Mr. Chamberlaine, writing again on the 3rd of January, says that on
New Year's Day the earl was created "Marquis of Buckingham, a dignity
the King hath not bestowed since his coming to this crown." And, says
the same writer, "This night was the Lord Marquiss's [Buckingham's]
great

FEAST, WHERE WERE THE KING AND PRINCE,

with Lords and Ladies _sans nombre_. You may guess at the rest of the
cheer by this scantling, that there were said to be seventeen dozen of
pheasants, and twelve partridges in a dish throughout; which methinks
was rather spoil than largess; yet for all the plenty of pres