Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-7cvxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T06:23:16.843Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Last Years of the First Earl of Salisbury, 1610–1612*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 July 2014

Eric N. Lindquist
Get access

Extract

It is generally assumed that the earl of Salisbury's last years were a time of political decline, largely because of the failure of the Great Contract. “In 1610,” one historian has written recently, “Salisbury lost the confidence of both king and Parliament. The collapse of the Great Contract, in which so much of his credit was bound up, was a blow from which his prestige never recovered.” The outlines of the story are familiar. Salisbury, lord treasurer since 1608 and James's chief minister since the beginning of the reign, was securely established in the king's trust and affection at the beginning of 1610. His fall began with court opposition to the Great Contract, opposition which it has been suggested may have been the real cause of the contract's failure. According to Godfrey Goodman, a “great peer” on his deathbed advised the king

not to lose any part of his prerogative, especially the Court of Wards and other great royalties which his predecessors had, for if he should part with these he should hardly be able to govern; that the subject was more obedient and did observe the King more for these than for any laws or other respect whatsoever; that the subject was bound to relieve him and supply his occasions without any such contractings.

The dying peer blamed those who “did endeavour to engross and monopolise the King, and kept other able men out of his service.” From that point, according to Goodman, Salisbury, “who had been a great stirrer in that business, and was the man aimed at, began to decline.”

Type
Research Article
Information
Albion , Volume 18 , Issue 1 , Spring 1986 , pp. 23 - 41
Copyright
Copyright © North American Conference on British Studies 1986

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

I would like to thank Professor Conrad Russell, David Sacks and Jennifer Laurendeau for their comments on earlier drafts of this article. I am also very grateful to the marquess of Salisbury for permission to quote from documents in his possession. In quoting from manuscript sources I have retained original spelling but have modernized punctuation and capitalization.

References

1 Smith, Alan G.R., “Crown, Parliament and Finance: The Great Contract of 1610,” in The English Commonwealth, 1547-1640, ed. Clark, Peter, Smith, Alan G.R., and Tyacke, Nicholas (Leicester, 1979), p. 125Google Scholar. For similar views, see idem, Servant of the Cecils: The Life of Sir Michael Hickes, 1543-1612 (Totowa, N. J., 1977), pp. 126-28; Willson, David Harris, King James VI & I (Oxford, 1956), pp. 267–70Google Scholar; Prestwich, Menna, Cranfield: Politics and Profits under the Early Stuarts (Oxford, 1966), pp. 44–47Google Scholar; Coakley, Thomas M., “Robert Cecil in Power: Elizabethan Politics in Two Reigns,” in Early Stuart Studies: Essays in Honor of David Harris Willson, ed. Reinmuth, Howard S. (Minneapolis, 1970), p. 93Google Scholar; Seddon, P.R., “Robert Carr, Earl of Somerset,” Renaissance and Modern Studies 14 (1970): 50–52CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hurstfield, Joel, The Queen's Wards: Wardship and Marriage under Elizabeth I, rev. ed. (London, 1973), pp. 320–23Google Scholar; idem, “The Political Morality of Early Stuart Statesmen,” in Freedom, Corruption and Government in Elizabethan England (London, 1973), pp. 187-88, 190, 194; Stone, Lawrence, Family and Fortune: Studies in Aristocratic Finance in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (Oxford, 1973), pp. 25, 50Google Scholar; Peck, Linda Levy, Northampton: Patronage and Policy at the Court of James I (London, 1982), pp. 30, 204Google Scholar. It is fair to point out that Frederick George Marcham suggested that although the king's personal regard for Salisbury lessened, “in default of evidence to the contrary, it may be inferred that he did not withdraw his public favor.” “James I and the ‘Little Beagle’ Letters,” in Persecution and Liberty: Essays in Honor of George Lincoln Burr (New York, 1931), pp. 329–32Google Scholar. Also Algernon Cecil found evidence of Salisbury's “returning ascendancy” before his death. A Life of Robert Cecil, First Earl of Salisbury (London, 1915), pp. 330–31.Google Scholar

