His pen was as sharp and effective as the sabres of Cromwell's Ironsides.
A few words of preliminary history must introduce him to our reader.

Upon the death of Queen Elizabeth, in 1603, James I.ascended the throne with the highest notions of kingly prerogative and of a church establishment; but the progress of the English people in education and intelligence, the advance in arts and letters which had been made, were vastly injurious to the autocratic and aristocratic system which James had received from his predecessor.

His foolish arrogance and contempt for popular rights incensed the people thus enlightened as to their own position and importance.

They soon began to feel that he was not only unjust, but ungrateful: he had come from a rustic throne in Scotland, where he had received L5,000 per annum, with occasional presents of fruits, grain, and poultry, to the greatest throne in Europe; and, besides, the Stuart family, according to Thackeray, "as regards mere lineage, were no better than a dozen English and Scottish houses that could be named." They resisted his illegal taxes and forced loans; they clamored against the unconstitutional Court of High Commission; they despised his arrogant favorites; and what they might have patiently borne from a gallant, energetic, and handsome monarch, they found it hard to bear from a pedantic, timid, uncouth, and rickety man, who gave them neither glory nor comfort.

His eldest son, Prince Henry, the universal favorite of the nation, had died in 1612, before he was eighteen.
CHARLES I .-- When, after a series of struggles with the parliament, which he had reluctantly convened, James died in 1625, Charles I.came to an inheritance of error and misfortune.