Uneasy Lies the Head (Oliver Wade Spy Thriller Series Book 1) by David Field

Author:David Field [Field, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sharpe Books
Published: 2019-09-25T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Five

Plans for the coronation on 25th July were progressing nicely, but there was a worrying rift developing between James and his Council of State that Cecil was having the greatest difficulty in smoothing over. It all had to do with the title that James would assume.

The traditional title included a reference to Ireland, but there had hitherto been no need to mention Scotland, which had been separately governed. Now that the King of Scotland was also the King of England, a change was required in the formal address that would be boomed out from the altar of Westminster Abbey by Archbishop Whitgift when he presented their new monarch to his people at the culmination of the coronation ceremony. James had determined that he would be known as ‘King of Great Britain’, but this was being fervently opposed by Parliament, despite James’s logical argument that the lands that he now ruled were ‘compassed with one sea and of itself by nature indivisible.’ The corresponding need to draft common laws for the one united nation was what the Members most distrusted, due in no large part to the ignorant tales that had drifted south from the common border regarding the lifestyles and personal habits of the supposed ‘barbarians’ to the north of it.

With his inbuilt disdain for anything that smacked of government by commoners, James had naturally looked to his small Council, led by Cecil, to support his boast of sitting on a combined throne, and put Parliament in its place. But these were no longer the days when Parliament could be either ignored or manipulated, and the members of Council were not entirely united in their support for an incomer who was only indirectly of Tudor blood, and rumoured to be about to alienate the still powerful Catholic minor nobility.

Following the latest bad tempered exchange between King and Council, that James had brought to an abrupt end by storming out, red faced, with Cecil scuttling close on his heels, the atmosphere in the Audience Chamber was chilly and hostile.

‘Can these ignorant fools not see the justice of my arguments, man?’ James demanded of Cecil, who shook his head sadly and murmured ‘They can see it, Your Majesty – it is simply the case that they cannot share it.’

‘And who are they to be gainsaying whatever title their King appointed by God should choose to take upon himself?’ James demanded, like a child bewailing the injustice of being denied a favourite toy. ‘Did God not appoint me to sit above them in all things? Do they defy God’s will? If so, can they not see that they court eternal damnation?’

‘If we might discuss the progress to Windsor, Your Majesty?’ Cecil offered in a vain attempt to divert the flow of wrath before it ended once again in a denunciation of any form of democratic government, but James waved his hand angrily in the air in a sign of dismissal.

‘If that is your best response, Cecil, then you may withdraw from the presence.

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