One of the chief causes of the civil war is traced to the revival of this “Book of Sports.”  Thus it happened that from the circumstance of our good-tempered monarch discovering the populace in Lancashire discontented, being debarred from their rustic sports—­and, exhorting them, out of his bonhomie and “fatherly love, which he owed to them all” (as he said), to recover their cheerful habits—­he was innocently involving the country in divinity, and in civil war.  James I. would have started with horror at the “Book of Sports,” could he have presciently contemplated the archbishop, and the sovereign who persisted to revive it, dragged to the block.  What invisible threads suspend together the most remote events!

The parliament’s armies usually chose Sundays for their battles, that the profanation of the day might be expiated by a field-sacrifice, and that the Sabbath-breakers should receive a signal punishment.  The opinions of the nature of the Sabbath were, even in the succeeding reign, so opposite and novel, that plays were performed before Charles on Sundays.  James I., who knew nothing of such opinions, has been unjustly aspersed by those who live in more settled times, when such matters have been more wisely established than ever they were discussed.[A]

[Footnote A:  It is remarkable of James I. that he never pressed for the performance of any of his proclamations; and his facile disposition made him more tolerant than appears in our history.  At this very time, the conduct of a lord mayor of London has been preserved by Wilson, as a proof of the city magistrate’s piety, and, it may be added, of his wisdom.  It is here adduced as an evidence of the king’s usual conduct:—­

The king’s carriages, removing to Theobalds on the Sabbath, occasioned a great clatter and noise in the time of divine service.  The lord-mayor commanded them to be stopped, and the officers of the carriages, returning to the king, made violent complaints.  The king, in a rage, swore he thought there had been no more kings in England than himself; and sent a warrant to the lord-mayor to let them pass, which he obeyed, observing—­ “While it was in my power, I did my duty; but that being taken away by a higher power, it is my duty to obey.”  The good sense of the lord-mayor so highly gratified James, that the king complimented him, and thanked him for it.  Of such gentleness was the arbitrary power of James composed!]

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MOTIVES OF THE KING’S AVERSION TO WAR.

The king’s aversion to war has been attributed to his pusillanimity—­as if personal was the same thing as political courage, and as if a king placed himself in a field of battle by a proclamation for war.  The idle tale that James trembled at the mere view of a naked sword, which is produced as an instance of the effects of sympathy over the infant in the womb from his mother’s terror at the assassination of Rizzio, is probably not true, yet