2 Goodman, Godfrey, The Court of King James the First, ed. Brewer, J.S., 2 vols. (London, 1839), 1:41.Google Scholar

3 When the king had granted Carr £20,000, Salisbury “having told out five thousand pounds, laid it in a passage gallery in several papers, and invites the King to breakfast, bringing him through that gallery. The King demands whose that money was; answer was made by my Lord Treasurer, that it was but the fourth part of that which his Majesty had given unto Sir Robert Carr: whereupon the King retired from his former grant, and wished Sir Robert Carr to satisfy himself with that, holding it to be a great gift. He being thus crossed in his expectancies, harboured in his heart then a hope of revenge.” The Secret History of the Reign of King James I, in The Autobiography and Correspondence of Sir Simonds D'Ewes, ed. Halliwell, James Orchard, 2 vols. (London, 1845), 2:334–35Google Scholar. There is another version of this story in Osborne, Francis, Historical Memoirs of the Reigns of Elizabeth and King James, in Secret History of the Court of James the First, ed. Scott, Walter, 2 vols. (Edinburgh, 1811), 1:232–33.Google Scholar

4 Seddon, , “Robert Carr,” p. 50.Google Scholar

5 Stone, , Family and Fortune, p. 50.Google Scholar

6 Historical Manuscripts Commission, Buccleuch and Queensberry MSS 1:101–2.Google Scholar

7 The Letters of John Chamberlain, ed. McClure, Norman Egbert, 2 vols. (Philadelphia, 1939), 1:351.Google Scholar

8 Weldon, Anthony, The Court and Character of King James, in Scott, , Secret History, 1:325–26Google Scholar. According to Goodman, Salisbury went to Bath hoping that in his absence the king's displeasure would abate. Court of King James 1:45Google Scholar. For Salisbury's illness and death, see Stone, , Family and Fortune, pp. 50–55Google Scholar; Smith, , Sir Michael Hickes, pp. 146–48Google Scholar; Cecil, , Life of Robert Cecil, pp. 332–45.Google Scholar

9 Chamberlain, , Letters, 1:351.Google Scholar

10 Birch, Thomas, ed., The Court and Times of James I, 2 vols. (London, 1848), 1:335–36.Google Scholar

11 See, e.g., Foster, Elizabeth Read, ed., Proceedings in Parliament, 1610, 2 vols. (New Haven, 1966), 1:xxGoogle Scholar; Prestwich, , Cranfietd, p. 40Google Scholar; Hurstfield, , Queen's Wards, pp. 320–23Google Scholar. The following discussion is abridged from Lindquist, Eric N., “The Failure of the Great Contract,” Journal of Modern History 57 (1985).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

12 Prestwich, , Cranfield, p. 40Google Scholar; Smith, , “Great Contract,” pp. 124-26, 239 n. 74Google ScholarPubMed; Russell, Conrad, “Parliamentary History in Perspective, 1604-1629,” History 61 (1976): 5.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

13 Sawyer, Edmund, ed., Memorials of Affairs of State in the Reigns of Q. Elizabeth and K. James I. Collected (chiefly) from the Original Papers of the Right Honorable Sir Ralph Winwood, 3 vols. (London, 1725), 3:131Google Scholar; HMC, Downshire MSS 2:238, 490Google Scholar; Knafla, Louis A., Law and Politics in Jacobean England: The Tracts of Lord Chancellor Ellesmere (Cambridge, 1977), pp. 88–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

14 Caesar, Professor Hurstfield commented, “was ready indeed when opportunity came to plunge a knife into Salisbury's back.” “Political Morality,” p. 188. The memorandum, dated 17 August, is printed in Gardiner, Samuel Rawson, ed., Parliamentary Debates in 1610, Camden Society (London, 1862), pp. 164–79Google Scholar. For the suggestion that Caesar was not opposing Salisbury, see Hill, L.M., “The Public Career of Sir Julius Caesar, 1584-1614” (Ph.D. diss., University of London, 1968), pp. 390–92.Google Scholar

15 Perhaps the most common complaint against Salisbury was that he monopolized power and prevented the advancement of possible rivals. See Wilson, Thomas, “The State of England, Anno Dom. 1600,” ed. Fisher, F.J., in Camden Miscellany XVI, Camden Society (London, 1936), p. 42Google Scholar; The Works of Francis Bacon, ed. Spedding, James, Ellis, Robert Leslie, and Heath, Douglas Denon, 14 vols. (London, 1857–1874), 13:6–7Google Scholar; HMC, Salisbury MSS 21:261.Google Scholar

