King James I

THE WISEST FOOL IN CHRISTENDOM1

“NARRATIVE HISTORY” AMOUNTS TO FABULATION, THE REAL STUFF BEING MERE CHRONOLOGY

1. A comment by the French monarch of the time. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1566

June 19, Wednesday (Old Style): In Edinburgh Castle in Scotland, Mary, Queen of Scots gave birth to James Charles Stuart. His father, Lord Darnley, would soon be murdered and his mother would briefly obtain the Scottish throne, pending being forced to abdicate in his favor. KING JAMES I

NOBODY COULD GUESS WHAT WOULD HAPPEN NEXT

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project King James VI of Scotland and I of England HDT WHAT? INDEX

KING JAMES I KING JAMES VI

1567

William Alexander was born at Menstrie House, near Stirling in Scotland, a son of Alexander of Menstrie (Clackmannanshire). The family was one that claimed descent from Somerled, lord of the Isles, through John, lord of the Isles, who married Margaret, daughter of Robert II. He would receive a classical education in the grammar school of Stirling under Dr. Thomas Buchanan, nephew of George Buchanan, tutor of King James VI of Scotland. In all likelihood, he also attended the University of Glasgow. Drummond of Hawthornden would allege that he also attended university in Leiden. He would be a private tutor to the King of England’s sons, including his relative Archibald, 7th earl of Argyll, his neighbor at Castle Campbell, and accompany him on a grand tour of France, Spain, Italy, and Holland. He would receive the place of gentleman usher to Prince Charles, son of King James VI of Scotland. He would continue in the favor of the court as James became King James I of England and would assist in the preparation of a metrical English version of THE PSALMES OF KING DAVID.

NO-ONE’S LIFE IS EVER NOT DRIVEN PRIMARILY BY HAPPENSTANCE

July 24, Thursday (Old Style): The infant James Charles Stuart’s father, Lord Darnley, had been killed. Mary, Queen of Scots, after a very brief reign, was forced to abdicate the Scottish throne in the infant’s favor due to her suspected involvement in the murder. His mother would be imprisoned in England by her cousin, Queen Elizabeth, for the following 19 years and he would not have any opportunity to meet her prior to her being beheaded for having engaged in a Roman Catholic conspiracy to assassinate her cousin in order to gain control of the English throne. KING JAMES I

July 29, Tuesday (Old Style): Despite the fact that his tongue had grown to be too large for his mouth, James Charles Stuart, at 13 months of age, was crowned as King James VI of Scotland (for the initial 19 years, this would of course be a “regency”). The Reverend John Knox preached the coronation sermon. With his father Lord Darnley murdered and his mother Mary imprisoned in England, the child monarch of Scotland would be raised by four tutors. He would acquire most of his sophistication under the 64-year-old tutor George Buchanan, a Calvinist. KING JAMES I

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project King James VI of Scotland and I of England HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1579

King James VI of Scotland (who would eventually become King James I of England) perused a volume of Guillaume de Salluste Du Bartas’s poetry — and was greatly impressed.

LIFE IS LIVED FORWARD BUT UNDERSTOOD BACKWARD? — NO, THAT’S GIVING TOO MUCH TO THE HISTORIAN’S STORIES. LIFE ISN’T TO BE UNDERSTOOD EITHER FORWARD OR BACKWARD.

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project King James VI of Scotland and I of England HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1584

Guillaume de Salluste Du Bartas’s LA SECONDE SEPMAINE.

Thomas Hudson translated Du Bartas’s JUDITH, and King James VI of Scotland contributed a laudatory sonnet to the publication.

King James (who would eventually become King James I of England) translated Du Bartas’s URANIE appeared in his initial poetical publication ESSAYES OF A PRENTISE.

(Du Bartas would respond by translating King James’s LEPANTO.) HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1587

Henry of Navarre sent Guillaume de Salluste Du Bartas to Scotland to discuss with royal officials the possibility of a marriage between his sister and King James VI.

DO I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION? GOOD.

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project King James VI of Scotland and I of England HDT WHAT? INDEX

KING JAMES VI KING JAMES I

February 8, Wednesday (1586, Old Style): In Fotherinhay Castle, at the formal shortening-by-a-head of Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots (she was 5 feet 11 inches, which even for a man would have been unusually tall), Richard Fletcher, Dean of Peterborough “knelt down on the scaffold steps and started to pray out loud and at length, in a prolonged and rhetorical style as though determined to force his way into the pages of history,” and then after the 2d blow, and her head finally had been quite removed with a sawing motion of the ax blade, cried out “So perish all the Queen’s enemies!” (Clearly, this churchman loved Justice as much as he loved Christ Jesus.)

It has been alleged that Mary’s lips continued to move as if in silent prayer for some 15 minutes after the 2d fall of the ax had all but severed her neck (she having a whole lot to apologize for). It has also been alleged that Mary had been wearing a red wig to mask her prematurely gray head and the executioner, not being aware of this, attempted to pick up the head by its hair — whereupon it fell thump on the scaffold.

Well, the one thing we can be confident of is that such stories will never be allowed to lose interesting detail in the retelling. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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(We may note that this murder by beheading, despite some apparent similarities, has never been compared to the murder by beheading of King Charles I of England, or to the murders by beheading of King Louis XVI of France and his queen Marie Antoinette, and that perhaps this has been because in this case it was the high- born who were murdering by beheading this person of birth privilege, whereas in those subsequent cases it would be totally different for it would be the parliament or the people –which is to say the low-born– who would be murdering by beheading those persons of birth privilege. Being low-born would be, how shall we describe it, a horse of a different color?)

Soon the “regency” period for King James VI of Scotland would be over and, despite having developed some sort of chronic problem with his legs that was causing him to fall repeatedly, injuring himself, he would begin actual rule.

THE FUTURE IS MOST READILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project King James VI of Scotland and I of England HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1589

In this year Queen Elizabeth sent Edward Dyer on a mission to Denmark.

James VI of Scotland got married with Anne of Denmark — at first by proxy, and then in person (the royal couple would create nine children most of whom would succumb during early childhood).

THE FUTURE CAN BE EASILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project King James VI of Scotland and I of England HDT WHAT? INDEX

KING JAMES I KING JAMES VI

1596

August 19, Thursday (Old Style): An infant was born to King James VI of Scotland and his wife Anne of Denmark at Dunfermline Palace in Fife. This princess would be named Elizabeth Stuart after Queen Elizabeth I of England. One of the objectives of the “Gunpowder Plot” would be to kidnap this child at the age of 9 from Coombe Abbey where she was being reared as a Protestant, and place her on the throne as a nominal monarch in regency (she would then be retrained as a Catholic by those in actual control of the situation and married off to a Catholic bridegroom — or at least that was the fantasy of these airheaded plotters).

WHAT I’M WRITING IS TRUE BUT NEVER MIND YOU CAN ALWAYS LIE TO YOURSELF

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project King James VI of Scotland and I of England HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1597

Written by King James VI of Scotland (who would become King James I of England), “the wisest fool in Christendom,” the strange beast DÆMONOLOGIE was a treatise about witchcraft, necromancy, possession, demons, were-wolves, fairies, and ghosts — penned in the form of Socratic dialogue.

The infernal world, although under the dominion of God, contains malicious spirits that can be invoked by people who lust for pelf or for vengeance. In discovering who might be indulging in such contacts with the infernal world, indulging that is in witchcraft, even evidence offered by fellow criminals who are bargaining for their own lives may be attended to, and evidence obtained from children. Those who come under suspicion of such may be subjected to proof procedures such as the water test, and inspection for the presence of a mark of the devil on their bodies. Better safe than sorry.

CHANGE IS ETERNITY, STASIS A FIGMENT

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project King James VI of Scotland and I of England HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1599

BASILICON DORON, by King James VI.

The Reverend Alexander Hume’s HYMNS AND SACRED SONGS, ACCOMPANIED BY AN ADDRESS TO THE YOUTH OF SCOTLAND, including “A Description of the Day Estivall,” detailing a summer day, was published by Robert Waldegrave in Edinburgh (this can be found in Sibbald’s CHRONICLE OF SCOTTISH POETRY). The Reverend sternly warned young Scots against the reading of “profane sonnets and vain ballads of love, the fabulous feats of Palmerine, and such like reveries” — pointing out that such indulgences might lead them into, horror of horrors, Popery. Two stanzas of this would be included by Henry Thoreau in A WEEK:

A WEEK: On the sandy shore, opposite the Glass-house village in PEOPLE OF Chelmsford, at the Great Bend where we landed to rest us and A WEEK gather a few wild plums, we discovered the Campanula rotundifolia, a new flower to us, the harebell of the poets, which is common to both hemispheres, growing close to the water. Here, in the shady branches of an apple-tree on the sand, we took our nooning, where there was not a zephyr to disturb the repose of this glorious Sabbath day, and we reflected serenely on the long past and successful labors of Latona. “So silent is the cessile air, That every cry and call, The hills, and dales, and forest fair Again repeats them all. The herds beneath some leafy trees, Amidst the flowers they lie, The stable ships upon the seas Tend up their sails to dry.”

ALEXANDER HUME HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1600

November 19, day (Old Style)The infant that would go down in history as Charles I was born, 2d son of King James VI of Scotland (the royal father would become King James I of England) and Anne of Denmark. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1603

William Alexander’s TRAGEDIE OF DARIUS, dedicated to King James VI of Scotland, was published at Edinburgh. This would be reprinted in London in 1604 together with a 2d tragedy, CROESUS. In this timeframe Alexander would be crafting a bid for royal favor entitled A PARÆNESIS TO PRINCE HENRY, from which Henry Thoreau would quote in A WEEK ON THE CONCORD AND MERRIMACK RIVERS. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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A WEEK: By the law of its birth never to become stagnant, for it has come out of the clouds, and down the sides of precipices worn in the flood, through beaver-dams broke loose, not splitting but splicing and mending itself, until it found a breathing-place in this low land. There is no danger now that the sun will steal it back to heaven again before it reach the sea, for it has a warrant even to recover its own dews into its bosom again with interest at every eve. It was already the water of Squam and Newfound Lake and Winnipiseogee, and White Mountain snow dissolved, on which we were floating, and Smith’s and Baker’s and Mad Rivers, and Nashua and Souhegan and Piscataquoag, and Suncook and Soucook and Contoocook, mingled in incalculable proportions, still fluid, yellowish, restless all, with an ancient, ineradicable inclination to the sea. So it flows on down by Lowell and Haverhill, at which last place it first suffers a sea change, and a few masts betray the vicinity of the ocean. Between the towns of Amesbury and Newbury it is a broad commercial river, from a third to half a mile in width, no longer skirted with yellow and crumbling banks, but backed by high green hills and pastures, with frequent white beaches on which the fishermen draw up their nets. I have passed down this portion of the river in a steamboat, and it was a pleasant sight to watch from its deck the fishermen dragging their seines on the distant shore, as in pictures of a foreign strand. At intervals you may meet with a schooner laden with lumber, standing up to Haverhill, or else lying at anchor or aground, waiting for wind or tide; until, at last, you glide under the famous Chain Bridge, and are landed at Newburyport. Thus she who at first was “poore of waters, naked of renowne,” having received so many fair tributaries, as was said of the Forth, “Doth grow the greater still, the further downe; Till that abounding both in power and fame, She long doth strive to give the sea her name”; or if not her name, in this case, at least the impulse of her stream. From the steeples of Newburyport you may review this river stretching far up into the country, with many a white sail glancing over it like an inland sea, and behold, as one wrote who was born on its head- waters, “Down out at its mouth, the dark inky main blending with the blue above. Plum Island, its sand ridges scolloping along the horizon like the sea-serpent, and the distant outline broken by many a tall ship, leaning, still, against the sky.”

