Thomas James

“ James justly regarded these renegades as the most serviceable tools that he could employ. It was not from the stouthearted Cavaliers, who had been true to him in his adversity, that he could expect abject and unscrupulous obedience in his prosperity. The men who, impelled, not by zeal for liberty or for religion, but merely by selfish cupidity and selfish fear, had assisted to oppress him when he was weak, were the very men who, impelled by the same cupidity and the same fear, would assist him to oppress his people now that he was strong. ”

“ Happily for England, James was, as usual, his own worst enemy. No word indicating that he took blame to himself on account of the past, or that he intended to govern constitutionally for the future, could be extracted from him. Every letter, every rumour, that found its way from Saint Germains to England made men of sense fear that, if, in his present temper, he should be restored to power, the second tyranny would be worse than the first. Thus the Tories, as a body, were forced to admit, very unwillingly, that there was, at that moment, no choice but between William and public ruin. ”

“ The querulous tone in which James spoke, indicated a mood ready to receive evil impressions of any one; and as Maxwell was not particularly well-inclined, any more than other courtiers, to make favourable reports of his rivals in the King's power, he seized the opportunity to damage the reputation of one who was rising too high over the heads of the minor aspirants to escape jealousy.
"Oh, your Majesty has not a more faithful servant, I am sure, than Sir Thomas Overbury," he said; "he is only a little dull in believing that others will rebel against your will, or thwart your sagacious views. ”

“ When, for instance, in 1582 he was seized by the faction of nobles who carried out the so-called raid of Ruthven, which was in fact a kidnapping enterprise carried out in the interest of the Protestant party, he cried like a child. One of the conspirators, the master of Glamis, Sir Thomas Lyon, told him that it was better “bairns should greet [children should cry] than bearded men.” It was not indeed till 1583, when he broke away from his captors, that James began to govern in reality.
For the history of his reign reference may be made to the articles on the histories of England and Scotland. ”

“ James owned modestly that he had been a whole year saving up the money by single half-pence, all of which had been of the minister's own giving, and that in all that time he had not spent a single farthing on his own diversions. "My dear boy," said the good Mr. Thomas, "I am much mistaken if thou dost not turn out well in the world, for two reasons:—first, from thy saving turn and self-denying temper; and next, because thou didst devote the first eighteen-pence thou wast ever worth in the world to so good a purpose." ”

“ The events which took place in the autumn of 1689 sufficiently proved that the ill fated race, which enemies and allies generally agreed in regarding with unjust contempt, had, together with the faults inseparable from poverty, ignorance, and superstition, some fine qualities which have not always been found in more prosperous and more enlightened communities. The evil tidings which terrified and bewildered James stirred the whole population of the southern provinces like the peal of a trumpet sounding to battle. ”

“ James was unfeigned modesty and diffidence. His conversation, his intercourse with his friends, with professional brethren, and even with students of medicine, his whole deportment indicated, that he did not rest upon his own sentiments with that implicit confidence which would induce him to promulgate his opinions, or to insist on their correctness or importance. He paid great deference to the opinions of others, and would hence submit to the guidance of those of an opposite temperament, really believing they must be better informed than himself. ”

“ They had each been the subjects of the Holy Spirit's striving for some time, and were fully awakened to their danger and duty. While walking through one of the shady lanes situated between their home and the chapel, and conversing on the subject of religion, and the necessity of devoting themselves to God, Thomas said, if James would join the society he would. No immediate result followed; but about a fortnight before Thomas's connection with the Church, James had joined the Wesleyans, and had written to his father informing him of Thomas's promise. ”

“ Thomas is preparing himself to be one of this class. You cannot, boys, expect to raise a good crop from evil seed.
By Thomas's side works another boy, whom we will call James,—a lad of only ordinary capacity, very likely. If Thomas and all the other boys did their best, there would be but small chance for James ever to become eminent. But he has something better than talent: he brings good will to his work. Whatever he learns, he learns so well that it becomes a part of himself. ”

“ Besides Thomas and Allan, the other members of the family afforded evidence of talent. James, the eldest son, with a limited education, was intimately familiar with general literature, and occasionally contributed to the periodicals. He began his career as a stone-mason, and by his ability and perseverance rose to the respectable position of a master builder. He died at Dalswinton, near Dumfries, on the 27th July 1832. John, the third brother, who died in early life, evinced a turn for mechanism, and wrote respectable verses. ”

“ The rage of James flamed high. He had always been more than sufficiently prone to the angry passions. But none of his enemies, not even those who had conspired against his life, not even those who had attempted by perjury to load him with the guilt of treason and assassination, had ever been regarded by him with such animosity as he now felt for Burnet. His Majesty railed daily at the Doctor in unkingly language, and meditated plans of unlawful revenge. Even blood would not slake that frantic hatred. The insolent divine must be tortured before he was permitted to die. ”

“ James seems to have thought that the strongest proof of kindness which he could give to heretics who had resigned wealth, country, family, for his sake, was to suffer them to be beset, on their dying beds, by his priests. If some sick man, helpless in body and in mind, and deafened by the din of bad logic and bad rhetoric, suffered a wafer to be thrust into his mouth, a great work of grace was triumphantly announced to the Court; and the neophyte was buried with all the pomp of religion. ”

“ Unhappily James, instead of becoming a mediator became the fiercest and most reckless of partisans. Instead of allaying the animosity of the two populations, he inflamed it to a height before unknown. He determined to reverse their relative position, and to put the Protestant colonists under the feet of the Popish Celts. To be of the established religion, to be of the English blood, was, in his view, a disqualification for civil and military employment. ”

