CHAPTER XXXII

PRELUDE If, as it seemed to him, policy or the needs of kingcraft drove King James at times into illegal courses, into violations of the law of which he was the custodian, into, in short, acts which must be accounted criminal, yet he usually knew how to cover up his tracks by a further abuse of his kingly powers, and so to dispose that no definite accusation could be sustained against him. More than once in his career he was driven the lengths of providing a scapegoat upon whom he could fasten the imprudence or the…