SIR WILLIAM ALEXANDER HDT WHAT? INDEX

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In Japan, the cultivation of tobacco had begun and smoking was spreading among all classes, and caution in regard to the outbreak of fires, fear of foreign influences, and interference with the cultivation of needed food crops such as rice resulted in a series of severe imperial prohibitions. Increasing penalties, including property confiscations, death threats, fines, and imprisonment, would prove to no avail — and these prohibitions would gradually fall by the wayside due to lack of enforcement.

The emperor appointed Ieyasu as shogun, and he relocated his government to Edo (Tokyo) where he would found the Tokugawa dynasty of shoguns. The Tokugawa Shogunate would divide subjects into five hereditary classes of decreasing importance (lords, samurai, farmers, artisans, merchants).

English physicians, upset because the New-World drug tobacco was being used by people without obtaining a physician’s prescription, complained to King James I of England. Please, king, show these self-medicating people that what they are doing is intrinsically wrong — because fee professionals ought to have a lock on human health, and on the fees that spring therefrom.

JAMES I

Edward Stanhope, town recorder for Donacaster, died (with him out of the picture, the attorney John Ferne, the previous town recorder, would be able to recover this appointment and its income).

A cousin, also named John Ferne, was in this year knighted by King James I. This cousin would partner with Sir Arthur Ingram in a controversial vending of English military ordnance to other European powers.

With King James I on the throne of England, John Ferne’s determined persecution of English Catholics was brought to an end. However, the new President of the Council in the North, Edmund, 3d Lord Sheffield, appointed the up-and-coming Ferne and another rising northern lawyer, William Gee, to hold the post of secretary in tandem with each of them being able to secure in this manner perhaps £700 a year in fees (Ferne would be secretary to Robert Redmayne, 3d Duke of Huntingdon).

April 23, Saturday (Old Style): As part of his progress toward London and coronation as King of England, at Belvoir Castle James IV knighted Evard Digby. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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July 25, Sunday (Old Style): Queen Elizabeth having died on March 23rd, on this day King James VI of Scotland was

crowned in London (he was, not incidentally, alleging his Stuarts to be descended from the King Arthur of British fakelore). In his service Francis Bacon would flourish. On this day of the new king’s coronation Bacon was knighted, becoming Sir Francis. He would rise to become Baron Verulam, Viscount St. Albans and Lord Chancellor of England. His fall would come about in the course of a struggle between King and Parliament. He would be accused of having taken a bribe while a judge, and found guilty as charged. He thus would lose his personal honor, as well as his fortune and his place at court.

By the coronation of James VI of Scotland as James I, King of England (1603-1625), the idea that the educated, informed, and sometimes conflicting and confused voices of esquires, merchants, lawyers, and HDT WHAT? INDEX

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clergymen might be tolerated and even encouraged had received the sanction of decades of experience.

JAMES I

(The portrait above does not reveal a couple of significant things about the person of this scholarly monarch. His tongue was too large for his mouth, and he had some sort of neurological condition in his legs that was causing numerous stumbles, and injuries.)

This monarch would extend and modify the Lieutenant’s house at the Tower of London, which had been built in the 1540s and now is referred to as the Queen’s House. He would relocate his royal lions to better dens in the west gate barbican. He would come to refer to his kingdom as “Great Britain.”

Sir Walter Raleigh, accused of treason against him (“him” = James, not “him” = Arthur), was imprisoned in the Tower. King James’s efforts to suppress dissent would alienate many of his citizen-subjects, and then his son, ruling as Charles I, would attempt even greater rigour, reasserting censorship with a comprehensiveness not before experienced in England. Thus, after the English civil war, it would be due not to John Milton’s AEROPAGITICA but rather to a Hobbesian pragmatism, that the need to inform the general public, if only in a rudimentary manner, would be becoming accepted as an integral part of English politics. AN INFORMED CITIZENRY

But perhaps at this point we should not be speaking of “a Hobbesian pragmatism,” for at this point Master Thomas Hobbes, barely 15 years of age, was just beginning his studies at Magdalen Hall in Oxford: It is not to be forgotten that before he went to the University, HDT WHAT? INDEX

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he had turned Euripides’ MEDEA out of Greek into Latin iambics.

Michael Drayton, who had gotten along well with the court of Queen Elizabeth, would address a poem of compliment to James on his accession as King of England — but his effort would be ridiculed and this court would rudely reject his services.

With James Stuart (I and VI) coming to the throne, with a single crown for England and Scotland, with the Treaty of Mellifont in which O’Neill surrendered, with the end of the Elizabethan Wars and the enforcement of English law, with the municipality of Belfast being founded upon the former estate of late Earl of Donegall in order to recover his debts, there began in Ireland, particularly in Ulster, the period of the English encroachment by plantation, which would endure until 1641. HDT WHAT? INDEX

KING JAMES VI KING JAMES I

1604

In the first year of the reign of James I, King of England, the witchcraft act of 1563 of Queen Elizabeth I was extended to bring the penalty of death to anyone who invoked evil spirits or communed with familiar spirits. This statute would be exploited by a “Witch-Finder Generall,” Matthew Hopkins. It was noted that a characteristic of all witches was that they were loathe to confess, without torture, so in cases in which no confession was forthcoming regardless of the severity of the torture, one could be certain that the suspect was concealing her or his guilt of the offense.

Thomas Winter, in the dedicatory epistle of his translation of Guillaume de Salluste Du Bartas’s THIRD DAYES CREATION, quoted a section of King James VI of Scotland’s BASILIKON DORON in which the monarch had mentioned Du Bartas.

Joshuah Sylvester translated Du Bartas’s THE DIVINE WEEKS OF THE WORLD’S BIRTH. JOSHUAH SYLVESTER, I JOSHUAH SYLVESTER, II

Having been rejected with rudeness by the court of King James I of England, Michael Drayton found an outlet for his bitterness in an unfortunate satire, THE OWLE (entered at Stationers’ Hall in February). The “owle,” keeping a careful eye on all the other birds, amused no-one. In this year he would also create a misbegotten 2 scriptural narrative, MOYSES IN A MAP OF HIS MIRACLES, as an epic in heroic stanzas.

Samuel Purchas was presented by King James I of England to the vicarage of St. Laurence and All Saints, Eastwood, Essex.

The POETICALL ESSAYES OF ALEXANDER CRAIGE, SCOTO-BRITANE, by Alexander Craig of Rosecraig, imprinted by William White dwelling in Cow-lane neere Holborne Conduit and dedicated to King James I of England.

William Alexander’s TRAGEDIE OF DARIUS was reprinted in London together with a 2d tragedy, CROESUS. Introduced by Argyll at the court of King James VI in Scotland, this playwright gained the favour of the monarch, whom he followed to England, where he was made one of the gentlemen-extraordinary of Prince Henry’s chamber. In this timeframe he wrote AURORA and also created a set of 8-lined stanzas on the familiar 3 theme of princely duty, intituled A PARÆNESIS TO PRINCE HENRY (as Sir William wrote of the River Forth of Scotland in this poetic source, Henry Thoreau would eventually be writing of the Merrimack River of New England).

2. 26 years later this would be revised into MOSES, HIS BIRTH AND MIRACLES. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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3. Thoreau seems to have quoted from Sir William Alexander’s “A Parænesis to Prince Henry” on page 85 of A WEEK ON THE CONCORD AND MERRIMACK RIVERS. Professor E. Robert Sattelmeyer indicates on his page 119 that Thoreau had become familiar with this during his study in Alexander Chalmers, THE WORKS OF THE ENGLISH POETS, FROM CHAUCER TO COWPER; INCLUDING THE SERIES EDITED WITH PREFACES, BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL, BY DR.SAMUEL JOHNSON: AND THE MOST APPROVED TRANSLATIONS. Although we do not have a record that Thoreau ever consulted that particular volume, Volume V, of this 21-volume set, PERUSE VOLUME V PARÆNSIS TO PRINCE HENRY I must acknowledge that I presently know only of a secondary source from which Thoreau might have accessed such materials, and have no greater evidence that Thoreau was familiar with any such secondary source. Thoreau might possibly have copied this extract from some secondary source such as pages 585/586 of the Reverend William Nimmo, Minister of Bothkennar’s HISTORY OF STIRLINGSHIRE. CORRECTED AND BROUGHT DOWN TO THE PRESENT TIME BY THE REV. WILLIAM MACGREGOR STIRLING, MINISTER OF PORT (Re-issued in 1817 by John Fraser for Andrew Bean, Bookseller, Stirling; A. Constable & Co. Oliphant & Co. J. Ogle, J. Fairbairn, J. Anderson & Co. Oliver and Boyd, Edinburgh; Lumsden & Son, A. & J.M. Duncan, Brash and Reid, M. Ogle, W. & P. Jenkins, Glasgow; W. Reid, Leith; J. Rankine, Falkirk; and, J. Macisack, Alloa), for that secondary source reads as follows: A still earlier writer, Sir William Alexander 1st Earl of Stirling, was correct, when, in his “Parænesis, or Exhortation to Government,” addressed to the renowned Prince Henry, he says, “Forth, when she first doth from Benlowmond rinne, Is poore of waters, naked of renowne; But Carron, Allan, Teath and Devon in, Doth grow the greater still the further downe: Till that abounding both in power and fame, She long doth strive to give the sea her name.” The Romans, adopting, no doubt, the words of the natives, and fitting them to their own pronunciation, called this river “Bodotria.” Tacitus in Agricolam, c. 23. But what was Bodotria, and what was the pronunciation of the natives that suggested the name? To this question a Celtic scholar has favoured us with the following answer. “I have been induced to think that the Celts, in comparing this much finer river, the Teath, “the hot or boiling stream,” with the sluggish, moss-banked river which the Forth exhibits from Gartmore to Frew, called the latter Bao-shruth, “insignificant stream.” We observe that Mr P. MacFarlan translates Bath-shruth “smooth slow stream.” Gaelic Vocabulary, Edinburgh, 1815. A question still occurs, how came it to be called Forth? Phorth pronounced with the aspirates quiescent, becomes Port. Changing Ph into F, we have Forth; a name applicable to a river affording the means of navigation.

