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It is said Lord-keeper Guildford had prepared a different speech for his majesty, but that this was preferred, as being the king's own words; and, indeed, that part of it in which he says that he must answer once for all that the Commons giving such proportions as they might think convenient would be a very improper way with him, bears, as well as some others, the most evident marks of its royal origin.
But the more easy and open nature of James I. endured greater hardships: with the habit of studious men, the king had an utter carelessness of money and a generosity of temper, which Hacket, in his Life of the Lord-Keeper Williams, has described. "The king was wont to give like a king, and for the most part to keep one act of liberality warm with the covering of another."
That the state-papers were usually composed by himself, a passage in the Life of the Lord-keeper Williams testifies; and when Sir Edward Conway, who had been bred a soldier, and was even illiterate, became a viscount, and a royal secretary, by the appointment of Buckingham, the king, who in fact wanted no secretary, would often be merry over his imperfect scrawls in writing, and his hacking of sentences in reading, often breaking out in laughter, exclaiming, "Stenny has provided me with a secretary who can neither write nor read, and a groom of my bedchamber who cannot truss my points," this latter person having but one hand!
Henley, now lord-keeper, Dr. Lee, and some others, the most sensible and moderate members of the house; but they were opposed with great violence by lord viscount Corke, Henry Fox, esquire, sir William Young, colonel Lyttelton, and the weight of the ministry; so that the motion for the order of the day was carried in the negative, and the high-bailiff required to answer the question.
These forms of expression are amusing to posterity, who consider how obscure Whitlocke himself though lord-keeper and ambassador, and indeed a man of great abilities and merit, has become in comparison of Milton. It is not strange that Milton received no encouragement after the restoration: it is more to be admired that he escaped with his life.
The Discourse on Trade by Roger North, the author of the amusing Lives of Lord-Keeper Guildford and his other two brothers, was lately reprinted from a copy in the British Museum, supposed to be the only one existing. Though neglected in its own day, it has been considered worthy of attention in this, as promulgating some of the principles of our existing philosophy of trade.
From the superscription to one of them, written in 1621 to the Lord-Keeper Williams, and preserved among the Harleian MSS., we give in fac-simile the following words: We select these words only because they happen to contain six of the letters most characteristic of the antique chancery hand of the seventeenth century, t, h, e, r, g, and b, within a space suited to the columns for which we write.
The sudden wealth which seems to have rushed into the nation in this reign of peace, appeared in massy plate and jewels, and in "prodigal marriage-portions, which were grown in fashion among the nobility and gentry, as if the skies had rained plenty." Such are the words of Hacket, in his "Memorial of the Lord-Keeper Williams." Enormous wealth was often accumulated.
The lord-keeper delivered to the house a message from the queen, desiring they would adjourn to the fourteenth day of the month. The anti-courtiers alleged, that the queen could not send a message to any one house to adjourn, but ought to have directed it to both houses. This objection produced a debate, which was terminated in favour of the court by the weight of the twelve new peers.
It was short, but its brevity was compensated by its piety, and after an exposition of the eighty-fifth psalm, he referred his two houses for other particulars to Fiennes, the lord-keeper, who, in a long and tedious harangue, praised and defended the new institutions. After the departure of the Commons, the Lords spent their time in inquiries into the privileges of their house.
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