Not having called a parliament for seven years, he now sent forth a writ of summons in the beginning of the year 1621; an event from which all men “who had any religion,” as Sir Symonds D’Ewes expressed it, “hoped much good, and daily prayed for a happy issue; for both France and Germany needed support and help from England, or the true professions of the Gospel were likely to perish in each nation under the power and tyranny of the anti-Christian tyranny.”
The opening of Parliament was graced by a splendid procession from Whitehall to Westminster; but although the progress was short, it was varied by several significant circumstances. Prince Charles appeared, on this occasion, riding on horseback between the Sergeants-at-arms and the Gentlemen Pensioners, with a rich coronet on his head. Next before his Majesty rode Henry Vere, Earl of Oxford, Lord Great Chamberlain of England, with Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel, Earl Marshal. These noblemen were bare-headed. Then appeared James, with a crown on his head, “and most royally caparisoned.” But the personage who excited the most general interest was Edward Seymour, Earl of Hertford, a man only sixty-three years of age, but accounted in those days—such is the increased value of life in ours—“decrepit with age.” This nobleman, the son of the Protector Somerset, was dear to the people as the relative of Lady Jane Grey, whose sister, the Lady Catherine, he had married; an act for which he had incurred a long and unmerited imprisonment in the time of Elizabeth. He died shortly after the opening of parliament.
The King was now manifestly broken and infirm; the disease, then deemed incurable, which caused him intense agony, softened his petulance, and produced a courtesy that touched the bystanders with pity. As he rode along, he spoke often and lovingly to the crowd three-fold thick; calling out, with more good-will than kingly dignity, “God bless ye, God bless ye”—a striking contrast to his usual practice, or, to use the words of D’Ewes, to his “hasty and passionate custom, which often, in his sudden distemper,” would bid a plague upon those who flocked to see him.
Such was one of the remarks made on this day. Another was, that whilst the windows of Whitehall were crowded by the great and fair, James saluted none of them as he passed along, except the Marchioness of Buckingham and her mother-in-law.