E. Robert Sattelmeyer. THOREAU’S READING: A STUDY IN INTELLECTUAL HISTORY WITH BIOGRAPHICAL CATALOGUE. Princeton NJ: Princeton UP, 1988

LIST AS PREPARED IN 1988 HDT WHAT? INDEX

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SIR WILLIAM ALEXANDER HDT WHAT? INDEX

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As King James I of England, James increased his import tax on tobacco by 4,000% and issued

ACOUNTERBLASTE TO TOBACCO: Smoking is a custom loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, dangerous to the lungs, and in the black, stinking fume thereof nearest resembling the horrible Stygian smoke of the pit that is bottomless.

The monarch indicated the contempt in which he held those of his subjects who needed daily to use a drug for mere pleasure, and who were able easily to accept a habit of a bunch of mere unbaptized barbarians. He bewailed the cost of a “precious stink,” and repeated some of the horror stories then being circulated by nonsmokers. Among other things, he reminded his readers that some great tobacco-takers had been found, upon dissection, to have “infected” their “inward parts” with “an oily kind of soot.” King James said if he ever had the Devil to dinner, he’d offer him a pipe. With regards to secondhand smoke, he offered accurately enough that “The wife must either take up smoking or resolve to live in a perpetual stinking torment.” The government of James would be the first to find a tax upon tobacco to be enormously profitable. Trying to stamp out smoking, he first increased taxes on tobacco 4,000%, from 2 pence/pound to 6 shillings, HDT WHAT? INDEX

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8 pence/pound. That stopped his subjects from buying licit tobacco but dried up the money stream that had been coming into his Treasury. He therefore slashed his tax to 2 shillings/pound and watched as the coin of the realm again poured into his coffers. As a result of the high duty placed upon tobacco (a duty which was continually advanced during King James I’s and his son Charles I’s reigns over England), a situation would arise similar to our own during our prohibition era. The common phrases and conditions of that era are also applicable to the tobacco trade in London early in the 17th Century; the commodity was “free of duty,” was retailed by smugglers as “right off the ship,” all dandies knew where the best stuff was to be secretly had, domestic tobacco was reworked to give it the semblance of “Spanish,” and the wide advertising which smoking received because of the campaign against it induced many, who had never smoked before, to experiment with the habit.

JAMES I

A PARAENESIS to prince HENRY. Lo here, brave youth, as zeal and duty move, I labour, though in vain, to find some gift Both worthy of thy place, and of my love ; But whilst myself above myself I lift, And would the best of my inventions prove, I stand to study what should be my drift ; Yet this the greatest approbation brings, Still to a prince to speak of princely things. When those of the first age that erst did live In shadowy woods, or in a humid cave, And taking that which th’ earth not forced did give, Would only pay what nature’s need did crave ; Then beasts of breath such numbers did deprive, That, following Amphion, they did deserts leave, Who with sweet sounds did lead them by the ears, Where mutual force might banish common fears. Then building walles, they barbarous rites disdain’d, The sweetnesse of society to finde; And to attayne what unity maintain’d, As peace, religion, and a vertuous minde, HDT WHAT? INDEX

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That so they might have restless humours rayn’d, They straight with lawes their liberty confin’d, And of the better sort the best preferr’d, To chastise them against the lawes that err’d. I wot not if proud minds who first aspir’d Ore many realms to make themselves a right ; Or if the world’s disorders so requir’d, That then had put Astræa to the flight ; Or else if some whose vertues were admir’d, And eminent in all the people’s sight, Did move peace-lovers first to reare a throne, And give the keys of life and death to one. That dignity, when first it did begin, Did grace each province and each little towne ; Forth, when she first doth from Benlowmond rinne, Is poore of waters, naked of renowne, But Carron, Allon, Teith, and Doven in, Doth grow the greater still, the further downe : Till that, abounding both in power and fame, She long doth strive to give the sea her name. Even so those soveraignties which once were small, Still swallowing up the nearest neighbouring state, With a deluge of men did realmes appall, And thus th’ Egyptian Pharoes first grew great ; Thus did th’ Assyrians make so many thrall, Thus rear’d the Romans their imperiall seat : And thus all those great states to worke have gone, Whose limits and the worlds were all but one. But I’le not plunge in such a stormy deepe, Which hath no bottome, nor can have no shore, But in the dust will let those ashes sleepe, Which (cloath’d with purple) once th’ Earth did adore ; Of them scarce now a monument wee keepe, Who (thund’ring terrour) curb’d the world before; Their states, which by a number’s ruine stood, Were founded, and confounded both, with bloud. If I would call antiquity to minde, I, for an endlesse taske might then prepare; But what ? ambition, that was ever blinde, Did get with toyle that which was kept with care, And those great states ’gainst which the world repin’d, Had falls, as famous, as their risings rare : And in all ages it was ever seene, What vertue rais’d, by vice hath ruin’d been. Yet registers of memorable things Would help, great Prince, to make thy judgment sound, Which to the eye a perfect mirror brings, Where all should glass themselves who would be crowned. Read these rare parts that acted were by kings, The strains heroic, and the end renowned ; Which, whilst thou in thy cabinet dost sit, Are worthy to bewitch thy growing wit. And do not, do not thou the means omit, Times matched with times, what they beget to spy, Since history may lead thee unto it — A pillar whereupon good sp’rits rely, Of time the table, and the nurse of wit, HDT WHAT? INDEX

KING JAMES VI KING JAMES I

The square of reason, and the mind’s clear eye, Which leads the curious reader through huge harms, Who stands secure whilst looking on alarms. Nor is it good o’er brave men’s lives to wander, As one who at each corner stands amazed. No, study like some one thyself to render, Who to the height of glory hath been raised ; So Scipio, Cyrus, Caesar, Alexander, And that great Prince choosed him whom Homer praised. Or make, as which is recent, and best known, Thy father’s life a pattern for thine own. Yet, marking great men’s lives, this much impairs The profit which that benefit imparts, While as, transported with preposterous cares, To imitate but superficial parts. Some for themselves frame of their fancies snares, And shew what folly doth o’er-sway their hearts’: For counterfeited things do stains embrace, And all that is affected, hath no grace. Of outward things who, shallow wits, take hold, Do shew by that they can no higher win. So, to resemble Hercules of old, Mark Antony would bear the lion’s skin ; A brave Athenian’s son, as some have told, Would such a course, though to his scorn, begin, And bent, to seem look like his father dead, Would make himself to lisp, and bow his head. They who would rightly follow such as those, Must of the better parts apply the powers, As the industrious bee advis’dly goes, To seize upon the best, shun baser flowers. So, where thou dost the greatest worth disclose, To compass that, be prodigal of hours. Seek not to seem, but be. Who be, seem too. Do carelessly, and yet have care to do. Thou to resemble thy renowned sire, Must not, though some there were, mark trivial things, But matchless virtues, which all minds admire, Whose treasure to his realms great comfort brings. That to attain, thou race of kings ! aspire, Which for thy fame may furnish airy wings ; And like to eaglets thus thou prov’st thy kind, When both like him in body and in mind. Ah, be not those most miserable souls, Their judgments to refine who never strive, Nor will not look upon the learned scrolls, Which without practice do experience give ; But, whilst base sloth each better care controls, Are dead in ignorance, entombed alive? ’Twixt beasts and such the difference is but small — They use not reason, beasts have none at all. Heavenly treasure which the best sort loves, Life of the soul, reformer of the will, Clear light which from the mind each cloud removes, Pure spring of virtue, physic for each ill, Which in prosperity a bridle proves, And in adversity a pillar still ! HDT WHAT? INDEX

KING JAMES I KING JAMES VI

Of thee the more men get, the more they crave, And think, the more they get, the less they have. But if that knowledge be required of all, What should they do this treasure to obtain, Whom in a throne time travels to install, Where they by it of all things must ordain ? If it make them, who by their birth were thrall, As little kings, whilst o’er themselves they reign, Then it must make, when it hath throughly graced them, Kings more than kings, and like to him who placed them. This is a grief which all the world bemoans, When those lack judgment who are born to judge, And, like to painted tombs or gilded stones, To troubled souls cannot afford refuge. Kings are their kingdoms’ hearts, which, tainted once, The bodies straight corrupt in which they lodge ; And those by whose example many fall Are guilty of the murder of them all. The means which best make majesty to stand Are laws observed, whilst practice doth direct : The crown the head, the sceptre decks the hand, But only knowledge doth the thoughts erect. Kings should excel all them whom they command, In all the parts which do procure respect; And this a way to what they would, prepares, Not only as thought good, but as known theirs. Seek not due reverence only to procure With shows of sovereignty and guards oft lewd ; So Nero did, yet could not so assure The hated diadem, with blood embrued : Nor as the Persian kings, who lived obscure, And of their subjects rarely would be viewed ; So one of them was secretly o’er-thrown, And in his place the murderer reigned unknown. No, only goodness doth beget regard, And equity doth greatest glory win ; To plague for vice, and virtue to reward, What they intend, that, bravely, to begin : This is to sovereignty a powerful guard, And makes a prince’s praise o’er all come in : Whose life, his subjects law, cleared by his deeds, More than Justinian’s toils, good order breeds. All those who o’er unbaptized nations reigned, By barbarous customs sought to foster fear, And with a thousand tyrannies constrained All them whom they subdued their yoke to bear ; But those whom great Jehovah hath ordained Above the Christians lawful thrones to rear, Must seek by worth to be obeyed for love, So, having reigned below, to reign above.

Happy Henry, who art highly born, Yet beautifi’st thy birth with signs of worth, And, though a child, all childish toys dost scorn, To shew the world thy virtues budding forth, Which may by time this glorious isle adorn, And bring eternal trophies to the north, While as thou dost thy father’s forces lead, HDT WHAT? INDEX

KING JAMES VI KING JAMES I

And art the hand, whileas he is the head. Thou, like that gallant thunder-bolt of war, Third Edward’s son, who was so much renowned, Shalt shine in valour as the morning star, And plenish with thy praise the peopled round. But like to his, let nought thy fortune mar, Who in his father’s time did die uncrowned ! Long live thy sire, so all the world desires, But longer thou, so Nature’s course requires. And, though time once thee by thy birth-right owes Those sacred honours which men most esteem, Yet flatter not thyself with those fair shows Which often-times are not such as they seem, Whose burdenous weight, the bearer but o’er-throws, That could before of no such danger deem : Then if not, armed in time, thou make thee strong, Thou dost thyself and many a thousand wrong. Since thou must manage such a mighty state, Which hath no borders but the seas and skies, Then, even as he who justly was called great Did, prodigal of pains where fame might rise, With both the parts of worth in worth grow great, As learned as valiant, and as stout as wise, So now let Aristotle lay the ground, Whereon thou after may thy greatness found. For if, transported with a base repose, Thou did’st, as thou dost not, misspend thy prime, O what a fair occasion would’st thou lose, Which after would thee grieve, though out of time ! To virtuous courses now thy thoughts dispose, While fancies are not glued with pleasure’s lime. Those who their youth to suchlike pains engage, Do gain great ease unto their perfect age. Magnanimous now, with heroic parts, Shew to the world what thou dost aim to be, The more to print in all the people’s hearts That which thou would’st they should expect of thee ; That so, preoccupied with such deserts, They after may applaud the heavens’ decree When that day comes, which, if it comes too soon, Then thou and all this isle would be undone. And otherwise what trouble should’st thou find, If first not seized of all thy subjects love, To ply all humours till thy worth have shined, That even most malcontents must it approve ; For else a number would suspend their mind, As doubting what thou afterwards might’st prove, And when a state’s affections thus are cold, Of that advantage foreigners take hold.

