ng when I saw him first; he appeared to go about the city
fearlessly. Doubtless it is but some new panic on the part of the
King. God help us all now that we be ruled over by such a poor
poltroon!"

Cuthbert had caught the prevailing contempt for the foolish and
feeble James that was shared by the nation in general, and London
in particular.

They put up with him to avoid the horrors and confusion of a
disputed succession and a possible repetition of the bloody strife
of the Roses; but there was not one section of the community with
whom he was popular: even the ecclesiastics of the Episcopal party
despised whilst they flattered and upheld him. Cuthbert felt an
access of zeal in his present mission in the thought that it would
be displeasing to the unkingly mind of the King. He had seen the
ungainly monarch riding through Westminster one day not long since,
and the sight of his slovenly and undignified figure, trapped out
in all the extravagance of an extravagant age, his clumsy seat on
horseback (of which, nevertheless, he was not a little proud), and
his goggle eyes and protruding tongue, filled the young man with
disgust and dislike. But for the noble bearing and boyish beauty of
the Prince of Wales, who rode beside his father, his disgust would
have been greater; and all men were somewhat more patient with the
defects of the father in prognosticating better and happier times
when young Henry should succeed to the throne.

Nevertheless treasonable plottings at this juncture did not appear
as fearful and horrible as they had done in the days of "good Queen
Bess," who, with all her faults and follies, contrived to keep her
people's affection in a marvellous fashion, as her sire had done
before her. Men who would have recoiled with horror at a whisper
against the Queen's Majesty, shrugged their shoulders with
comparative indifference when they heard vague whispers of Popish
or Puritan plots directed more or less against the person of King
James. Any warm personal love and loyalty was altogether lacking to
the nation, and with it was lacking the element which has always
been the strongest bulwark of the sovereign's safety.

James appears to have been dimly conscious of this, always
insisting on wearing heavy and cumbersome garments, quilted so
strongly as to defy the thrust of a dagger. A monarch who goes
about in habitual fear of assassination betrays his knowledge that
he has failed to win the love or veneration