serve my blessing; and as there can nothing happen unto you whereof ye will not find the general ground therein, if not the very particular point touched, so must ye level every man's opinions or advices unto you as ye find them agree or discord with the rules there set down, allowing and following their advices that agree with the same, mistrusting and frowning upon them that advise you to the contrary. Be diligent and earnest in your studies, that at your meeting with me I may praise you for your progress in learning. Be obedient to your master, for your own weal, and to procure my thanks; for in reverencing him ye obey me, and honour yourself. Farewell. Your loving father,

JAMES R.1

My heart,

James I. to his Queen.2

Immediately before the receipt of your letter, I was purposed to have written unto you, and that without any great occasion, except for freeing myself at your hands from the imputation of severeness. But now your letter has given more matter to write, although I take small delight to meddle in so unpleasant a process. I wonder that neither your long knowledge of my nature

1 "The commencement and conclusion of this letter are truly admimirable in their noble truth and simplicity; and even the species of absolutism, in which the author-king refers to his "booke latelie prentid," as the unalterable code of laws by which his boy, of ten years old, was to regulate his mind and conduct, can scarcely be blamed when their relative situations are considered."- Miss Strickland.

2 Nichols's Progresses of James I.

nor my late earnest purgation unto you can cure you of that rooted error, that any living dare speak or inform me in any ways to your prejudice; or yet, that you can think them your unfriends who are true servants to me.

1

I can say no more; but protest, upon the peril of my salvation and damnation, that neither the earl of Marr nor any flesh living ever informed me that you were upon any popish or Spanish course, or that you had any other thoughts but a wrong-conceived opinion that he had more interest in your son, or would not deliver him unto you; neither does he farther charge the nobleman that was with you there; but that he was informed that some of them thought by force to have assisted you in the taking my son out of his hands; but as for any other papist or foreign practice, by God! he doth not so much. as allege it. Therefore, he says he will never presume to accuse them, since it may happen well to import 1 your offence; and therefore I say over again, leave these froward, womanly apprehensions; for I thank God I carry that love and respect unto you, which, by the law of God and nature, I ought to do to my wife and mother of my children; but not for that 2 ye are a king's daughter; for, whether ye were a king's or a cook's daughter, ye must be all alike to me, being once my wife. For the respect of your honourable birth and descent I married you; but the love and respect I now bear you is because that you are my married wife; and so, partaker of my honour as of my other fortunes. I beseech you, excuse my rude plainness in this; for, casting up of your birth

is a needless impertinent argument to me. God is my witness, I ever preferred you to all my bairns, much more than to any subject; but, if you will ever give place to the reports of every flattering sycophant who will persuade you that, when I account well of an honest and wise servant for his true, faithful service to me, that it is to compare or prefer him to you, then will neither you nor I ever be at rest or peace.

I have, according to my promise, copied so much of that plot (whereof I wrote unto you in my last) as did concern my son and you; which herein is enclosed,1 that ye may see I wrote it not without cause; but I desire not to have any secretaries than yourself. As for your dool made concerning it, it is utterly impertinent at this time, for such reasons as the bearer will show unto you, whom I have likewise commanded to impart divers other points unto you; which, for fear of wearying your eyes with my rugged hand, I have herein omitted, praying God, my heart, to preserve you and all the bairns, and send me a blithe meeting with you, and a couple of

them.

Your own,

JAMES R.3

The paper here referred to is not to be found.

2 Grief, sorrow.

3 The letter of the Queen to which this is an answer does not appear to be in existence, but the nature of it can readily be judged by this reply. She was not contented with the concession made by James that the prince should be delivered up to her, and Montrose writes to his royal master in the greatest dilemma on the subject—“ I most humbly beseech your highness to provide remedies how the Queen's grace may rest contented, and the Earl of Mar exonerated of that great charge that

James I. to Mr. Blake.1

My honest Blake,

16 January, 1604.

I dare not say, faced 3, [?] the letter, talking of deambulatory councils and such like satiric tricks, did a little chafe me; but you may see I answered according to the old scholar's rule - In quo casu quæris, in eodem respondere teneris. For I would be sorry, indeed, not to be as constant as she was, that called herself Semper eadem. Indeed, you may tell the beagle that he hath best cause to complain of my being a peripatetic; for I will oft times walk so fast round about and about with him, that he will be like to fall down dead upon the floor. I can give you no other thanks for your daily working and public railing upon me, save only this-do what you can, you can give me no more arguments of your faithful affection towards me; and, do what I can unto you, I can never increase a hair the devotion of your service towards me.

We have kept such a revel with the puritans here these two days, as was never heard the like, where I

lies on him of the said prince, and some order to be taken how this controversy, likely to arise among the nobility, may be settled and pacified. Whereat, I doubt not, your Majesty will foretell a means to help the same, according to the wonted proof of your Majesty's wisdom and foresight, known heretofore in such matters; which, as we adore and admire, so we rest sorry and discontent to be so far removed and separated from the same."

1 Cotton MSS. Vespas., E. iii., Art. 71. 2 Res condere in the original manuscript.

have peppered them as soundly as you have done the papists there. It were no reason that those that will refuse the airy sign of the cross after baptism should have their purses stuffed with any more solid and substantial crosses. They fled me so from argument to argument, without ever answering me directly, ut est eorum mos, as I was forced at last to say unto them that, if any of them had been in a college, disputing with their scholars, if any of their disciples had answered them in that sort, they would have fetched him up, in place of a reply; and so should the rod have plied upon the poor boy's buttocks. I have such a book of theirs as may well convert infidels; but it shall never convert me, except by turning me more earnestly against them.

And thus, praying you to commend me to the honest chamberlain, I bid you heartily farewell.1

JAMES R.

1 This singular letter was probably written on the evening of January 16th, 1603-4, during the conference of the puritan ministers with James at Hampton Court. On that day the king had argued the subject of private baptism for three hours, protesting against it; but at last yielded on the condition that it should be administered solely by clergymen.

They," that is, the puritans, "disputed against the cross in baptism, the ring in marriage, the surplice, the oath ex officio, and other things that stuck with them, which they hoped to get all purged away, because the king was of a Northern constitution, where no such things were practised, not yet having felt the king's pulse, whom the Southern air of the bishop's breaths had so wrought upon, that he himself answers most of their demands, sometimes gently, applying lenitives, where he found ingenuity, for he was learned and eloquent; other times corrosives, telling them these oppositions proceeded more from stubbornness in opinion than tenderness of conscience."-Wilson's Life of James, 1653, p. 8.