I grant in this thy fortune to be good, That art t’ inherit such a glorious crown — As one descended from that sacred blood, Which oft hath filled the world with true renown. The which still on the top of glory stood, And not so much as once seemed to look down — For who thy branches to remembrance brings, Count what he list, he cannot count but kings. HDT WHAT? INDEX

KING JAMES I KING JAMES VI

And pardon me, for I must pause a while, And at a thing of right to be admired. Since those from whom thou cam’st reigned in this isle, Lo, now of years even thousands are expired, Yet none could there them thrall, nor thence exile, Nor ever failed the line so much desired : The hundred and seventh parent living free, A never-conquered crown may leave to thee. Nor hath this only happened as by chance ; Of alterations then there had been some. But that brave race which still did worth enhance, Would so presage the thing that was to come, That this united Isle should once advance, And, by the Lion led, all realms o’er-come. For if it kept a little free before, Now, having much, no doubt it must do more. And though our nations long, I must confess, Did roughly woo before that they could wed, That but endears the union we possess, Whom Neptune both combines within one bed. All ancient injuries this doth redress, And buries that which many a battle bred : Brave discords reconciled, if wrath expire, Do breed the greatest love, and most entire. Of England’s Mary had it been the chance To make King Philip father of a son, The Spaniard’s high designs so to advance, All Albion’s beauties had been quite o’er-run. Or yet if Scotland’s Mary had heired France, Our bondage then had by degrees begun : Of which, if that a stranger hold a part, To take the other that would means impart. Thus from two dangers we were twice preserved When as we seemed without recovery lost, As from their freedom those who freely swerved, And suffered strangers of our bounds to boast. Yet were we for this happy time reserved, And, but to hold it dear, a little crossed, That of the Stewarts the illustrious race Might, like their minds, a monarchy embrace. Of that blest progeny, the wellknown worth Hath of the people a conceit procured, That from the race it never can go forth, But, long hereditary, is well assured. Thus, son of that great monarch of the north, They to obey are happily inured, O’er whom thou art expected once to reign. To have good ancestors one much doth gain. He who by tyranny his throne doth rear, And dispossess another of his right, Whose panting heart dare never trust his care, Since still made odious in the people’s sight, Whilst he both hath, and gives, great cause of fear, Is, spoiling all, at last spoiled of the light, And those who are descended of his blood, Ere that they be believed, must long be good. HDT WHAT? INDEX

KING JAMES VI KING JAMES I

Yet though we see it is an easy thing For such a one his state still to maintain, Who, by his birthright born to be a king, Doth with the country’s love the crown obtain, The same doth many to confusion bring, Whilst, for that cause, they care not how they reign. O never throne established was so sure, Whose fall a vicious prince might not procure. Thus do a number to destruction run, And so did Tarquin once abuse his place, Who for the filthy life he had begun, Was barred from Rome, and ruined all his race; So he whose father of no king was son, Was father to no king, but, in disgrace From Sicily banished by the people’s hate, Did die at Corinth in an abject state. And as that monarch merits endless praise Who by his virtue doth a state acquire, So all the world with scornful eyes may gaze On their degener’d stems, which might aspire, As having greater power, their power to raise, Yet of their race the ruin do conspire, And for their wrong-spent life with shame do end. Kings chastised once, are not allowed t’ amend. Those who, reposing on their princely name, Can never give themselves to care for ought, But for their pleasures everything would frame, As all were made for them, and they for nought, Once th’ earth their bodies, men will spoil their fame, Though, whilst they live, all for their ease be wrought ; And those conceits on which they do depend Do but betray their fortunes in the end. This self-conceit doth so the judgment choke, That when with some aught well succeeds through it, They on the same with great affection look, And scorn th’ advice of others to admit. Thus did brave Charles, the last Burgundian duke, Dear buy a battle purchased by his wit ; By which in him such confidence was bred, That blind presumption to confusion led. O sacred council, quintessence of souls, Strength of the commonwealth, which chains the fates, And every danger, ere it come, controls, The anchor of great realms, staff of all states ! O sure foundation which no tempest fouls, On which are builded the most glorious seats ! If ought with those succeed who scorn thy care, It comes by chance, and draws them in a snare. Thrice happy is that king, who hath the grace To choose a council whereon to rely, Which loves his person, and respects his place, And, like to Aristides, can cast by All private grudge, and public cares embrace, Whom no ambition nor base thoughts do tie — And that they be not, to betray their seats, The partial pensioners of foreign states. HDT WHAT? INDEX

KING JAMES I KING JAMES VI

None should but those of that grave number boast, Whose lives have long with many virtues shined. As Rome respected the Patricians most, Use nobles first, if to true worth inclined ; Yet so, that unto others seem not lost All hopes to rise; for else, high hopes resigned, Industrious virtue in her course would tire, If not expecting honour for her hire. But such as those a prince should most eschew, Who dignities do curiously affect ; A public charge those who too much pursue Seem to have some particular respect. All should be godly, prudent, secret, true, Of whom a king his council should elect ; And he, whilst they advise of zeal and love, Should not the number, but the best approve. A great discretion is required to know What way to weigh opinions in his mind; But ah ! this doth the judgment oft o’er-throw, When whilst he comes within himself confined, And of the senate would but make a show, So to confirm that which he hath designed— As one who only hath whereon to rest For councillors, his thoughts, their seat his breast. But what avails a senate in this sort, Whose power within the capital is pent — A blast of breath which doth for nought import, But mocks the world with a not acted intent? Those are the councils which great states support, Which never are made known but by the event: Not those where wise men matters do propose, And fools thereafter as they please dispose. Nor is this all which ought to be desired In this assembly, since the kingdom’s soul, That, with a knowledge more than rare inspired, A commonwealth, like Plato’s, in a scroll They can paint forth ; but means are, too, acquired Disorder’s torrent freely to control, And, arming with authority their lines, To act with justice that which wit designs. Great empress of this universal frame, The Atlas on whose shoulders states are stayed, Who sway’st the reins which all the world do tame, And mak’st men good by force, with red arrayed! Disorder’s enemy, virgin without blame, Within whose balance good and bad are weighed, O ! sovereign of all virtues, without thee Nor peace nor war can entertained be ! Thou from confusion all things hast redeemed. The meeting of Amphictyons had been vain, And all those senates which were most esteemed, Were ’t not by thee their councils crowned remain; And all those laws had but dead letters seemed, Which Solon, or Lycurgus, did ordain, Were ’t not thy sword made all alike to die, And not the weak, while as the strong ’scaped by. HDT WHAT? INDEX

KING JAMES VI KING JAMES I

O not without great cause all th’ ancients did Paint magistrates placed to explain the laws, Not having hands, so bribery to forbid, Which them from doing right too oft withdraws; And with a veil the judges’ eyes were hid, Who should not see the party, but the cause. God’s deputies, which his tribunal rear, Should have a patent, not a partial ear. An lack of justice hath huge evils begun, Which by no means could be repaired again ; The famous sire of that most famous son, From whom, while as he sleeping did remain, One did appeal, till that his sleep was done, And whom a widow did discharge to reign Because he had not time plaints to attend, Did lose his life for such a fault in th’ end. This justice is the virtue most divine Which like the King of kings shews kings inclined, Whose sure foundations nought can undermine, If once within a constant breast confined : For otherwise she cannot clearly shine, While as the magistrate oft changing mind Is oft too swift, and sometimes slow to strike, As led by private ends, not still alike. Use mercy freely, justice as constrained ; This must be done, although that be more dear, And oft the form may make the deed disdained, Whilst justice tastes of tyranny too near. One may be justly, yet in rage arraigned, Whilst reason ruled by passions doth appear : Once Socrates, because o’ercome with ire, Did from correcting one, till calmed, retire. Those who want means their anger to assuage, Do oft themselves, or others, rob of breath. Fierce Valentinian, surfeiting in rage, By bursting of a vein did bleed to death ; And Theodosus, still but then, thought sage, Caused murder thousands, whilst quite drunk with wrath, Who, to prevent the like opprobrious crime, Made still suspend his edicts for a time. Of virtuous kings all the actions do proceed Forth from the spring of a paternal love, To cherish, or correct, as realms have need ; For which he more than for himself doth move, Who, many a million’s ease that way to breed, Makes sometime some his indignation prove, And like to Codrus, would even death embrace, If for the country’s good and people’s peace. This lady, that so long unarmed hath strayed, Now holds the balance, and doth draw the sword, And never was more gloriously arrayed, Nor in short time did greater good afford ; The state which to confusion seemed betrayed, And could of nought but blood and wrongs record, Lo! freed from trouble and intestine rage, Doth boast yet to restore the golden age. HDT WHAT? INDEX

KING JAMES I KING JAMES VI

Thus doth thy father, generous prince, prepare A way for thee to gain immortal fame, And lays the grounds of greatness with such care, That thou may’st build great works upon the same; Then since thou art to have a field so fair, Whereas thou once mayst eternize thy name, Begin, whileas a greater light thine smothers, And learn to rule thyself ere thou rul’st others. For still true magnanimity, we find, Both harbour early in a generous breast : To match Miltiades, whose glory shined, Themistocles, a child, was robbed of rest ; Yet strive to be a monarch of thy mind, For as to dare great things all else detest ; A generous emulation spurs the sp’rit, Ambition doth abuse the courage quite. Whilst of illustrious lives thou look’st the story, Abhor those tyrants which still swimmed in blood, And follow those who, to their endless glory, High in their subjects’ love by virtue stood; O ! be like him who on a time was sorry Because that whilst he chanced to do no good There but one day had happened to expire : He was the world’s delight, the heaven’s desire. But as by mildness some great states do gain, By lenity some lose that which they have. England’s sixth Henry could not live and reign, But, being simple, did huge foils receive: Brave Scipio’s army mutinied in Spain, And, by his meekness bold, their charge did leave. O ! to the state it brings great profit oft, To be sometimes severe, and never soft. To guide his coursers warily through the sky, Erst Phoebus did his phaeton require, Since from the middle way if swerving by, The heavens would burn or the earth would be on fire. So doth ’twixt two extremes each virtue lie To which the purest sp’rits ought to aspire; He lives most sure who no extreme doth touch, Nought would too little be, nor yet too much. Some kings whom all men did in hatred hold, With avaricious thoughts whose breasts were torn, Too basely given to feast their eyes with gold, Used ill and abject means, which brave minds scorn ; Such whilst they only seek, no vice controlled, How they may best their treasuries adorn, Are, though like Crœsus rich, whilst wealth them blinds, Yet still as poor as Irus in their minds. And some again, as foolish fancies move, Who praise preposterous fondly do pursue, Not liberal, no, but prodigal do prove, Then, whilst their treasures they exhausted view, With subsidies do lose their subject’s love, And spoil whole realms, though but t’ enrich a few, Whilst with authority their pride they cloak, Who ought to die by smoke for selling smoke. HDT WHAT? INDEX

