thousand pounds. James was growing desperate for money; his coffers were empty, and the officers of the crown were clamorous for their arrears of salary. He therefore sent for them to Whitehall, and a deputation of about thirty members attended. The king demanded of them whether they thought that he was really in want of money, as his treasurer and the chancellor of the exchequer had informed them? "Whereto," says Winwood, "when Sir Francis Bacon had begun to answer in a more extravagant style than his majesty did delight to hear, he picked out Sir Henry Neville, commanding him to answer according to his conscience. Thereupon Sir Henry Neville did directly answer that he thought his majesty was in want. 'Then,' said the king, 'tell me whether it belongeth to you, that are my subjects, to relieve me or not?' 'To this,' quoth Sir Henry, 'I must answer with a distinction: where your majesty's expense groweth by the commonwealth, we are bound to maintain it, otherwise not.'" Sir Henry reminded the king that in this one parliament they had already given four subsidies and seven fifteenths, which was more than any parliament at any time had given, and yet they had no relief of their grievances. James demanded what these grievances were—as though he had not heard them enumerated often enough before—and desired Sir Henry to give him a catalogue of them. He adverted to the difficulties of obtaining justice in courts of law, to the usurped jurisdiction in the marches of Wales, and would have gone through the whole list, had not Sir Herbert Croft interrupted him.
Great Hall at Theobalds, favorite residence of James I.
Finding that nothing was to be drawn from the resolute house, James again prorogued them for nine weeks, in order to try every means of drawing over to him individual members. But these efforts were as abortive as the former: the commons were determined not to part with their money till they had a guarantee for the redress of their grievances, and James about this time lost his two right-hand men, Bancroft and Cecil. Bancroft, indeed, had died in November, to the last stanch in his exhortations to James not to give up the High Court of Commission; assuring him that though the lords had thrown out the bill, the commons would bring it in again, and that nothing but unflinching firmness would defeat them. Cecil died on the 24th of May, 1612. He was grievously chagrined at the failure of his favourite scheme for setting the king above all his difficulties. In default of that, the old expedient of the sale of crown lands was resorted to for the raising of money, and privy seals for loans of money were despatched into different counties. Meantime James was subsisting on a subsidy of six shillings in the pound granted by the clergy, and both king and ministers were in terror, lest the privy seals should be "refused by the desperate hardness of the people." They raised, however, one hundred and eleven thousand pounds.
The end of Cecil has been supposed to have been hastened by these anxieties; but probably he was worn out by the incessant cares which have pulled down other ministers besides him; for in his last moments he said to Sir Walter Cope, "Ease and pleasure quake to hear of death; but my life, full of cares and miseries, desireth to be dissolved." He had sought benefit at Bath, but without effect, and died at Marlborough on his return. Like his father, he had great talents, applied in a cold, treacherous, and ungenerous manner; but compared with the vile and unprincipled debauchees who succeeded him, he might be termed respectable.