16 Kenny, Robert W., Elizabeth's Admiral: The Political Career of Charles Howard, Earl of Nottingham, 1536-1624 (Baltimore, 1970), pp. 204–6Google Scholar. Northampton accused Nottingham of corruption and presided over a commission to investigate naval abuses in 1608, an investigation from which Salisbury apparently tried to shield the lord admiral. British Library, Cotton MSS Titus C VI, fols. 106, 154-55; Goodman, , Court of King James 1:57Google Scholar; Weldon, , Court and Character of King James, pp. 334–35Google Scholar; Kenny, , Nottingham, pp. 301–12Google Scholar; Peck, Linda Levy, “Problems in Jacobean Administration: Was Henry Howard, Earl of Northampton, a Reformer?” Historical Journal 19 (1976): 835-40, 851–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

17 Salisbury appointed Suffolk one of the overseers of his will, saying of him that he “held yt next the favor of my soveraigne the felicitie of my lyef to exchaunge my dearest thoughts with him when ever I had cause to use or trust a friend.” Hatfield MSS, Box V. Their relationship was described in similar terms in a character of Salisbury, possibly by SirWotton, Henry. Smith, Logan Pearsall, The Life and Letters of Sir Henry Wotton, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1907), 2:489.Google Scholar

18 Goodman, , Court of King James, 1:51Google Scholar. The “four lords” constituted an informal committee for managing parliament in 1610, and they had apparently served as an “inner ring” since the beginning of the reign. Public Record Office, SP 14/56/42; 58/26, 30; Marcham, , “‘Little Beagle’ Letters,” p. 327.Google Scholar

19 Peck, , Northampton, pp. 26–30.Google Scholar

20 BL, Cotton MSS Titus C VI, fols. 77v, 123-24. According to Goodman, the king thought Northampton “too strict.” Court of King James 1:289.Google Scholar

21 Peck, , Northampton, pp. 198–205.Google Scholar

22 Foster, , Proceedings 2:310Google Scholar. Over the summer the king had redressed a number of the grievances presented in the Commons' petition, at a cost, he said, of £30,000 per annum. It is extremely unlikely that he would have surrendered such sums unless he hoped that this would help secure the larger revenue promised in the Great Contract. The king actually began to put some of the articles of the contract into effect, appointing commissions to reform fees and penal laws, in accordance with provisions of the Commons' “memorial” of the agreement. Journals of the House of Lords 2:661Google Scholar; BL, Add. MSS 11402, fol. 160; PRO, C 66/1868.

23 Gardiner, , Debates, pp. 144–45.Google Scholar

24 SP 14/58/35.

25 SP 14/58/38.

26 The king had summoned thirty members to a private audience, hoping to convince them of his necessities by a personal appeal. The House reacted to this meeting with suspicion, although its jealousy was directed as much against the members who had attended as against the king. Foster, , Proceedings 2:337-43, 389–92.Google Scholar

27 HMC, Salisbury MSS 21:262–63.Google Scholar

28 Ibid., pp. 263-64.

29 Goodman, , Court of King James 1:176Google Scholar; HMC, Downshire MSS 2:177, 184, 187, 190, 200.Google Scholar

30 HMC, Salisbury MSS 21:268.Google Scholar

31 Ibid., pp. 264-65.

32 Willson, , James VI and I, p. 267Google Scholar; idem, “Summoning and Dissolving Parliament, 1603-1625,” American Historical Review 45 (1939-40): 284; Seddon, , “Robert Carr,” p. 50.Google Scholar

33 HMC, Salisbury MSS 21:266–67.Google Scholar

34 Carter, Charles Howard, The Secret Diplomacy of the Habsburgs, 1598-1625 (New York, 1964), pp. 109–33Google Scholar. Jenny Wormald comments, “It is revealing that those who see James I through the eyes of foreign observers do not find the lamentable creature of the domestic history of the reign.” “James VI and I: Two Kings or One?” History 68 (1983): 189.Google ScholarPubMed

35 HMC, Salisbury MSS 21:268, 320–23.Google Scholar

36 BL, Stowe MSS 171, fol. 358.

37 According to a memorandum of December 1610, the prince's new establishment cost the king an additional £28,000 per annum. HMC, Salisbury MSS 21:270–71Google Scholar. About the same time the total annual ordinary deficit was estimated at £150,900. Hatfield MSS 211/3.