KING JAMES VI KING JAMES I

But O ! the prince most loathed in every land Is one all given to lust ; who hardly can Free from some great mishap a long time stand ; For all the world his deeds with hatred scan. Should he who hath the honour to command The noblest creature, great God’s image — man, Be to the vilest vice the basest slave, The body’s plague, soul’s death, and honour’s grave ? That beastly monster who, retired a part, Amongst his concubines began to spin, Took with the habit too a woman’s heart And ended that which Ninus did begin. Faint-hearted Xerxes, who did gifts impart To them who could devise new ways to sin, Though backed with worlds of men, straight took the flight, And had not courage but to see them fight. Thus doth soft pleasure but abase the mind, And making one to servile thoughts descend, Doth make the body weak, the judgment blind — An hateful life, an ignominious end ; Where those who did this raging tyrant bind With virtue’s chains, their triumphs to attend, Have by that means a greater glory gained Than all the victories which they attained. The valorous Persian who not once but gaz’d On faire Panthea’s face to ease his toyls, His glory, by that continency, rais’d More than by Babylon’s and Lydia’s spoyls; The Macedonian monarch was more prais’d Than for triumphing ore so many soils, That of his greatest foe (though beauteous seene) He chastely entertain’d the captiv’d queene. Thus have still-gazed-at monarchs much ado Who, all the world’s disorders to redress, Should shine like to the sun, the which still, lo ! The more it mounts aloft, doth seem the less; They should with confidence go freely to, And, trusting to their worth, their will express; Not like French Louis th’ Eleventh, who did maintain That who could not dissemble could not reign. But still, to guard their state, the strongest bar And surest refuge in each dangerous storm Is to be found a gallant man of war, With heart that dare attempt, hands to perform. Not that they venture should their state too far, And to each soldiers course their course conform; The skilful pilots at the rudder sit, Let others use their strength, and them their wit. In Mars his mysteries to gain renown It gives kings glory, and assures their place ; It breeds them a respect among’st their own, And makes their neighbours fear to lose their grace; Still all those should, who love to keep their crown, In peace prepare for war, in war for peace : For as all fear a prince who dare attempt, The want of courage brings one in contempt. HDT WHAT? INDEX

KING JAMES I KING JAMES VI

And, royal off-spring, who mayst high aspire, As one to whom thy birth high hopes assigned, This well becomes the courage of thy sire, Who trains thee up according to thy kind ; He, though the world his prosperous reign admire, In which his subjects such a comfort find, Hath, if the bloody art moved to embrace, That wit then to make war, which now keeps peace. And O ! how this, dear prince, the people charms, Who flock about thee oft in ravished bands — To see thee young, yet manage so thine arms, Have a mercurial mind and martial hands. This exercise thy tender courage warms ; And still true greatness but by virtue stands ; Agesilaus said no king could be More great, unless more virtuous than he. And though that all of thee great things expect, Thou, as too little, mak’st their hopes ashamed. As he who on Olympus did detect The famous Theban’s foot, his body framed, By thy beginnings so we may collect How great thy worth by time may he proclaimed. For who thy actions doth remark, may see That there he many Qesars within thee. Though every state by long experience finds That greatest blessings prospering peace imparts As which all subjects to good order binds, Yet breeds this isle, still populous in all parts, Such vigorous bodies and such restless minds, That they disdain to use mechanic arts, And, being haughty, cannot live in rest, Yea, such, when idle, are a dangerous pest. A prudent Roman told in some few hours To Rome’s estate what danger did redound Then, when they razed the Carthaginian towers, By which, while as they stood, still means were found With others’ harms to exercise their powers ; The want whereof their greatness did confound, For when no more with foreign foes embroiled. Straight by intestine wars the state was spoiled. No, since this soil, which with great sp’rits abounds, Can hardly nurse her nurslings all in peace, Then let us keep her bosom free from wounds, And spend our fury in some foreign place. There is no wall can limit now our bounds, But all the world will need walls in short space To keep our troops from seizing on new thrones. The marble chair must pass the ocean once. “What fury o’er my judgment doth prevail ? Methinks I see all th’ earth glance with our arms, And groaning Neptune charged with many a sail ; I hear the thundering trumpet sound th’ alarms, Whilst all the neighbouring nations do look pale, Such sudden fear each panting heart disarms, To see those martial minds together gone, The lion and the leopard in one. HDT WHAT? INDEX

KING JAMES VI KING JAMES I

I, Henry, hope with this mine eyes to feed, Whilst, ere thou wear’st a crown, thou wear’st a shield, And when thou, making thousands once to bleed That dare behold thy count’nance and not yield, Stirr’st through the bloody dust a foaming steed. An interested witness in the field, I may amongst those bands thy grace attend, And be thy Homer when the wars do end. But stay, where fliest thou, Muse, so far astray? And whilst affection doth thy course command, Dar’st thus above thy reach attempt a way To court the heir of Albion’s warlike land, Who gotten hath, his generous thoughts to sway, A royal gift out of a royal hand, And hath before his eyes that type of worth, That star of state, that pole which guides the north. Yet o’er thy father, lo, such is thy fate, Thou hast this vantage which may profit thee — An orphaned infant, settled in his seat, He greater than himself could never see, Where thou may’st learn by him the art of state, And by another what thyself should’st be, Whilst that which he had only but heard told, In all his course thou practised may’st behold, And this advantage long may’st thou retain, By which to make thee blest the heavens conspire, And labour of his worth to make thy gain, To whose perfections thou may’st once aspire ; When as thou shew’st thyself, whilst thou dost reign, A son held worthy of so great a sire, And with his sceptres and the people’s hearts, Dost still inherit his heroic parts. HDT WHAT? INDEX

KING JAMES I KING JAMES VI

January (1603, Old Style): King James I called the Hampton Court Conference to hear of things “pretended to be amiss” in the Protestant church. There, a Puritan, Dr. John Reynolds, would maintain that the English translations of the Bible that had been created during the reigns of King Henry VIII and King Edward VI were corrupt and request that the King adequately fund a massive project for a new English version.

At some point during this year, I don’t know exactly when, through the influence of President of the Council in the North Edmund, 3d Lord Sheffield, John Ferne secured a seat in the House of Commons, for Boroughbridge. This wannabee’s relentless campaign of self-promotion would begin to pay off big time for, toward the end of the parliamentary session for this year, he would be among the officials of the Council in the North knighted by King James I in a ceremony at Whitehall. Rise, Sir John.

“Once a king, always a king, but once a knight is enough” HDT WHAT? INDEX

KING JAMES VI KING JAMES I

June 30, Saturday (Old Style): King James I was a lover of rule by aphorism (such as “No Bishop, No King”) and his attitude toward those who felt a need for religious freedom was succinctly expressed:

I shall make them conform or I shall harry them out of the land.

JAMES I

On this date the king approved a list of 54 BIBLE revisers to prepare an Authorized edition of the BIBLE in English, because the various translations that were available, such as the translation of John Wycliffe, the translation of William Tyndale, the translation of Miles Coverdale, the version of Thomas Matthew, the Great BIBLE commanded by Henry VIII, the Geneva BIBLE, the Bishops’ BIBLE, and the Reims/Douai BIBLE, “were corrupt and not answerable to the truth of the original” which had been written by God in the languages that God spoke, Hebrew for the Old Testament and Greek for the New Testament. HISTORY OF THE BIBLE

This 54-linguist BIBLE-translation committee that had been established by King James I would organize itself into six working groups that would meet at Westminster, Cambridge, and Oxford. Charlton Heston, who has had the experience of portraying various Biblical figures in Hollywood movies and who is in his elder years has become, as the leader of the National Rifle Association (“the NRA”), a prominent defender of the 2d Amendment to the US Constitution in the manner in which he chooses to understand it,4 has written in his autobiography about the influence of this “Authorized” or “King James Version,” which: has been described as the only great work of art ever created by a committee.... The authors of several boring translations that have followed over the last fifty years mumble that the KJV is “difficult” filled with long words.... Over the past several centuries it’s been the single book in most households, an 4. “A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed.” HDT WHAT? INDEX

KING JAMES I KING JAMES VI HDT WHAT? INDEX

KING JAMES VI KING JAMES I

enormous force in shaping the development of the English language. Carried around the world by missionaries ... Exploring it ... was one of the most rewarding creative experiences of my life. HDT WHAT? INDEX

KING JAMES I KING JAMES VI

1605

August 29, Thursday (Old Style): A debate upon the topic of tobacco at Oxford had as its most important participants King James I, against use of the substance, and the Presbyterian Reverend Francis Cheynell, for its use. HDT WHAT? INDEX

KING JAMES VI KING JAMES I

November 4, Monday (Old Style): William Habington was born at Hindlip Hall, Worcestershire, in a well situated English family, publicly Protestant but actually Catholic. Sir Thomas Habington, his father, had been

implicated in the plots on behalf of Mary, Queen of Scots and had in consequence needed to spend six years at the Tower of London; an uncle, Sir Edward Habington, had in 1586 needed to be beheaded on account of a conspiracy against Queen Elizabeth I in connection with Sir Anthony Babington. HEADCHOPPING

Mary Habington, his mother, had it seems been the person who had while heavily pregnant with him just dictated an anonymous letter of warning (actually penned, it seems, by Mrs. Ann Vaux, perhaps in order to

disguise the handwriting) to her brother Lord Monteagle, which he had received by messenger on October 26, 1605, a few days before the Gunpowder Plotters were intending to detonate the 36 ninety-pound barrels of HDT WHAT? INDEX

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black powder they had secreted in the basements of the Parliament, in order to send their monarch King James I toward the heavens on November 5th while he was delivering his address to the Parliament.5

The lad William Habington would be educated at Paris and Saint-Omer. He would become a poet.

5. It seems that she had not intended to deter or expose the plot, but merely to safeguard her brother: Therefore, I would advise you as you value your life, to find some excuse not to attend this Parliament. For though there is no sign of any trouble, yet I say, they shall receive a terrible blow at this Parliament, yet they shall not see who hurts them. (Lord Monteagle however showed the letter to the chief minister to King James I, Robert Cecil, and this would lead to a search of the cellars beneath Westminster and the discovery there of the kegs of gunpowder, and Guy Fawkes.) HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1606

After graduating from Trinity Hall, Cambridge Edmund Mary Bolton had been living in London at the Inner Temple and was a retainer of George Villiers, the Duke, then Marquess, of Buckingham, until his marriage in about this year with a poet who was also of the Duke of Buckingham’s retinue, Margaret Porter (sister of Endymion Porter).

Through Villiers he would secure a small place at the court of King James I (he was ever in addition attempting to secure patronage, at one time or another from Cecil, Henry Howard, and Edward Alleyn).

