the ruler to public affairs. The work of
Ferdinand of Aragon or of Frederick the Great was the work of
galley-slaves. It was work which had broken down the strength of Wolsey,
and which was to bow the iron frame of Oliver Cromwell. But James had no
mind for work such as this. His intellect was quick, inventive, fruitful
in device, eager to plan, and confident in the wisdom of its plans. But
he had none of the quality which distinguishes intellectual power from
mere cleverness, the capacity not only to plan, but to know what plans
can actually be carried out, and by what means they can be carried out.
Like all merely clever men, he looked down on the drudgery of details.
The posts which he had held vacant were soon filled up; and before many
months were over James ceased to be his own Treasurer or his own
Secretary of State. But he still claimed the absolute direction of all
affairs; he was resolved to be his own chief minister. Even here however
he felt the need of a more active and practical mood than his own for
giving shape to the schemes with which his brain was fermenting; and he
fell back as of old on the tradition of his house. It was so long since
England had seen a favourite that the memory of Gaveston or De Vere had
almost faded away. But favourites had been part of the system of the
Scottish kings. Hemmed in by turbulent barons, unable to find
counsellors among the nobles to whom the interests of the Crown were
dearer than the interests of their class or their house, Stuart after
Stuart had been driven to look for a counsellor and a minister in some
dependant, bound to them by ties of personal attachment and of common
danger. The Scotch nobles had dealt with such favourites after their
manner. One they had hung, others they had stabbed; the last, David
Rizzio, had fallen beneath their daggers at Mary's feet. But the notion
of a personal dependant through whom his designs might take form for the
outer world was as dear to James as to his predecessors, and the death
of Cecil was soon followed by the appearance of favourites.

[Sidenote: Carr.]

There was an aesthetic element in the character of the Stuarts which had
shown itself in the poems and architectural skill of those who had gone
before James, as it was to show itself in the artistic and literary
taste of his successor. In James, grotesque as was his own personal
appearance, it took the form of a passionate admiration of manly beauty.
It is possible tha