38 The strain under which Salisbury labored at the end of 1610 and its effects on him were demonstrated when he was approached for money for one of the king's ambassadors. Usually eventempered, he “fell into a great passion about the great penury of the Exchequer, and the exceeding difficulty that would be found in the replenishing the same.” Sawyer, , Memorials of Affairs of State 3:235.Google Scholar

39 HMC, Salisbury MSS 21:264.Google Scholar

40 Ibid., pp. 265-66. Salisbury appeared reassured when he next wrote to the king. Ibid., pp. 267-68.

41 “The Journal of Sir Roger Wilbraham,” ed. Scott, Harold Spencer, in Camden Miscellany X, Camden Society, 3d ser., 4 (London, 1902), p. 59Google Scholar. Goodman wrote similarly that “for the instant he was very apt for passion, but after a little deliberation he was as temperate as any man living.” Court of King James 1:13.Google Scholar

42 Wilbraham, , “Journal,” p. 106.Google Scholar

43 At least thirty-five letters from Lake to Salisbury in 1611 survive in SP 14/60-67. Viscount Fenton, Sir Roger Aston and others also wrote to the lord treasurer for the king. See SP 14/65/87; 66/1, 15, 23, 71; 67/43, 44, 98.

44 In March 1612, for example, James told the ambassador that he would have to consult Salisbury about the Venetian republic's request to be accorded the same diplomatic status as monarchies. Calendar of State Papers … Venetian 12:311–12Google Scholar. Salisbury's continued importance as secretary of state was well-illustrated when Francis Cottington, the king's agent in Spain, returned to England in October 1611. Cottington attended Salisbury for two days before attending the king. He then waited on Salisbury again before going to see the queen and the prince and finally his father. HMC, Downshire MSS 3:164Google Scholar. Wilbraham wrote when Salisbury died that “he solie managed all foren affaires, especialli Ireland.” “Journal,” p. 106.

45 Sawyer, , Memorials of Affairs of State 3:338Google Scholar; Chamberlain, , Letters 1:338Google Scholar. CSPVen 12:298, 314, 317, 323, 351.Google Scholar

46 CSPVen 12:332.Google Scholar

47 Chamberlain, , Letters 1:307, 312.Google Scholar

48 Ibid., p. 338.

49 Peck, , Northampton, pp. 131–5Google Scholar. Salisbury in fact died before the farm was formally granted, but although Northampton was able to delay the grant, he was not able to prevent it. Goodman noted that “in his very declining he knew the way so well for the passing of business and suits, and was so punctual and real in his rewards, that no suit went against him.” Court of King James 1:44.Google Scholar

50 SP 14/62/54.

51 Bacon, , Works 11:246Google Scholar. In September 1611 the earl of Dorset also wrote to Salisbury of “that profession of friendship, nay service which I have vowed to youre lordshipp.” SP 14/66/30.

52 HMC, Salisbury MSS 21:270.Google Scholar

53 Chamberlain, , Letters 1:346Google Scholar; HMC, Downshire MSS 3:283.Google Scholar

54 HMC, Salisbury MSS 20:269–70.Google Scholar

55 Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, 1603-1610, p. 599.

56 HMC, Salisbury MSS 21:339–40.Google Scholar

57 See above, n. 6.

58 Neville had been implicated in the Essex conspiracy, suffering imprisonment and loss of office.

59 In 1604 Salisbury had written, “there are so many ways to the wood, especially when his Majesty in his gracious disposition is desirous to deny few. And therefore many things may be obtained both by English and Scottish noblemen and councillors, with which I shall never be acquainted till they come to seal.” HMC, Salisbury MSS 16:420.Google Scholar

