One of the peculiarities of the reign of James was, the ascendency which favorites obtained over him, so often the mark of a weak and vacillating mind. Henry VIII. and Elizabeth had their favorites; but they were ministers of the royal will. Moreover, they, like Wolsey, Cromwell, Burleigh, and Essex, were great men, and worthy of the trust reposed in them. But James, with all his kingcraft and statecraft, with all his ostentation and boasts of knowledge and of sagacity, reposed his confidence in such a man as Villiers, Duke of Buckingham. It is true he also had great men to serve him; Cecil was his secretary, Bacon was his chancellor, and Coke was his chief justice. But Carr and Villiers rose above them all in dignity and honor, and were the companions and confidential agents of their royal master. [Sidenote: Greatness and Fall of Somerset.] Robert Carr was a Scottish gentleman, poor and cunning, who had early been taught that personal beauty, gay dress, and lively manners, would make his fortune at court. He first attracted the attention of the king at a tilting match, at which he was the esquire to Lord Dingwall. In presenting his lord's shield to the king, his horse fell and threw him at James's feet. His leg was broken, but his fortune was made. James, struck with his beauty and youth, and moved by the accident, sent his own surgeon to him, visited him himself, and even taught him Latin, seeing that the scholastic part of his education had been neglected. Indeed, James would have made a much better schoolmaster than king; and his pedantry and conceit were beyond all bounds, so that Bacon styled him, either in irony or sycophancy, "the Solomon of the age." Carr now became the pet of the learned monarch. He was knighted, rich presents were bestowed on him, all bowed down to him as they would have done to a royal mistress; and Cecil and Suffolk vied with each other in their attempts to secure the favor of his friends. He gradually eclipsed every great noble at court, was created Viscount Rochester, received the Order of the Garter, and, when Cecil, then Earl of Salisbury, died, received the post of the Earl of Suffolk as lord chamberlain, he taking Cecil's place as treasurer. Rochester, in effect, became prime minister, as Cecil had been. He was then created Earl of Somerset, in order that he might marry the Countess of Essex, the most beautiful and fascinating woman at the English court. She was daughter of the Earl of Suffolk, and granddaughter of the old Duke of Norfolk, executed in 1572, and, consequently, belonged to the first family in the realm. She was married to Essex at the age of thirteen, but treated him with contempt and coldness, being already enamored of the handsome favorite. That she might marry Carr she obtained a divorce from her husband on the most frivolous grounds, and through the favor of the king, who would do any thing for the man he delighted to honor. She succeeded in obtaining her end, and caused the ruin of