January 27, Monday (1605, Old Style): Sir Evard Digby, an occupant of the Tower of London (he had carved an inscription into a wall there), was tried for high treason for the part he had played in the Catholic “Gunpowder Plot” — and pled “Guilty.” He had sponsored a “hunting party” at Coughton Court in Warwickshire made up of armed horsemen standing by for the explosion beneath the House of Lords. Their specific role in the plot had been to kidnap 9-year-old Princess Elizabeth Stuart immediately upon the demise in the explosion of her father King James I of England and older brother Prince Henry, so that she could be retrained by them in the Catholic faith and safely married off to a Catholic bridegroom and come out of her period of regency as the Catholic monarch of England, Ireland, and Scotland. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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April 10, Thursday (Old Style): Charters for two joint stock companies, the “Virginia company of London” (“London Company”) and the “Virginia Company of Plymouth” (“Plymouth Company”) were issued by King James I,

permitting Sir Ferdinando Gorges and John Popham to settle the American coast between Cape Fear and mid- Maine (this was the area that two years earlier Henry of Navarre, the French king, had claimed). The Reverend Richard Hakluyt and his young friend Captain Bartholomew Gosnold were involved in these negotiations. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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Between their respective spheres of operation there would be a coastal section of overlap from the 38th parallel to the 41st parallel in which either company was free to establish a settlement so long as it was at least a hundred miles distant from the other company’s settlements.

READ THE FULL TEXT READ ABOUT VIRGINIA HDT WHAT? INDEX

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May 3, Saturday (Old Style): Father Henry Garnett, involved in the Gunpowder Plot, were taken from the Tower of London and hanged in St. Paul’s churchyard. (Thomas Garnett, instead of being hanged, would in this year be banished from England for life. He would return to England in 1608 and be caught, and hanged at Worcester. In 1970 he would be canonized as a Catholic saint.) LONDON

During this month, the British Parliament approved an “Act for the better discovering and repressing of Popish recusants,” specifying a loyalty oath: I, A.B. do truly and sincerely acknowledge, profess, testify, and declare in my conscience before God and the world, that our Sovereign Lord King James, is lawful and rightful King of this realm, and of all other in his Majesties Dominions and Countries; And that the Pope neither of himself, nor by any authorities of the Church or See of Rome, or by any means with any other hath any power or authority to depose the King, or to dispose any of his Majesty’s kingdoms, or dominions, or to authorize any foreign prince to invade or annoy him, or his countries, or to discharge any of his Subjects of their allegiance and obedience to his Majesty, or to give any license or leave to any of them to bear arms, raise tumult, or to offer any violence, or hurt to his Majesty’s royal person, state, or government, or to any of his Majesty’s subjects within his Majesty’s dominions. Also, I do swear from my heart that, notwithstanding any declaration or sentence of excommunication or deposition made or granted, or to be made or granted by the Pope or his successors, or by any authority derived, or pretended to be HDT WHAT? INDEX

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derived from him, or his See against the King, his heirs or successors, or any absolution of the said subjects from their obedience: I will bear faith and true allegiance to his Majesty, his heirs and successors, and him or them will defend to the HDT WHAT? INDEX

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uttermost of my power, against all conspiracies and attempts whatsoever, which shall be made against his or their persons, their crown and dignity, by reason or color of any such sentence or declaration or otherwise, and will doe my best endeavor to disclose and make known unto his Majesty, his heirs and successors, all treasons and traitorous conspiracies, which I shall know or hear of to be against him or any of them: And I do further swear, that I do from my heart abhor, detest and abjure, as impious and heretical, this damnable doctrine and position, that princes which be excommunicated or deprived by the Pope, may be deposed or murdered by their subjects, or any whatsoever. And I do believe and in conscience am resolved, that neither the Pope nor any person whatsoever, hath power to absolve me of this oath, or any part thereof, which I acknowledge by good and full authority to bee lawfully ministered unto me, and do renounce all pardons and dispensations to the contrary: And all these things I do plainly and sincerely acknowledge and swear, according to these express words by me spoken, and according to the plain and common sense and understanding of the same words, without any Equivocation, or mental evasion, or secret reservation whatsoever: And I doe make this recognition and acknowledgement heartily, willingly, and truly, upon the true faith of a Christian: So help me God. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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December 20, Saturday (Old Style): Admiral Christopher Newport brought the Susan Constant, the Godspeed, and the Discovery out of the mouth of the Thames River from London, heading off to establish a colony somewhere on the Virginia coast of the New World between 34 degrees and 41 degrees of latitude, conveying 105 male and 35 female colonists.

King James I of England, attempting once again to exploit the mythically rich, virgin coastline of the New World, had established several companies of these merchant adventurers — the London Company and the Plymouth Company.

JAMES I

This sailing was of the London Company, the first to send out ships. King James had given them the objectives of collecting gold, finding a route to the South Seas, and rescuing the Lost Colony of Roanoke. During this voyage Admiral Newport would have John Smith placed under arrest for mutiny. Adverse winds would hold their ship near England for 6 weeks, seriously depleting their food, and 45 would die on the voyage but, in May of the following year, 101 men and 4 boys would be able to disembark on a semi-island on the Virginia coast, to create a settlement to be named, in honor of their royal patron, Jamestown. READ ABOUT VIRGINIA HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1608

William Alexander and a relative were made agents for the collection of debts which had fallen due the crown in Scotland from 1547 to 1588. They would be entitled to pocket, for their efforts, half of everything they might be able to collect. As it would seem, they would never be able to collect much, except hard feelings. The concession would turn out to be not so very lucrative.

As the smuggling of tobacco increased, King James I lowered the tariff and sold the right to collect it for government revenues.

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1609

Samuel Daniel’s THE CIVILE WARES BETWEENE THE TWO HOUSES OF LANCASTER AND YORKE was complete in eight books.

George Chapman and Ben Jonson were imprisoned for having authored (with John Marston, who was not imprisoned) EASTWARD HOE, a play found by King James I to be offensive to Scots such as himself.

JAMES I

The leaves containing the passage that had given offence were cancelled and reprinted, but here is what had been said in Act iii, Scene 2: “Only a few industrious Scots perhaps, who indeed are dispersed over the face of the whole earth. But as for them, there are no greater friends to Englishmen and England, when they are out on ’t, in the world, than they are. And for my own part, I would a hundred thousand of them were there [Virginia]; for we are all one countrymen now, ye know, and we should find ten times more comfort of them there than we do here.” Keep thy shop, and thy shop will keep thee.6 Light gains make heavy purses. ’T is good to be merry and wise. — EASTWARD HOE. Act i. Sc. 1. Make ducks and drakes with shillings. — EASTWARD HOE. Act i. Sc. 1. Enough ’s as good as a feast.7 — EASTWARD HOE. Act iii. Sc. 2. Fair words never hurt the tongue. — EASTWARD HOE. Act iv. Sc. 1.

6. This would be accessed by Benjamin Franklin’s “Poor Richard.” 7. Dives and Pauper (1493). Gascoigne: Memories (1575). Henry Fielding: Covent Garden Tragedy, act ii. sc. 6. Isaac Bickerstaff: Love in a Village, act iii. sc. 1. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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Let pride go afore, shame will follow after. — EASTWARD HOE. Act iv. Sc. 1. I will neither yield to the song of the siren nor the voice of the hyena, the tears of the crocodile nor the howling of the wolf. — EASTWARD HOE. Act v. Sc. 1. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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WALDEN: Sometimes, on Sundays, I heard the bells, the Lincoln, PEOPLE OF Acton, Bedford, or Concord bell, when the wind was favorable, WALDEN a faint, sweet, and, as it were, natural melody, worth importing into the wilderness. At a sufficient distance over the woods this sound acquires a certain vibratory hum, as if the pine needles in the horizon were the strings of a harp which it swept. All sound heard at the greatest possible distance produces one and the same effect, vibration of the universal lyre, just as the intervening atmosphere makes a distant ridge of earth interesting to our eyes by the azure tint it imparts to it. There came to me in this case a melody which the air had strained, and which had conversed with every leaf and needle of the wood, that portion of the sound which the elements had taken up and modulated and echoed from vale to vale. The echo is, to some extent, an original sound, and therein is the magic and charm of it. It is not merely a repetition of what was worth repeating in the bell, but partly the voice of the wood; the same trivial words and notes sung by a wood-nymph. At evening, the distant lowing of some cow in the horizon beyond the woods sounded sweet and melodious, and at first I would mistake it for the voices of certain minstrels by whom I was sometimes serenaded, who might be straying over hill and dale; but soon I was not unpleasantly disappointed when it was prolonged into the cheap and natural music of the cow. I do not mean to be satirical, but to express my appreciation of those youths’ singing, when I state that I perceived clearly that it was akin to the music of the cow, and they were at length one articulation of Nature. Regularly at half past seven, in one part of the summer, after the evening train had gone by, the whippoorwills chanted their vespers for half an hour, sitting on a stump by my door, or upon the ridge pole of the house. They would begin to sing almost with as much precision as a clock, within five minutes of a particular time, referred to the setting of the sun, every evening. I had a rare opportunity to become acquainted with their habits. Sometimes I heard four or five at once in different parts of the wood, by accident one a bar behind another, and so near me that I distinguished not only the cluck after each note, but often that singular buzzing sound like a fly in a spider’s web, only proportionally louder. Sometimes one would circle round and round me in the woods a few feet distant as if tethered by a string, when probably it was near its eggs. They sang at intervals throughout the night, and were again as musical as ever just before and about dawn.

BEN JONSON EURIPIDES AEOLIAN HARP WHIPPOORWILL HDT WHAT? INDEX

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When other birds are still the screech owls take up the strain, PEOPLE OF like mourning women their ancient u-lu-lu. Their dismal scream is WALDEN truly Ben Jonsonian. Wise midnight hags! It is no honest and blunt tu-whit tu-who of the poets, but, without jesting, a most solemn graveyard ditty, the mutual consolations of suicide lovers remembering the pangs and the delights of supernal love in the infernal groves. Yet I love to hear their wailing, their doleful responses, trilled along the wood-side, reminding me sometimes of music and singing birds; as if it were the dark and tearful side of music, the regrets and sighs that would fain be sung. They are the spirits, the low spirits and melancholy forebodings, of fallen souls that once in human shape night- walked the earth and did the deeds of darkness, no expiating their sins with their wailing hymns or threnodies in their scenery of their transgressions. They give me a new sense of variety and capacity of that nature which is our common dwelling. Oh-o-o-o-o that I never had been bor-r-r-r-n! sighs one on this side of the pond, and circles with the restlessness of despair to some new perch on the gray oaks. Then –that I never had been bor-r-r-r-n! echoes another on the farther side with tremulous sincerity, and –bor-r-r-r-n! comes faintly from far in the Lincoln woods. I was also serenaded by a hooting owl. Near at hand you could fancy it the most melancholy sound in Nature, as if she meant by this to stereotype and make permanent in her choir the dying moans of a human being, –some poor weak relic of mortality who has left hope behind, and howls like an animal, yet with human sobs, on entering the dark valley, made more awful by a certain gurgling melodiousness,– I find myself beginning with the letters gl and I try to imitate it, –expressive of a mind which has reached the gelatinous mildewy stage in the mortification of all healthy and courageous thought. It reminded me of ghouls and idiots and insane howlings. But now one answers from far woods in a strain made really melodious by distance, –Hoo hoo hoo, hoorer hoo; and indeed for the most part it suggested only pleasing associations, whether heard by day or night, summer or winter.