60 Goodman knew of “some cases where he himself [Salisbury] hath procured the suit, yet hath had no part of the profit, but hath wished the party to give £500 to John Murray, or some other of the bedchamber whom the King did specifically favour.” Court of King James 1:38Google Scholar. James told Salisbury in 1608 that he “daily” heard good reports of him “by Scottish men.” HMC, Salisbury MSS 20:270.Google Scholar

61 Carr's career perhaps needs re-examining. His influence over the king was far from absolute. Contemporaries commented on his inability to prevent the imprisonment of Sir Thomas Overbury and his failure to obtain office for his clients. HMC, Downshire MSS 4:170Google Scholar; HMC, Mar and Kellie MSS, supplementary, pp. 50, 52Google Scholar; Chamberlain, , Letters 1:401Google Scholar; Smith, , Wotton 2:20, 22Google Scholar. James, it was said, resented the aspersion that he was ruled by Carr. Chamberlain, , Letters 1:443–44.Google Scholar

62 SP 14/67/43, 98.

63 BL, Add. MSS 36767, fol. 319.

64 PRO, C 66/1915. According to William Sanderson, Salisbury's “merits certainly appeared to the king, who not onely not diminished his former preferments, but often added to them even to the day of his death.” Aulicus Coquinariae, in Scott, , Secret History 2:147–48Google Scholar. Sanderson's history of James's reign, which was contemporary with the works of Goodman and Weldon, gives an optimistic account of Salisbury's last years.

65 CSPVen, 12:85, 145, 198.Google Scholar

66 It is sometimes said that the Prince of Wales disliked Salisbury, but there is abundant evidence that they were on good terms. The Venetian ambassador reported in October 1611 that the prince was “almost always” with the lord treasurer. CSPVen 12:227Google Scholar. See also HMC, Salisbury MSS 21:326Google Scholar; SP 14/65/85. For evidence of the queen's regard, see SP 14/65/80. Wilbraham commented that Salisbury “managed all the revenew & gretest affaires of the King, Queen, Prince & Duke of York.” “Journal,” p. 106.

67 Chamberlain, , Letters 1:338Google Scholar; CSPVen 12:298, 305, 314Google Scholar; HMC, Downshire MSS 3:276.Google Scholar

68 Sawyer, , Memorials of Affairs of State 3:338–39.Google Scholar

69 Ibid., p. 368. Chamberlain reported that the diamond was worth £400. Letters 1:350Google ScholarPubMed. Hay and Sir John Holies, who had been sent by the prince, accompanied Salisbury on at least part of his last journey from Bath. Bowles, John, “A plaine & true relation of those thinges I observed in my lords sicknes, since his goeing to the Bath,” in Desiderata Curiosa; or, A Collection of Divers Scarce and Curious Pieces Relating Chiefly to Matters of English History, ed. Peck, Francis (London, 1779), p. 210.Google Scholar

70 CSPVen 12:372Google Scholar; Sanderson, , Aulicus Coquinariae, p. 157Google Scholar. According to Sanderson, the king, having seen Salisbury before he left for Bath, “with tears at his parting, protested to the lords attending, his great losse of the wisest councelour and best servant that any prince in Christendome could paralel.” Ibid., p. 156.

71 Competition for the spoils, especially the secretaryship, began even before Salisbury's death. Dudley Carleton to John Chamberlain, 1603-1624: Jacobean Letters, ed. Lee, Maurice Jr. (New Brunswick, New Jersey, 1972), p. 125Google Scholar; Chamberlain, , Letters 1:336Google Scholar; HMC, Downshire MSS 3:266.Google Scholar

72 In July 1612 it was reported that Salisbury's followers were “soe fearfull” of the prospect of Northampton's appointment as lord treasurer that they did all they could to prevent it. HMC, Mar and Kellie, supolementary, p. 42.Google ScholarPubMed

73 CSPVen 12:356Google Scholar. Salisbury left behind two of his secretaries “to receve packetts and to carrie them to the Lord Chamberlain [Suffolk] and the earle of Pembroke.” Chamberlain, , Letters 1:346Google Scholar. Pembroke was another close friend of Salisbury—one of the few men, according to Northampton, who mourned his death. SP 14/69/56.

