JAMES VI

JAMES VI. king of Scotland in 1567, and of England in 1603, was son of Mary queen of Scots; whom he succeeded in Scotland, as he did Elizabeth in England. Strongly attached to the Protestant religion, he signified himself in its support; which gave rise to the horrid conspiracy of the Papists to destroy him and all the English nobility by the Gunpowder Plot, discovered November 5. 1605. The following year, a political test of loyalty was required, which secured the king's person, by clearing the kingdom of those disaffected Roman Catholic subjects who would not submit to it. The chief glory of this king's reign consisted in the establishment of new colonies, and the introduction of some manufactures. The nation enjoyed peace, and commerce flourished during his reign. Yet his administration was despised both at home and abroad: for, being the head of the Protestant cause in Europe, he did not support it in that great crisis, the war of Bohemia; abandoning his son-in-law the elector Palatine; negotiating when he should have fought; deceived at the same time by the courts of Vienna and Madrid; continually sending illustrious ambassadors to foreign powers, but never making a single ally. He valued himself much upon his polemical writings; and so fond was he of theological disputations, that to keep them alive, he founded, for this express purpose, Chelsea-college; which was converted to a much better use by Charles II. His Basilicon Doron, Commentary on the Revelation, writings against Bellarmine, and his Dæmonologia, or doctrine of witchcraft, are sufficiently known. There is a collection of his writings and speeches in one folio volume. Several other pieces of his are extant; some of them in the Cabala, others in manuscript in the British Museum, and

and others in Howard's collection. He died in 1625, in the 59th year of his age, and 23d of his reign.