On the 15th of August, in the year 1617, a day memorable for its heat and brightness, and for the more enduring glory shed over this remote corner of our rejoicing and gladdened realm, came forth King James, from the southern gate of his loyal borough of Preston, in a gilded and unwieldy caroche, something abated of its lustre by reason of long service and the many vicissitudes attending his Majesty’s “progresses,” which he underwent to the great comfort and well-being of his dominions.

It were needless to set forth the mighty state in which this war-hating monarch, this “vicegerent of Divinity,” departed—­or the great error and agitation of Mr Breares, the lawyer, when he made a marvellous proper speech at the town-cross—­wiping his forehead thrice, and his mouth barely once.  Nor shall we dilate upon the distress, and dazzling silk doublets of the mayor and aldermen of this proud and thrice-happy borough—­nor how they knelt to the soft salute of his Majesty’s hand.  Our whole book were a space too brief, and a region too inglorious, for the wide pomp and paraphernalia of the time; and how the bailiff rode, and the mace-bearer guarded the caroche, it were presumption, an offensive compound of ignorance and pride, to attempt the portraiture.  Suffice it to say, they wore mulberry-coloured taffeta gowns, carried white staves and foot-cloths, and were preceded by twenty-four stout yeomen riding before the king, with fringed javelins, unto a place beyond Walton, where they departed.  Our object is to notice matters of less magnitude and splendour; occurrences then too trivial to guide the pen of the chronicler, lost beneath the blaze and effulgence that followed on the track of this pageant-loving king.  Scraps, which the pomps and vanities of those days would have degraded, we thus snatch from oblivion; a preservation more worthy, and an occupation more useful, we hope, than to hand down to admiring ages the colour and cut of taffeta or brocade.

This “wisest” of earthly kings was an ill-spoiled compound of qualities, the types of which existed in his monitor and his preceptor; two great men, whom history has not failed to distinguish—­Archie Armstrong and George Buchanan—­the wit and the scholar, which in him became the representatives of two much more useful and esteemed qualities—­fool and pedant!

Attended by his favourite Buckingham and a numerous train of officials, he “progressed” upon the road to Hoghton Tower, the spacious and splendid dwelling of Sir Richard Hoghton, the first baronet of that family, whose guest he was to continue for a space, to the great envy and admiration of the whole neighbourhood.

As they came nigh the Tower, nothing could be conceived more beautiful or picturesque.  Its embattled-gateway, bartizans, and battlements, crowning the summit of a bold and commanding eminence, became brightly illuminated, flashing against grim and shapeless masses of cloud, the shattered relics of a storm, that was rolling away in the distance.