Edinburgh, and were to have been held in the college there, had not public business interfered.”[164] Footnote 161: Hume’s Hist. of England, iii., 83. Footnote 162: Osborne’s Tradit., Memorials of King James, p. 422. Footnote 163: Somers’s Tracts, 83 Footnote 164: The subjects were these:—First, That sheriffs and other inferior magistrates should not be hereditary. With this, James was so well pleased that he turned to the Marquis of Hamilton, Hereditary Sheriff of Clydesdale, and said, “James, you see your cause is lost.” Secondly, On the rate of locomotion. The respondent in this disputation quoting Aristotle, the King remarked, “These men know the mind of Aristotle as well as he did himself when alive.” Thirdly, On the origin of fountains or springs. For a time the presence of James in Scotland produced all the good effects which the aspect of royalty generally ensures. The English became extremely popular in the northern capital, then rarely visited by the great and fashionable. “We hear little out of Scotland,” writes Mr. Chamberlain to Sir Dudley Carleton, “but that the Parliament is now beginning, and that our English are extraordinarily respected, and friendly to the nobles, to whom the King makes much caresses, and receives them as his guests. The Earl of Buckingham is made one of the council there, and takes his place above the rest as Master of the Horse. They speak that he shall be made Marquis of Scotland, and the Lord Compton an Earl, to counterpoise the Scotch that have been ennobled here.”[165] James was indeed profuse beyond measure in his titles during this progress. Footnote 165: Nichols’s Progresses, vol. iii., 367. “All our peers’ sons that went with the King,” adds the same writer, “were knighted there that were undubbed before, and all the gentlemen of Yorkshire, so that there is scarce left an esquire to uphold the race, and the order is descended somewhat lower, even to Adam Hill, that was the Earl of Montgomery’s barber, and to one Jeane, husband to the Queen’s laundress, our host of Doncaster; and to another that lately kept an inn at Rumford; and a youth, one Conir, is come into consideration as to become a prince of favourites, brought in by the Earl of Buckingham, and the wags talk as if he were in possibility to become Viscount Conir. All the mean officers of the household are also said to be knighted, so that ladies are like to be in little request.”[166] Footnote 166: State Paper Office, Domestic, 1616-1617.