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Home King James I and Domestic Affairs Plots against the King |
Plots against the KingWe must turn now to the internal history of England under the first two Stuarts. Despite the fact that before Elizabeth's death there were other possible successors, James was fortunate in that his accession to the throne met with almost universal approval. There were, however, three unsuccessful plots against him. The first was rather an absurd plot, known as the Bye Plot, the object of which was to kidnap the king at Greenwich and to capture the Tower of London; it was designed by one Roman Catholic and betrayed to the Government by another. The evidence given by one of the conspirators led the Government to suspect the existence of the second plot, known as the Main Plot, the alleged object of which was to put, with Spanish aid, the Lady Arabella Stuart on the throne (The Lady Arabella was, like James, descended from Margaret, the eider daughter of Henry VII; but, unlike James, she had been born in England, a fact which, in the eyes of some lawyers, gave her a better title to the throne). The details are, however, obscure and uncertain, and it is very doubtful whether there was ever such a plot at all (1603).The chief interest of the Main Plot lies x in the fact that Sir Walter Ralegh (Ralegh's name has been spelt in seventy different ways. He himself signed his name variously in the course of his life, but he never signed it in the way it is often spelt now, i.e. Raleigh), the soldier and seaman, the prose writer and poet, the explorer and courtier of Elizabeth's day, was accused of being implicated in it. Ralegh, after a most unfair trial, was condemned to death for treason. But he was reprieved, and imprisoned in the Tower. He employed his time in writing a History of the World and in making chemical experiments (Amongst other things he compounded drugs, and his "great cordial or elixir" had a wonderful reputation). Thirteen years later, in 1616, he obtained his freedom in order to find a gold mine on the Orinoco River, of which he had heard on one of his journeys. But his expedition was disastrous. He had a bad crew, he lost his best officers by disease, and he was unable, owing to sickness, to go up the river himself. Worst luck of all, since his last journey a Spanish town on the river had been moved from a position above the mine to one below it. Consequently Ralegh's men had to pass the town on their way to the mine. The Spaniards attacked them, or they attacked the Spaniards — one or other was inevitable — and Spanish blood was shed. On Ralegh's return the Spanish ambassador clamoured for his punishment. James I was at that time engaged in the marriage negotiations of Charles and the Infanta. He yielded, therefore, and executed Ralegh on the old charge of treason, and in so doing was guilty of an act for which posterity has never forgiven him (1618) (Ralegh was warned, it is only fair to James to say, that any hostilities against the Spaniards would cost him his life ; and in his over eagerness to get free from the Tower Ralegh asserted that the mine was neither in nor near the King of Spain's territories, a stetement which he must have known to be untrue). Part 2 |
Chronology |
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