“ James had, some time before, commanded the trustees of the Charterhouse, men of the first rank and consideration in the kingdom, to admit a Roman Catholic named Popham into the hospital which was under their care. The Master of the house, Thomas Burnet, a clergyman of distinguished genius, learning, and virtue, had the courage to represent to them, though the ferocious Jeffreys sate at the board, that what was required of them was contrary both to the will of the founder and to an Act of Parliament. ”

“ In 1608, in the great case of the Post Nati, he decided, with the assistance of the fourteen judges, that those born after the accession of James I. to the throne of England were English subjects and capable of holding lands in England; and he compared the two dissentient judges to the apostle Thomas, whose doubts only confirmed the faith of the rest. He did not, however, always show obedience to the king’s wishes. He opposed the latter’s Spanish policy, and in July 1615, in spite of James’s most peremptory commands and threats, refused to put the great seal to the pardon of Somerset. ”

“ How obstinately James was determined to bestow on the members of his own Church a share of patronage altogether out of proportion to their numbers and importance is proved by the instructions which, in exile and old age, he drew up for the guidance of his son. It is impossible to read without mingled pity and derision those effusions of a mind on which all the discipline of experience and adversity had been exhausted in vain. ”

“ James wa born in Philadelphia, Aug. 31st, 1766, and was the youngest son. He was well educated after the manner of Friends, especially at their school, under the superintendence of Robert Proud, the historian of Pennsylvania. No doubt can exist, that his love of literature and of books in general, must have been at this period manifested, as his proficiency was early evinced, and a superiority over his cotemporaries in this respect existed, which could not otherwise be explained. ”

“ Thomas Nash, of the Inner Temple, addressed him as ‘my fellow templar,’ but there is no other proof of James's connection with the law (ib. pref.) He was very probably a companion of Button in his voyage into Hudson's Bay in 1612 [see Button, Sir Thomas] ; but the first certain mention of him is on 16 July 1628, when he was granted letters of marque for the Dragon of Bristol, of which he was owner and captain (Cal. State Papers, Dom.) . ”

“ Thus, at the very moment at which a republican spirit began to manifest itself strongly in the Parliament and in the country, the claims of the monarch took a monstrous form which would have disgusted the proudest and most arbitrary of those who had preceded him on the throne.
James was always boasting of his skill in what he called kingcraft; and yet it is hardly possible even to imagine a course more directly opposed to all the rules of kingcraft, than that which he followed. The policy of wise rulers has always been to disguise strong acts under popular forms. ”

“ The Estates of England had brought two charges against James, his misgovernment and his flight, and had, by using the soft word "Abdication," evaded, with some sacrifice of verbal precision, the question whether subjects may lawfully depose a bad prince. That question the Estates of Scotland could not evade. They could not pretend that James had deserted his post. For he had never, since he came to the throne, resided in Scotland. ”

“ Thus blessed in his domestic relations, in his social circle, and in the confidence of the public as a practitioner and teacher of medicine, the moderate expectations of Dr. James were abundantly gratified; he had all that this world could bestow to render life happy and useful. He, however, felt and acknowledged that more was requisite to satisfy the wants of man, and he early found that religion alone can give zest to temporal enjoyments, and dissipate the dread of a future state of existence so natural to the human soul. ”

“ Earl James was poisoned at a supper in Ely House in 1546, and Thomas the Black Earl, his son and heir, was brought up at the English court, professing the reformed religion. His sympathies were with the Irish, although he stood staunchly for law and order, and for the great part of his life he was wrestling with rebellion. ”

“ The dismission of the two brothers is a great epoch in the reign of James. From that time it was clear that what he really wanted was not liberty of conscience for the members of his own church, but liberty to persecute the members of other churches. Pretending to abhor tests, he had himself imposed a test. He thought it hard, he thought it monstrous, that able and loyal men should be excluded from the public service solely for being Roman Catholics. Yet he had himself turned out of office a Treasurer, whom he admitted to be both loyal and able, solely for being a Protestant. ”

“ We conceive that so noble and salutary an object would have justified resistance on the part of subjects. We can therefore scarcely deny that it would at least excuse encroachment on the part of a king. But it can be proved, we think, by the strongest evidence, that James had no such object in view; and that, under the pretence of establishing perfect religious liberty, he was trying to establish the ascendency and the exclusive dominion of the Church of Rome.
It is true that he professed himself a supporter of toleration. Every sect clamours for toleration when it is down. ”

“ Nature and education had done their best to produce a finished specimen of all that a king ought not to be. His awkward figure, his rolling eye, his rickety walk, his nervous tremblings, his slobbering mouth, his broad Scotch accent, were imperfections which might have been found in the best and greatest man. Their effect, however, was to make James and his office objects of contempt, and to dissolve those associations which had been created by the noble bearing of preceding monarchs, and which were in themselves no inconsiderable fence to royalty. ”

“ By such reasoning James was easily lulled into stupid security. 468 The alarm and indignation of Lewis increased daily. The style of his letters became sharp and vehement. 469 He could not understand, he wrote, this lethargy on the eve of a terrible crisis. Was the King bewitched? Were his ministers blind? Was it possible that nobody at Whitehall was aware of what was passing in England and on the Continent? Such foolhardy security could scarcely be the effect of mere improvidence. There must be foul play. James was evidently in bad hands. ”

“ But in the time of James reason and vulgar prejudice were on the same side. The fanatical and ignorant wished to exclude the Roman Catholic from office because he worshipped stocks and stones, because he had the mark of the Beast, because he had burned down London, because he had strangled Sir Edmondsbury Godfrey; and the most judicious and tolerant statesman, while smiling at the delusions which imposed on the populace, was led, by a very different road, to the same conclusion. ”