Story of the Stewarts

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actions, which, however brilliant, would yet have conferred no
lasting benefit or gain on his people.
His character as a Sovereign and as a man has been
impartially summed up by the historian Pinkerton, whose
words seem no unfitting epitaph with which to say farewell to
the first of the Royal House of Stewart : —
"In the more difficult and more truly glorious arts of
" peace, he is entitled to considerable praise. The terrors of
" justice he knew how to deal impartially to the guilty, while
" he opened every gate of protection to the innocent. His
" actions proceeded in a solid and rational tenor, and his
" promise was the exact standard of his performance. Internal
" discords his equity appeased ; and though his own age and
" the infirmity of the apparent heir rendered his reign feeble,
" yet his wisdom prevented it from being unfortunate.
" In a word, he is little known to history, because he was
" a good King and a good man."
VANITAS VANITATUM ET OMNIA VANITAS.