King James left Edinburgh on the 5th of April with a royal escort for London, and by easy stage from town to town and castle to castle, made a triumphal march to London, where he arrived on the 7th of May, 1603, putting up at the Whitehall Palace. The lords of the realm and millions of faithful subjects gave James their loyal adhesion and support, lauding him to the skies as monarch of the realm and defender of the Faith. Hope had no thorns in her crown. Protestants and Catholics alike, on their first rush of spontaneous patriotism, made a bid for the patronage of the new king, who, although reared a Protestant, was known to have sympathy for certain Catholic lords, who tried to save his mother--Mary, Queen of Scots, from the fatal block. James never forgave Elizabeth for the murder of his mother, and in his inmost heart despised his predecessor. King James after his coronation and triumphal entry into London on the 15th of March, 1604, ordered a partial jail delivery, releasing hundreds of prisoners in Scotland, Ireland and England, exempting only highway and house robbers, murderers, and those who had committed overt acts of treason against the crown. Many political prisoners had been immured in the Tower and other state prisons on trivial or trumped up charges, preferred by jealous courtiers on personal or religious grounds. James was very friendly to the dramatic profession, and granted a charter to the Shakspere Company to play at the Blackfriars, Globe, Prince, Fortune and Curtain theatres. In the coronation procession nine of the "Kings Company" appeared dressed out in fantastic array, wearing four yards and a half each of silk-scarlet cloth. The nine chief actors thus honored by the King were William Shakspere, Augustine Phillips, Laurence Fletcher, John Hemmings, William Sley, Robert Armin, Henry Condell, Richard Cowley and Richard Burbage. King James sent for Shakspere and Burbage and told them to be ever in readiness as the King's servants to perform at any of the palaces that he might entertain domestic or foreign guests, and assured them that the puritanical policy that had hounded them in the past should not prevail during his reign, believing that the stage, properly managed, was as great an educator for the people as the church. When William told me of this interview with the King I expressed great delight, with the other literary bohemians that now there sat on the throne of old Albion, a patron of poetry, painting, music and sculpture.