bject."

In an ingenious historical dissertation, but one perfectly theoretical,
respecting that mysterious transaction the Gowrie conspiracy, Pinkerton
has attempted to show that Anne of Denmark was a lady somewhat inclined
to intrigue, and that "the king had cause to be jealous." He confesses
that "he cannot discover any positive charge of adultery against Anne of
Denmark, but merely of coquetry."[229] To what these accusations amount
it would be difficult to say. The progeny of James the First
sufficiently bespeak their family resemblance. If it be true, that "the
king had ever reason to be jealous," and yet that no single criminal act
of the queen's has been recorded, it must be confessed that one or both
of the parties were singularly discreet and decent; for the king never
complained, and the queen was never accused, if we except this burthen
of an old Scottish ballad,

O the bonny Earl of Murray,
He was the queen's love.

Whatever may have happened in Scotland, in England the queen appears to
have lived occupied chiefly by the amusements of the court, and not to
have interfered with the _arcana_ of state. She appears to have indulged
a passion for the elegancies and splendours of the age, as they were
shown in those gorgeous court masques with which the taste of James
harmonized, either from his gallantry for the queen, or his own poetic
sympathy. But this taste for court masques could not escape the slur and
scandal of the puritanic, and these "high-flying fancies" are thus
recorded by honest Arthur Wilson, whom we summon into court as an
indubitable witness of the mutual cordiality of this royal couple. In
the spirit of his party, and like Milton, he censures the taste, but
likes it. He says, "The court being a continued _maskarado_, where she
(the queen) and her ladies, like so many sea-nymphs or Nereides,
appeared often in various dresses, to the ravishment of the beholders;
the king himself not being a little delighted with such fluent
elegancies as made the night more glorious than the day."[230] This is a
direct proof that James was by no means cold or negligent in his
attentions to his queen; and the letter which has been given is the
picture of his mind. That James the First was fondly indulgent to his
queen, and could perform an act of chivalric gallantry with all the
generosity of passion, and the ingenuity of an elegant mind, a pleasing
anecdote which I have discovered in an unpublished letter