The keynote of Elizabeth's foreign policy had been hostility to Spain,
that Catholic stronghold, and an unwavering adherence to Protestant
Europe. James saw in that great and despotic government the most
suitable friend for such a great King as himself. He proposed a
marriage between his son Charles and the Infanta, daughter of the King
of Spain, making abject promises of legislation in his Kingdom
favorable to the Catholics; and when an indignant House of Commons
protested against the marriage, they were insolently reprimanded for
meddling with things which did not concern them, and were sent home,
not to be recalled again until the King's necessities for money
compelled him to summon them.

[Sidenote: Francis Bacon.]

During the early part of his reign the people seem to have been
paralyzed and speechless before his audacious pretensions. Great
courtiers were fawning at his feet listening to his pedantic wisdom,
and humoring his theory of the "Divine right" of hereditary Kingship.
And alas!--that we have to say it--Francis Bacon (his Chancellor),
with intellect towering above his century,--was his obsequious servant
and tool, uttering not one protest as one after another the liberties
of the people were trampled upon!

But this Spanish marriage had aroused a spirit before which a wiser man
than James would have trembled. He was standing midway between two
scaffolds, that of his mother (1587), and his son (1649). Every blow he
struck at the liberties of England cut deep into the foundation of his
throne. And when he violated the law of the land by the imposition of
taxes, without the sanction of his Parliament, he had "sowed the wind"
and the "whirlwind," which was to break on his son's head was