That goes not out to prey."

Chalmers had the sagacity to discover also a sort of portrait-like
resemblance in the Duke to King James the First. As the King was
indeed a much better theologian than statesman or ruler, the fact of
the Duke's appearing rather more at home in the cowl and hood than in
his ducal robes certainly lends some colour to this discovery.

The King's unamiable repugnance to being gazed upon by throngs of
admiring subjects is thus spoken of by a contemporary writer: "In his
public appearance, especially in his sports, the accesses of the
people made him so impatient, that he often dispersed them with
frowns, that we may not say, with curses." And his churlish bearing
towards the crowds which, prompted by eager loyalty, flocked forth to
hail his accession, is noted by several historians. But he was a
pretty free encourager of the Drama, as well as of other liberal
preparations; and, with those who had tasted, or who sought, his
patronage, it was natural that these symptoms of weakness should pass
for tokens of a wise superiority to the dainties of popular applause.
All which renders it not unlikely that the Poet may have had an eye to
the King in the passages cited by Malone in support of his conjecture:

"I love the people,
But do not like to stage me to their eyes:
Though it do well, I do not relish well
Their loud applause and aves vehement;
Nor do I think the man of safe discretion
That does affect it."

"So play the foolish throngs with one that swoons;
Come all to help him, and so stop the air
By which he should revive: and even so
The general, subject to a well-wish'd king,
Quit their own part, and in obsequious fondness
Crowd to his presence, where their untaught love
Must needs appear offence."

The allusion here being granted, Malone's inference, that the play was
made soon after the King's accession, and before the effect of his
unlooked-for austerity on this score had spent itself, was natural
enough. Nor is the conjecture of Ulrici and others without weight,
"that Shakespeare was led to the composition of the play by the
rigoristic sentiments and arrogant virtue of the Puritans." And in
this view several points of the main action might have been aptly
suggested at the time in question: for the King had scarcely set foot
in England but he began to be worried by the importunities of that
remarkable people