Stuart dynasty

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CHAPTER IX.
FEUDALISM OX THE WANE.
1587—1649.
James VI. of Scotland, 1567-1603 ; also James I. of Great Britain,
1603-1625.
Charles I., 1625-1649.
Whatever may be the verdict of posterity as to Mary
Stuart's character, the brilliancy of her personality will
more or less eclipse the remembrance of that successor who
held her sceptre and wore her crown.
The strange form of Sully's " wisest fool in Christendom "
rises up before us whenever this epoch is mentioned, and
Sir Walter Scott's " bold assertor of his rights in words " is
seen striving for victory in periods more or less spasmodic
owing to bis tongue being too large for his mouth. Indeed,
gazers at tbe several presentments of this monarch at the
Stuart Gallery in the winter of 1888-9 were amazed to see
such lack of refinement in the child of Mary Stuart and
Darnley — two of the most beautiful people of their time.
It was, however, curious to observe how precisely like his
father at the same age was the infantile representation of
King James VI.
This pedantic monarch had inherited nothing courtly or
chivalric. That he lived in an unsettled age when the old
order was yielding to the new, and had endeavoured vainly
to balance religious opinion in his Court and nation, are the
considerations most impressed on the mind when striving to
discover how far events were shaped by his guidance, and
what excuses can be framed for the shortcomings of a reign
which, sorely lacking nobility, was only saved from ignominy
by that union of crowns which seated the Stuarts at St.
James's.
Although the Knoxean Reformation had gained fast hold
on the Scotch mind, various degrees and divisions existed in
the ranks of that Protestantism which flourished in the
northern kingdom.
Men there were of light and leading who, unanimously