EURIPIDES SHAKESPEARE BEN JONSON COLERIDGE HDT WHAT? INDEX

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I rejoice that there are owls. Let them do the idiotic and PEOPLE OF maniacal hooting for men. It is a sound admirably suited to swamps WALDEN and twilight woods which no day illustrates, suggesting a vast and undeveloped nature which men have not recognized. They represent the stark twilight and unsatisfied thoughts which all have. All day the sun has shone on the surface of some savage swamp, where the double spruce stands hung with usnea lichens, and small hawks circulate above, and the chicadee lisps amid the evergreens, and the partridge and rabbit skulk beneath; but now a more dismal and fitting day dawns, and a different race of creatures awakes to express the meaning of Nature there. Late in the evening I heard the distant rumbling of wagons over bridges,-a sound heard farther than almost any other at night, – the baying of dogs, and sometimes again the lowing of some disconsolate cow in a distant barn-yard. In the mean while all the shore rang with the trump of bullfrogs, the sturdy spirits of ancient wine-bibbers and wassailers, still unrepentant, trying to sing a catch in their Stygian lake, –if the Walden nymphs will pardon the comparison, for though there are almost no weeds, there are frogs there,– who would fain keep up the hilarious rules of their old festal tables, though their voices have waxed hoarse and solemnly grave, mocking at mirth, and the wine has lost its flavor, and become only liquor to distend their paunches, and sweet intoxication never comes to drown the memory of the past, but mere saturation and waterloggedness and distention. The most aldermanic, with his chin upon a heart-leaf, which serves for a napkin to his drooling chaps, under this northern shore quaffs a deep draught of the once scorned water, and passes round the cup with the ejaculation tr-r-r-oonk, tr-r-r-oonk, tr-r-r-oonk! and straightway comes over the water from some distant cove the same password repeated, where the next in seniority and girth has gulped down to his mark; and when this observance has made the circuit of the shores, then ejaculates the master of ceremonies, with satisfaction, tr-r-r-oonk! and each in his turn repeats the same down to the least distended, leakiest, and flabbiest paunched, that there be no mistake; and then the bowl goes round again and again, until the sun disperses the morning mist, and only the patriarch is not under the pond, but vainly bellowing troonk from time to time, and pausing for a reply. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1610

Thomas Heywood’s FORTUNE BY LAND AND SEA, with William Rowley.

Thomas Dekker’s play If It Be Not Good, the Devil Is in It.

It was in about this year that John Donne’s IGNATIUS HIS CONCLAVE satirized the Jesuits: Ignatius de Loyola gets his ass dispatched from hell to colonize the moon. He also wrote a prose argument, PSEUDO-MARTYR, to the effect that actually English Catholics ought to be able to pledge allegiance to King James I without breach of religious affiliation.

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1611

In London, the authorized King James Version of the BIBLE was printed. In sheer literary excellence, it is hardly conceivable that this Bible of 1611 will ever be surpassed. The scholars and linguists who had labored for seven years on this version had spared no pains to accommodate it as perfect as they could for the average man and woman. As stated in the preface, they had not disdained “to bring back to the anvil that which we have hammered.” The style was an evolution, “a revision of revisions” made during the 16th Century in England. It rested largely on the simple and energetic diction of Tyndale’s translation of the New Testament, 1st printed in Germany in the year 1525. The predominance of Saxon words was remarkable. In the preface, drawn up by Dr. Miles Smith, later bishop of Gloucester, the authors disclaimed all originality and wrote, “We never thought from the beginning ... to make if a bad one a good one. ...but to make a good one better or out of many good ones one principal good one.” Many great English authors would give unstinted praise to this Bible. Macaulay would declare, “If everything else in our language should perish this book would alone suffice to show the whole extent of its beauty and power.” Tennyson would declare, “The Bible ought to be read, were it only for the sake of the grand English in which it is written, an education in itself.” Sir Winston Churchill would comment: The scholars who produced this masterpiece are mostly unknown and unremembered. But they forged an enduring link, literary and religious, between the English-speaking people of the world. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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However, this version would be slow to win its ultimate position of unquestionable supremacy as for many years the best selling book in the world.

JAMES I

King James I deserved little credit for this work which bears his name (the monarch by this point was displaying far more interest in a new boyfriend). Robert Barker, the printer, had advanced considerable money to the editors during the period of writing. The nickname “The ‘He’ Bible” would be awarded to this initial printing because it had Ruth III:15 as “and he went into the city” — the 2d printing would correct this to “and she went into the city.” HISTORY OF THE PRESS HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1612

The world’s first submarine was rowed underwater from Westminster in London to Greenwich by reliance upon a secret “air-freshening device” (possibly stored oxygen) which had been prepared by the Dutch alchemist Cornelis Drebbel.

King James I ordered that the body of his mother Mary Queen of Scots be interred at Westminster Abbey.

Prince Henry, the monarch’s eldest son and heir apparent to the throne, died at the age of 18. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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William Alexander wrote AN ELEGIE ON THE DEATH OF PRINCE HENRIE and was appointed gentleman usher in the household of Prince Charles (Henry Thoreau would quote from this elegie in A WEEK ON THE CONCORD AND MERRIMACK RIVERS). HDT WHAT? INDEX

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A WEEK: By the law of its birth never to become stagnant, for it has PEOPLE OF come out of the clouds, and down the sides of precipices worn in the A WEEK flood, through beaver-dams broke loose, not splitting but splicing and mending itself, until it found a breathing-place in this low land. There is no danger now that the sun will steal it back to heaven again before it reach the sea, for it has a warrant even to recover its own dews into its bosom again with interest at every eve. It was already the water of Squam and Newfound Lake and Winnipiseogee, and White Mountain snow dissolved, on which we were floating, and Smith’s and Baker’s and Mad Rivers, and Nashua and Souhegan and Piscataquoag, and Suncook and Soucook and Contoocook, mingled in incalculable proportions, still fluid, yellowish, restless all, with an ancient, ineradicable inclination to the sea. So it flows on down by Lowell and Haverhill, at which last place it first suffers a sea change, and a few masts betray the vicinity of the ocean. Between the towns of Amesbury and Newbury it is a broad commercial river, from a third to half a mile in width, no longer skirted with yellow and crumbling banks, but backed by high green hills and pastures, with frequent white beaches on which the fishermen draw up their nets. I have passed down this portion of the river in a steamboat, and it was a pleasant sight to watch from its deck the fishermen dragging their seines on the distant shore, as in pictures of a foreign strand. At intervals you may meet with a schooner laden with lumber, standing up to Haverhill, or else lying at anchor or aground, waiting for wind or tide; until, at last, you glide under the famous Chain Bridge, and are landed at Newburyport. Thus she who at first was “poore of waters, naked of renowne,” having received so many fair tributaries, as was said of the Forth, “Doth grow the greater still, the further downe; Till that abounding both in power and fame, She long doth strive to give the sea her name”; or if not her name, in this case, at least the impulse of her stream. From the steeples of Newburyport you may review this river stretching far up into the country, with many a white sail glancing over it like an inland sea, and behold, as one wrote who was born on its head- waters, “Down out at its mouth, the dark inky main blending with the blue above. Plum Island, its sand ridges scolloping along the horizon like the sea-serpent, and the distant outline broken by many a tall ship, leaning, still, against the sky.”

SIR WILLIAM ALEXANDER HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1614

Sir William Alexander published DOOMES-DAY, OR, THE GREAT DAY OF THE LORDS JUDGEMENT (at least by this point, as is indicated by the “Sir,” he had been knighted). In this year he began to serve as “master of requests for Scotland,” interfacing with needy Scotsmen in such manner as to deflect any actual importuning of royal personages.

Sir Walter Raleigh was producing, out of the Tower of London (a central and prestigious literary address), his THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD, from which eventually Henry Thoreau would be quoting:

WALDEN: It is said that Deucalion and Pyrrha created men DEUCALION by throwing stones over their heads behind them:– PYRRHA Inde genus durum sumus, experiensque laborum, OVID Et documenta damus quâ simus origine nati. Or, as Raleigh rhymes it in his sonorous way,– “From thence our kind hard-hearted is, enduring pain and care, PEOPLE OF Approving that our bodies of a stony nature are.” WALDEN So much for a blind obedience to a blundering oracle, throwing the stones over their heads behind them, and not seeing where they fell.

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On the following screen is the very questionable title-page of Sir Walter’s book. The prisoner’s foes suggested to King James I that the face of the female figure that is upholding the globe was intended as a caricature of his own, and the monarch would order every copy to be destroyed. (For comparison purposes, to the left is the face of the monarch.) Only a few copies of this engraving would survive. The image is of course a blend of Rosicrucian and Masonic symbols, and the figures on the columns in all likelihood some sort of cryptogram: HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1616

THE WORKES OF THE MOST HIGH AND MIGHTIE PRINCE, IAMES, BY THE GRACE OF GOD, KING OF GREAT BRITAINE, FRANCE AND IRELAND, DEFENDER OF THE FAITH, &C, a collection of the English/Scottish monarch’s writings, was printed.

King James I came to be aware that one of his favorites, Robert Carr, Earl of Somerset, the new husband of the Lady Frances Howard, Countess of Somerset, had been complicit in the poisoning of his former friend, the poet Sir Thomas Overbury. Both Sir Robert and Lady Francis would be convicted of the murder, which had been accomplished with rosalger (a compound of arsenic), sublimate of mercury, and white arsenic, and sentenced to death, but they would remain in the Tower of London until January 1621/22 and then be transported to a country house for another four years before achieving the pardon of the monarch. (There was such outrage at this pardon that some would suspect that the king had been himself involved in some way in this murder. The couple would die in poverty in 1632.)

Accomplice? Beneficiary?

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1619

The Virginia colony made cannabis (hemp) cultivation mandatory. In Europe, hemp bounties were being paid. READ ABOUT VIRGINIA

The makers of clay pipes in London sought to associate themselves into a charter body choosing for themselves, as a sign, an image of a Moor holding a pipe and roll of tobacco. Although anything that smacked of the encouragement of smoking made King James I unhappy, he did feel obliged to go along with HDT WHAT? INDEX

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this economic activity of his subjects.

