In reviewing the acts of this reign we see a foolish Sovereign ruled by an intriguing adventurer whom he created Duke of Buckingham. We see him foiled in his attempt to link the fate of England with that of Catholic Europe;--sacrificing Sir Walter Raleigh because he had given offense to Spain, the country whose friendship he most desired. We see numberless acts of folly, and but three which we can commend. James did authorize and promote the translation of the Bible which has been in use until to-day. He named his double Kingdom of England and Scotland "Great Britain." {102} These two acts, together with his death in 1625, meet with our entire approval. Charles I., son of James, was at least one thing which his father was not. He was a gentleman. Had it not been his misfortune to inherit a crown, his scholarly refinements and exquisite tastes, his irreproachable morals, and his rectitude in the personal relations of life, might have won him only esteem and honor. But these qualities belonged to Charles Stuart the gentleman. Charles the King was imperious, false, obstinate, blind to the conditions of his time, and ignorant of the nature of his people. Every step taken during his reign led him nearer to its fatal consummation. No family in Europe ever grasped at power more unscrupulously than the Guises in France. They were cruel and remorseless in its pursuit. It was the warm southern blood of her mother which was Mary Stuart's ruin. She was a Guise,--and so was her son James I.--and so was Charles I., her grandson. There was despotism and tyranny in their blood. Their very natures made it impossible that they should {103} comprehend the Anglo-Saxon ideal of civil liberty. Who can tell what might have been the course of History, if England had been ruled by English Kings, which it has not been since the Conquest. With every royal marriage there is a fresh infusion of foreign blood drawn from fountains not always the purest,--until after centuries of such dilutions, the royal line has less of the Anglo-Saxon in it than any ancestral line in the Kingdom. The odious Spanish marriage had been abandoned and Charles had married Henrietta, sister of Louis XIII. of France.