74 Chamberlain, , Letters 1:351.Google Scholar

75 For reports of the likelihood of Northampton's appointment as lord treasurer, see Chamberlain, , Letters 1:352, 493Google Scholar; HMC, Buccleuch and Queensberry MSS 1:112Google Scholar; Birch, , Court and Times 1:248Google Scholar; HMC, Downshire MSS 3:305-6, 374, 414.Google Scholar

76 Sawyer, , Memorials of Affairs of State, 3:338Google Scholar; Sanderson, , Aulicus Coquinariae, p. 160Google Scholar; Secret History, in D'Ewes, , Autobiography 2:327Google Scholar. See also Chamberlain, , Letters 1:358.Google Scholar

77 Goodman said that the king would not appoint Northampton lord treasurer because of opposition from Scots. Court of King James 1:289.Google Scholar

78 Smith, , Wotton 2:40Google Scholar. See also Weldon, , Court and Character of King James, pp. 327–28.Google Scholar

79 D'Ewes, , Autobiography 1:50.Google Scholar

80 Cope, , “An Apology for the Late Lord Treasurer Sir Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury,” in Collecteana Curiosa; or. Miscellaneous Tracts relating to the History and Antiquities of England and Ireland, ed. Gutch, John, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1781), 1:119Google Scholar. The earl of Dorset commented similarly, “When great men dy, such is either there defecte or the malice of people or both together as commonly they are ill spoke of, and so is one that died but lately, more I think then ever any one was and in more severall kindes, and his death hath wiped away the memory of others' misdeeds, and as it were extinguished their faultes, his being if not greater yet fresher in every man's mouth and memorie.” BL, Stowe MSS 172, fol. 319.

81 Chamberlain, , Letters 1:362.Google Scholar

82 See Peck, Northampton, pp. 131-35. For Northampton's attacks on Salisbury in letters to Rochester, see SP 14/69/56; 70/21, 29, 54, 55; 71/16.

83 Chamberlain, , Letters 1:397Google Scholar. Bacon blamed Salisbury for a number of things, including James's difficulties with his first parliament. See Bacon, , Works 11:279-80, 311-14, 365–71Google Scholar; 12:178-79.

84 A few voices were raised in Salisbury's defense. Cope's “Apology” was circulated in manuscript. Johnson, Richard published A Remembrance of the Honors Due to the Life and Death of Robert Earle of Salisbury, Lord Treasurer of England (London, 1612)Google Scholar. According to Goodman, the king himself provided Salisbury's chaplain with a “testimony” for his funeral sermon. “The King wrote and did acknowledge that for some six years before the Queen died he held correspondence with him, and that he found him a very wise, able, faithful servant, with something else in his commendation.” Court of King James 1:30–31.Google Scholar

85 Sometime after Salisbury's death one anonymous writer counselled Rochester, “there is now a fit opportunitie to transferre the blame of all that hath bin in any kind distastfull since his Majestie's raigne upon him that is dead.” BL, Cotton MSS Titus F IV, fol. 349. Bacon gave the king similar advice, suggesting that “the Earls of Salisbury and Dunbarre have taken a great deal of envy from you and carried it into the other world, and left unto your Majesty a just diversion of many discontents.” Bacon, , Works 11:370Google Scholar. Dunbar, lord treasurer of Scotland and an ally of Salisbury, had died in January 1611.

86 Goodman, , Court of King James 1:45.Google Scholar

87 HMC, Downshire MSS 3:398.Google Scholar

88 See above, nn. 7, 8.

89 See Carter, , Secret Diplomacy, pp. 110–11Google Scholar; Wormald, , “James VI and I,” pp. 190–92.Google Scholar

90 See above, n. 2.

91 Bacon, , Works 12:184.Google Scholar

92 I owe this point to discussion with David Sacks.

93 Peck, Northampton, and other works cited therein.

94 Stone, , Family and Fortune, pp. 55–58Google Scholar; Hurstfield, , Queen's Wards, pp. 297–325Google Scholar; idem, “Political Morality”; Prestwich, , Cranfield, pp. 17–48.Google Scholar

95 Schwarz, Marc, “James I and the Historians: Toward a Reconsideration,” Journal of British Studies 13 (1974): 114–34CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Lee, Maurice Jr., “James I and the Historians: Not a Bad King After All?” Albion 16 (1984): 151–63CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Jenny Wormald, “James VI and I.”