to so low a
state that when his consort died in March of the following year (1619)
there was some probability that her funeral would have to be delayed for
want of money to buy "the blacks."(223) As it was the funeral did not take
place until the 13th May, but this may have been owing to the king himself
having been ill.(224) The mayor, Sebastian Hervey, and the aldermen
received (after some delay) the customary allowance of mourning
cloth,(225) but for some reason or other they were not invited to attend
the funeral.

(M94)

James had recently been worrying the mayor into consenting to a match
between his daughter, a girl barely fourteen years of age, and Christopher
Villiers, son of the Countess of Buckingham. The match was "so much
against the old man's stomach," wrote a contemporary,(226) "as the conceit
thereof hath brought him very near his grave already." He had publicly
declared that he would rather that he and his daughter were both dead than
that he should give his consent. The king pressed matters so far as one
day to send for the mayor, his wife and daughter, from dinner at Merchant
Taylors' Hall, in order to urge upon them the marriage.(227) It was
perhaps owing to the strained relations existing at the time between the
king and the mayor that the civic authorities were not invited to the
funeral of the queen. If that be the case James soon saw that he had made
a mistake, and in order "to please them" caused a memorial service to be
held on Trinity Sunday at Paul's Cross, which was attended by the aldermen
and other officers of the city, but not by Hervey, the mayor, who--"wilful
and dogged" as he may have been--had become seriously ill from the king's
importunity and was unable to be present.(228)

(M95)

In the meantime a revolution had taken place on the continent, the effects
of which were felt in London and the kingdom. In 1618 the Protestant
nobility of Bohemia deposed their king, the Emperor Matthias, and in the
following year they deposed his successor, Ferdinand, after
unceremoniously flinging his deputies out of the window, and offered the
crown to Frederick, the Elector Palatine, who had married James's
daughter, the Princess Elizabeth. The Elector asked his father-in-law's
advice before accepting the proffered crown, but James shilly-shallied so
long that Frederick could wait no longer, and he signified his acceptance
(26 Aug., 1619). James was urged to lend assistance to his son-in-law
aga