to the indignity
of courting their favor, he treasured up, on that account, the stronger
resentment against them, and was determined to make them feel, in
their turn, the weight of his authority. Though he had often met with
resistance, and faction, and obstinacy in the Scottish nobility, he
retained no ill will to that order; or rather showed them favor and
kindness in England, beyond what reason and sound policy could well
justify; but the ascendant which the Presbyterian clergy had assumed
over him, was what his monarchical pride could never thoroughly
digest.[*]

* James ventured to say, in his Basilicon Duron, published
while he was in Scotland, "I protest before the great God,
and since I am here as upon my Testament, it is no place for
me to lie in, that ye shall never find with any highland or
borderer thieves, greater in gratitude, and more lies and
vile perjuries, than with these fanatic spirits: and suffer
not the principal of them to brook your land,"--King James's
Works, p. 161.

He dreaded likewise the popularity which attended this order of men in
both kingdoms. As useless austerities and self-denial are imagined,
in many religions, to render us acceptable to a benevolent Being,
who created us solely for happiness, James remarked, that the rustic
severity of these clergymen, and of their whole sect, had given them,
in the eyes of the multitude, the appearance of sanctity and virtue.
Strongly inclined himself to mirth, and wine, and sports of all
kinds, he apprehended their censure for his manner of life, free and
disengaged. And being thus averse, from temper as well as policy, to the
sect of Puritans, he was resolved, if possible, to prevent its further
growth in England.

But it was the character of James's councils, throughout his whole
reign, that they were more wise and equitable in their end, than prudent
and political in the means. Though justly sensible that no part of
civil administration required greater care or a nicer judgment than the
conduct of religious parties, he had not perceived that, in the same
proportion as this practical knowledge of theology is requisite, the
speculative refinements in it are mean, and even dangerous in a monarch.
By entering zealously into frivolous disputes, James gave them an air of
importance and dignity which they could not otherwise have acquired; and
being himself enlisted in the quarrel, he could no longer have re