(man smoking clay pipe)

By this point Jamestown had exported 10 tons of tobacco to Europe and had become a boomtown. The export business was going so well the colonists were able to afford two imports which would greatly contribute to their productivity and quality of life. Upon arrival, 20 blacks and 90 “Young maids to make wives for so many of the former Tenants” were paid for in tobacco at so many pounds per person. The Virginia Company dictated they were to be priced at not less than “one hundredth and fiftie [pounds] of the best leafe Tobacco.” The Blacks were bought as indentured servants from a passing Dutch ship, but the young maids had been supplied by a private English company. The price the men paid for the young maids was primarily reimbursement of this company for the cost of their transportation. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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Between this year and 1622 King James I would have two brick-lined “snow pits” dug on his estates at Greenwich just outside London, for the storage of winter coolness for use in “ices” during the summer.

Keeping his cool ... at all times.

JAMES I

COOLNESS HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1620

The London and Plymouth companies, which in 1606 had been granted the territory between latitudes 34° and 45° North under the name “Virginia,” were in this year reorganized and the northern part of their grant, extended to 48º, was granted to a newly formed “Council of New England.” Sir Ferdinando Gorges became treasurer of this newly formed Council. Governor John Mason of Newfoundland and Sir William Alexander were able to persuade King James I that the best way to persuade Scots to emigrate would be to provide them with a “New Scotland” destination comparable to the “New France” and “New England” destinations. King James conveyed this as a royal wish to the newly formed Council of New England and obtained from it the surrender of all its claims to territory north of the Sainte-Croix River. He then instructed his Scottish Privy Council to grant this northern territory to Sir William.

Captain John Mason’s tract A BRIEFE DISCOURSE OF THE NEW-FOUND-LAND WITH THE SITUATION, TEMPERATURE, AND COMMODITIES THEREOF, INCITING OUR NATION TO GO FORWARD IN THE HOPEFULL PLANTATION BEGUNNE. The Privy Council issued a commission and provided a ship with which he might suppress piracy in Newfoundland waters.

Use the sword to poke at the pigeon on your head! HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1621

King James I recognized Sir Fulke Greville as “Baron Brooke” and awarded him Knowle Park and Warwick Castle. It would be said that in restoration of these properties, Baron Brooke would spend more than £20,000. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1622

In London, G. Movrt. (George Morton) issued “MOURT’S RELATION”, or A RELATION OR IOURNALL OF THE BEGINNING AND PROCEEDINGS OF THE ENGLIſH PLANTATION ſETTLED AT PLIMOTH, IN NEW-ENGLAND, BY CERTAINE …, describing the initial experiences of the “Old Comers” at their Massachusetts Bay settlement of Plymouth.8 Especially Part II “A Journey to Packanokik” would provide Henry Thoreau with much insight into early English contact with the New England aboriginals. Thoreau would copy the following materials into his Indian Notebook:

“He laid us on the bed with himself, and his wife, they at the one end, and we at the other, it being only plank laid a foot from the ground, and a thin mat upon them. Two more of his chief men, for want of room, pressed by and upon us; so that we were worse weary of our lodging than of our journey.” At one o’clock next day Massasoit “brought two fishes that he had shot” about thrice as big as a bream. “These being boiled, there were at least forty looked for a share in them. The most ate of them. This meal only we had in two nights & a day; and had not one of us brought a partridge we had taken our journey fasting.” Fearing they should be light headed for want of sleep on account of “the savages’ barbarous singing (for they used to sing themselves asleep,)” that they may get home while they had strength, they departed — than being grieved at their entertainment.

CAMBRIDGE HISTORY OF ENGLISH AND AMERICAN LITERATURE

8. This is available and makes fascinating reading. It has been reprinted by J.K. Wiggin at the press of George C. Rand & Avery in Boston in 1865, and reissued in a facsimile edition by Garrett Press of New York in 1969. The chronology from this volume has been incorporated into our electronic textbase: HDT WHAT? INDEX

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The following materials would appear in WALDEN:

WALDEN: When Winslow, afterward governor of the Plymouth Colony, PEOPLE OF went with a companion on a visit of ceremony to Massasoit on foot WALDEN through the woods, and arrived tired and hungry at his lodge, they were well received by the king, but nothing was said about eating that day. When the night arrived, to quote their own words,– “He laid us on the bed with himself and his wife, they at the one end and we at the other, it being only plank, laid a foot from the ground, and a thin mat upon them. Two more of his chief men, for want of room, pressed by and upon us; so that we were worse weary of our lodging than of our journey.” At one o’clock the next day Massassoit “brought two fishes that he had shot,” about thrice as big as a bream; “these being boiled, there were at least forty looked for a share in them. The most ate of them. This meal only we had in two nights and a day; and had not one of us bought a partridge, we had taken our journey fasting.” Fearing that they would be light-headed for want of food and also sleep, owing to “the savages’ barbarous singing, (for they used to sing themselves asleep,)” and that they might get home while they had strength to travel, they departed. As for lodging, it is true they were but poorly entertained, though what they found an inconvenience was no doubt intended for an honor; but as far as eating was concerned, I do not see how the Indians could have done better. They had nothing to eat themselves, and they were wiser than to think that apologies could supply the place of food to their guests; so they drew their belts tighter and said nothing about it. Another time when Winslow visited them, it being a season of plenty with them, there was no deficiency in this respect.

EDWARD WINSLOW HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1623

March: When Prince of Wales Charles arrived in Madrid in an attempt to obtain a suitable spouse, 20-year-old Protestant Kenelm Digby joined his entourage. When the prince then returned to England without being able to make marriage arrangements, so that Digby could become one of the prince’s gentleman of the privy chamber his father King James I elevated him to the knighthood. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1624

Cardinal Richelieu became first minister in France. An alliance was forged with King James I of England, whereupon the English Parliament voted for war against Spain.

Peace with France! War with Spain!

JAMES I

August: With the support of George Villiers, the Duke, then Marquess, of Buckingham, Edmund Mary Bolton had been advancing a scheme for an English Academy modeled on the Académie française. He had proposed a 3- part structure. The academy would include learned aristocrats as “Auxiliaries,” and the Lord Chancellor and the chancellors of the two universities would serve as “tutelaries,” but the heart of the enterprise was to be the group of “essentials” who would carry on the work of licensing publications that advanced antiquarian and historical study and did not fall under the purview of the Archbishop of Canterbury. King James I seems to have approved of the proposal at Rufford in Nottinghamshire, seat of the Countess Dowager of Shrewsbury, in the course of his final northern progress, but the plan would die with him.

November 30, Tuesday (Old Style): King James I had advised the Privy Council of Scotland that he was prepared to confer the dignity of “knight-baronet” and a baronial portion of the lands of Nova Scotia upon any worthy Scot who could bring along six adult male settlers fully armed, clothed, and provisioned for two years. On this date the royal promise was published. It was held to be good for a year and a day after accepting the honour, at the cost of 2,000 merks and 1,000 merks to Sir William Alexander for resigning his interest in the barony. Not a single person would, however, take him up on this offer. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1625

March 23, Wednesday (1624, Old Style): King James I wrote the Privy Council of Scotland offering baronies for a cash payment of 3,000 merks to Sir William Alexander, who would use the 2,000 merks for furnishing the settlers. Four days later, King James would die without any such baronet having been created or a single colonist forwarded toward New Scotland. King Charles I would, however, continue this project unaltered and for the following five years would struggle to persuade the Scottish nobility and gentry to implement it.

March 27, Sunday (Old Style): King James VI of Scotland, King James I of England died at Theobolds Park in Herts, England at the age of 59.9 The body would be interred at Westminster Abbey and his son Prince of Wales Charles would take over as the new monarch.

9. As an exception among English monarchs, this monarch had produced no bastards — the reason behind such a rarity, however, was not sexual restraint, for his bosom buddy had not been capable of producing children. His son James II would be playing catch- up by producing four (undeniable, or acknowledged) bastards. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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University Public Orator George Herbert made the egregious blunder of delegating to another the duty of delivering the Cambridge funeral oration in regard to this royal death (they would therefore need to replace him as University Public Orator). HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1628

January (1627, Old Style): Because Cambridge University Public Orator George Herbert had delegated to another the important duty of delivering “the funeral oration commemorating the death of King James on March 27, 1625,” he was officially replaced as University Public Orator (such a gaffe simply cannot be forgotten). HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1631

Sir William Alexander had assisted King James I in the preparation of a metrical English version of THE PSALMES OF KING DAVID, which the monarch had hoped would supplant the popular version of Sternhold and Hopkins. In this year King Charles I granted to Sir William a patent for the privilege of printing this volume and of declaring the deceased monarch to have been its author. There is a copy of this in Sion College, printed by William Turner, printer to Oxford University — the title page consists of an engraving, by Marshall, of King David and King James holding up a copy of THE PSALMS OF KING DAVID. Preceding the first page is a print of the Royal Arms by Marshall, and under this appears the imprimatur “Charles R.” It is not known how much of this is the result of the efforts of the monarch, how much the result of the efforts of his assistant. Since the work would not meet with the general approval of the English and Scottish churches, and since it is generally easier to suspect a mere living nobleman than it is to suspect a deceased monarch, this would of course be the outcome.

“MAGISTERIAL HISTORY” IS FANTASIZING: HISTORY IS CHRONOLOGY

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project King James VI of Scotland and I of England HDT WHAT? INDEX

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COPYRIGHT NOTICE: In addition to the property of others, such as extensive quotations and reproductions of images, this “read-only” computer file contains a great deal of special work product of Austin Meredith, copyright 2015. Access to these interim materials will eventually be offered for a fee in order to recoup some of the costs of preparation. My hypercontext button invention which, instead of creating a hypertext leap through hyperspace —resulting in navigation problems— allows for an utter alteration of the context within which one is experiencing a specific content already being viewed, is claimed as proprietary to Austin Meredith — and therefore freely available for use by all. Limited permission to copy such files, or any material from such files, must be obtained in advance in writing from the “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project, 833 Berkeley St., Durham NC 27705. Please contact the project at .

“It’s all now you see. Yesterday won’t be over until tomorrow and tomorrow began ten thousand years ago.” – Remark by character “Garin Stevens” in William Faulkner’s INTRUDER IN THE DUST

Prepared: February 28, 2015 HDT WHAT? INDEX

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ARRGH AUTOMATED RESEARCH REPORT

GENERATION HOTLINE

This stuff presumably looks to you as if it were generated by a human. Such is not the case. Instead, someone has requested that we pull it out of the hat of a pirate who has grown out of the shoulder of our pet parrot “Laura” (as above). What these chronological lists are: they are research reports compiled by ARRGH algorithms out of a database of modules which we term the Kouroo Contexture (this is data mining). To respond to such a request for information we merely push a button. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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Commonly, the first output of the algorithm has obvious deficiencies and we need to go back into the modules stored in the contexture and do a minor amount of tweaking, and then we need to punch that button again and recompile the chronology — but there is nothing here that remotely resembles the ordinary “writerly” process you know and love. As the contents of this originating contexture improve, and as the programming improves, and as funding becomes available (to date no funding whatever has been needed in the creation of this facility, the entire operation being run out of pocket change) we expect a diminished need to do such tweaking and recompiling, and we fully expect to achieve a simulation of a generous and untiring robotic research librarian. Onward and upward in this brave new world.

First come first serve. There is no charge. Place requests with . Arrgh.